[Ads-l] "rock" in direct address? / "mixey" / more

[Jonathan Lighter]

A "Humorous Recitation" in _Harrigan & Hart's Slavery Days Songster_
(N.Y.:  A. J. Fisher, 1877), pp. 30-31,opens with the following lines:

"CHEESE pards, I'll give it out straight,
   How I dropped down to a bum,
Don't lay it all together, rocks,
  On whisky, gin and rum."

"Rocks" looks to mean "youse guys," but I confess I've never seen it so
used.

Also of note is "mixey," apparently 'mixed drink":

"Have a ball, no mixey pards,
    I h'ist no more this year,
Go in and get your load,
   But don't say I gave you a steer."

OED calls "ball" "chiefly Irish English,," but its early cites (including
the earliest as in HDAS) are American. "Load" helps fill a peculiar gap
between 1697 and 1890.

"Don't say I gave you a steer."  'Piece of advice,' antedated OED by 22
years.

"You're young, fresh, full of chin."  OED's earliest is alo from 1877, but
in the uncommon form "chin-chin."

"There ain't much need of a kick." I.e., an objection or complaint. Fills a
gap.

"Studying Hoyle was solid for me,
     That's when I was a good fellow."   'Entirely satisfactory.'  Just a
shade away from jazz "solid," 'excellent.'

"Mother's sick, ah, that's tough":    'Imposing hardship or distress;
unfortunate."  Antedates OED by thirteen years.

Harrigan & Hart were the top vaudeville act of their day.

JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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