January 29, 2005

Pipe down yous monkeys. This here's the Real McCoy I tell ya, a style guide that'll make any goofy drugstore cowboy the gift of gab like a real shiek; and give jane that It. So read up on your 1920's street slang ya big palooka.
posted by CellarFloor 19 years ago
  • Goddamn my haste and lack of grammar. /me collapses in shame.
  • Sounds like our Mayor Daley
  • "Bimbo" meant a tough guy?!?
  • Oh, by the way, it's "youse", with an E on the end. No idea why.
  • Hot cha cha! These are just neater than a skeeter's peeter. Not quite complete, but dandy for all that. 1920's? In Idaho we talk this way alla time.
  • Cool link! why are the words for 'intoxicated', in any 'language', always so much fun? Spifflicated, canned, corked, tanked, primed, scrooched, jazzed, zozzled, plastered, owled, embalmed, lit, potted, ossified or fried to the hat.
  • Many of these are still around. This is a fine link, thanks, CellarFloor.
  • Hotsy Totsy
  • Hubba hubba!
  • Since I read this post this morning I've been humming the song "do the raccoon", which is a 20's college flapper song. In an attempt (likely futile, as what are the chances that anyone else knows this monster?) to get it unstuck from my head and into yours here are the lyrics: College men, knowledge men, Do a dance called raccoon; It's the craze, nowadays, And it will get you soon. Buy a coat and try it, I'll bet you'll be a riot, It's a wow, learn to do it right now! High brow, low brow, intermediate, Make believe they're all collegiate, soon, To do the raccoon! Raccoon coats don't care who's wearing 'em, Hallroom boys will all be sharing 'em soon, To do the raccoon! Every day its popularity grows, It's the most important item in clothes. Ten bucks down, and though it scratches you, Wear it 'til the sheriff catches you, soon, To do the raccoon! Oh, they wear 'em down at Princeton, And they share 'em up at Yale, They eat in them at Harvard, But they sleep in them in jail! They store 'em at Ohio, They're hawked at Notre Dame, They carry 'em at California, But they wear out just the same! At Penn, they're made of rabbit, At Vassar, sex appeal, At Nebraska, made of airedale, In Chicago lined with steel! From every college campus comes the cheer: oy-yoy! The season for the raccoon coat is here, my boy! Rough guys, tough guys, men of dignity, Join the raccoon coat fraternity, soon, To do the raccoon. Rich men, poor men, all have pride in them, No one knows who walks inside of them, soon, To do the raccoon. Every day you'll have your downs and your ups, high-ho, Every day those raccoon coats will have pups, I know! Get a girl and start to hurry her Right downtown to some big furrier, soon, You'll do the raccoon! Rac, rac, rac, rac, rac-rac-rac raccoon! If only I could find an MP3.
  • dirtdirt: one which was around when I was in college (Paleolithic U, to be sure) was "chiffoz." It was used to describe being slightly and happily under the influence. Kind of a chiffon feeling, all floaty and wafted by the winds of impulse.
  • Why, it may not be an mp3, dirtdirt, but there's a workable realplayer document at http://www.bassocantante.com/flapper/music.html
  • YES!!! Little Durian, you have totally made my day!
  • Well, then, as my came-of-age-in-the-twenties parents used to say to each other, "Pow! Right in the kisser!" Not entirely appropriate to this particular situation, I know, but I really needed to say that. Didja check out "Roll 'em, Girls"? Didja, huh? I used to have these on 78's. I miss 'em.
  • Oh, and "You'se a Viper" -- it's one a them reefer songs, and the title is one to add to the slangtionaryexicon.
  • Actually, Pow! Right in the kisser! is from Jackie Gleason playing Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners, a popular TV show in the 1950s.
  • Hey, y'know bees, you're right! I kind of remember that now. But I wonder if the phrase was in use before the fifties? My mother had actually written it on the back of a snapshot taken in 1931, in which she's jokingly threatening my dad with her fist, and he's dodging her. I suppose she might have written it years later, while going through the shoebox of "old" pictures.