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| Author |
Message |
greenops
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Slang
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Jul 9 05:50 UTC 1994 |
The topic is slang: the phrases, their meanings, and their origins.
Let's run it in a challenge format with the slang in < >
being the challenge. The winner is the person who correctly
states the origin. The winner can enter a new phrase or pass
the buck....
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| 57 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 1 of 57:
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Jul 9 06:15 UTC 1994 |
<in a pig's whistle>
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mwarner
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response 2 of 57:
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Jul 9 06:49 UTC 1994 |
I've heard <in a pig's eye>. Don't know the origin at the moment, but
believe me, I've looked in more than a few pig's eyes and if they could
whistle, it would be the tune of "swing low, sweet chariot".
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kentn
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response 3 of 57:
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Jul 10 00:53 UTC 1994 |
Fucking-A, errrr, I absitively, posolutely agree...
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mwarner
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response 4 of 57:
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Jul 10 01:08 UTC 1994 |
Maybe! I mean I actually work in a slaughter house (er, I mean *fresh pork
facility*) and just today I wandered over to the hog pens and looked an
actual *pig* in the actual *eye*. They'll have your ham sandwich ready in
about 8 hours and if those critters could sing...
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morandir
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response 5 of 57:
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Jul 15 18:34 UTC 1994 |
Does it mean "In a short amout of time," i.e. "I'll be back in a
pig's whistle"?
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rcurl
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response 6 of 57:
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Jul 18 16:37 UTC 1994 |
Correct, like in "in nothing flat". The slaughter house is said to use
everything except the pig's whistle, which hence amounts to nothing.
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greenops
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response 7 of 57:
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Jul 23 18:29 UTC 1994 |
I ran this on a different network, but I don't think any of you
partake of that one. Where does the phrase <...high muckety-muck..>
comre from?
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kentn
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response 8 of 57:
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Jul 23 19:32 UTC 1994 |
According to Wentworth & Flexner (1975) in _Dictionary of American
Slang_ the phrases "high muck-a-muck", "high-muckety-muck", "high-
muckie-muck", "high-mucky-muck", and "high-monkey-monk" refer to
an "important, pompous person; a socially prominent person" and this
meaning has been in use "Since c1865; used disparagingly and jocularly".
(quotes are from p. 347 of the Second Supplemented Edition (New York:
Thomas Y. Crowell Co.)).
Looks like another Civil War era slang phrase...
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rcurl
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response 9 of 57:
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Jul 23 20:42 UTC 1994 |
Sigh...now we have to get a copy of DAS to play this game, to avoid
slang therein. Things are going to get a little thin....
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kentn
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response 10 of 57:
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Jul 23 21:14 UTC 1994 |
I wasn't aware that it was a "game" or that owning a copy of a book
and sharing its contents to answer someone's interesting question
was a crime around here...
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rcurl
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response 11 of 57:
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Jul 23 21:24 UTC 1994 |
Well, this was set up as a competition (see #0). I don't mind discussing
slang, and I'm glad you have the book - we can ask you what slang we hear
means - but as long as it was a competition, my response applies. I'd be
glad to drop that part of the item.
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risaacs
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response 12 of 57:
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Jul 23 22:48 UTC 1994 |
So the item has swayed from a competition to something else. Its just natural,
it is what the users of the item wanted so they made it that way. You could
try to switch the item back to a game if you are so offended.
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rcurl
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response 13 of 57:
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Jul 24 00:47 UTC 1994 |
I'm not the least bit offended. I thought kentn was offended. *Somebody*
has got to be offended, or this is not a proper item. Any volunteers?
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kentn
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response 14 of 57:
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Jul 24 01:50 UTC 1994 |
#0 is kind of ambiguous in that it talks of a topic being slang
phrases, meanings and origins. Anyway.......I did respond to a
challenge about the origin of a slang phrase. Izzat okay?
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greenops
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response 15 of 57:
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Jul 24 04:00 UTC 1994 |
Sort of. *My* source AMERICAN SLANG by R.L. Chapman (Piled higher
and Deeper) reads "fr middle 1800s Western; a very important
person,especially a pompous one.....[example of usage]....
from Chinook jargon *hui muckamuck* 'plenty to eat', transferred
to the important individual who has plenty to eat; monkey-monk
variant is a case of folk etymology."
There, Kent and Rane. Did that bend your noses out of shape?
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rcurl
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response 16 of 57:
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Jul 24 05:43 UTC 1994 |
I have checked, and there is no change in my nasal morphology.
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kentn
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response 17 of 57:
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Jul 24 21:21 UTC 1994 |
Look, I find this information on slang and origins interesting.
It certainly doesn't bother me to hear from a different source,
and it looks like your source basically agrees with mine, greenops.
It's always nice to see a bit of convergence on origins and
meanings.
What I don't understand here about the "challenge" format is
how our responses are judged in relation to the challenge.
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arwen
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response 18 of 57:
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Jul 24 21:50 UTC 1994 |
To try to drift back to the original....anybody know the meaning og
...of,even..."in a coon's age"?
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kentn
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response 19 of 57:
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Jul 24 22:12 UTC 1994 |
"an unspecified long time" as in Haven't seen you in a coon's age.
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rcurl
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response 20 of 57:
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Jul 25 05:04 UTC 1994 |
Why? What's special about a coon's age? Their lifespan is normal for
mammals of similar size and lifestyle.
This one came up today: "In like Flinn." Who was Finn, and what was
he or she into?
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kentn
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response 21 of 57:
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Jul 25 06:15 UTC 1994 |
I suspect that coons live a fair number of years, so using their
age in that expression means a damn long time (or maybe the
person using the expression is exaggerating for effect).
Flynn or Flinn rhymes with "in" to make an interesting slang
expression. Doesn't necessarily mean that Flynn was a real person, but
if so, it would be interesting to know why Flynn was in. There is an
Irish(?) connotation in Flynn, so I wonder if that has anything to do
with the expression's original meaning (e.g. was it derogatory toward
something a particular ethnic group was stereotyped as doing?). As
near as I can tell, today "in like Flynn" means just "in" though that
extra "like Flynn" adds a bit of punch...or a slightly "shady" cast.
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arwen
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response 22 of 57:
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Jul 25 13:17 UTC 1994 |
I *think* Flynn refers to an Irish (perhaps mythological ) character
who is similar to Loki, Norse god of mischief (oversimplification of
Loki,sorry). I have no references on this...just something I think I
heard once.
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rcurl
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response 23 of 57:
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Jul 25 14:55 UTC 1994 |
This is really weird. Everyone knows the expression, but one can't
look it up! (I presume those dictionaries of American slang haven't
helped either.) What would this kind of knowledge be called? I mean,
the knowledge-theoretic term (not "folklore").
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kentn
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response 24 of 57:
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Jul 25 18:17 UTC 1994 |
It's in my DoAS. It just doesn't have any origin information.
Refers reader to section on rhyming slang, so those authors seem
(by implication) to think that the phrase was created for its sound
and not necessarily for its reference to any particular character.
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