End of ADS-L Digest - 18 Jun 1998 to 19 Jun 1998
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<br>There are 16 messages totalling 665 lines in this issue.
<br>
<br>Topics of the day:
<br>
<br>  1. DISCO anachronism; Zit's Theatrical Newspaper
<br>  2. Grammar Not Just For the Classroom
<br>  3. Bonin Islands English
<br>  4. bogus anecdotes (8)
<br>  5. DISCO anachronism
<br>  6. RE>bogus anecdotes
<br>  7. Metro Diary Instruction Manual (was Re: RE>bogus anecdotes) (2)
<br>  8. Is it military slang?
<br>
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<br>
<br>Date:    Tue, 2 Jun 1998 01:20:27 EDT
<br>From:    "Barry A. Popik" <Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM>
<br>Subject: DISCO anachronism; Zit's Theatrical Newspaper
<br>
<br>"THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO" ANACHRONISM
<br>
<br>     I didn't see the movie and neither did Jesse Sheidlower, but he pointed
<br>out that the word "yuppie" is mentioned by several characters.  "Yuppie" was a
<br>1984 phenomenon and would not have been used in DISCO's time period of the
<br>late 1970s.
<br>
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<br>ZIT'S THEATRICAL NEWSPAPER
<br>
<br>     I read some of Zit's Theatrical Newspaper at the Lincoln Center
<br>Performing Arts Library.  Zit's (an early competitor of Variety) is a very
<br>obscure paper--you know it's obscure when the Theater librarian asks another
<br>librarian.  Zit's is on microfilm, but many years are missing.  What was
<br>filmed was very fragile and broken apart.
<br>     Zit's was founded by C. F. Zittel, a veteran of the New York Evening
<br>Journal and the New York Morning Telegraph.  Only four reels (1930-1937) are
<br>left from fourteen Zit-filled years.
<br>     Zit's was published weekly at 254 West 54th Street.  That's now the
<br>location of--Studio 54!  I'm sure no Zit's-ers were in LAST DAYS OF DISCO--now
<br>THAT would be an anachronism!!
<br>     The following lexicon is from Zit's, 24 May 1930, pg. 17, col. 4:
<br>
<br>_CIRCUS SLANGUAGE_
<br>     The circus, like most other diversions of show business, has a jargon of
<br>its own, colorful and interesting.  Many of the expressions used are
<br>unintelligible to other than circus folk.
<br>     Here are a few:
<br>     _A Joy_--Any clown.
<br>     _Clown Alley_--The entire joy aggregation of a circus.
<br>     _Kid Show_--The main sideshow.
<br>     _Pit Show_--Small exhibition of freaks which runs continuously for a
<br>10-cent admission charge.
<br>     _Pad Rooms_--The dressing rooms and entrance way to big top.
<br>     _High School Horses_--All trained horses.
<br>     _Rosin Backs_--Horses used by bareback riders.
<br>     _Liberty Horses_--Posing horses.
<br>     _Cat Acts_--Any trained animal act of feline variety.
<br>     _Bull Acts_--Elephant acts.
<br>     _Hay Acts_--Horses, zebras, camels, etc.
<br>     _Mud Show_--Any circus that travels in wagons.
<br>     _Bubbles_--All balloon vendors.
<br>     _Grease Joint_--Hot dog stands, etc.
<br>     _Juice Joints_--Soda water stands, etc.
<br>     _Rough Necks_--All men who handle the tents.
<br>     _Spit Cloths_--The bright cloths around the front tier of seats.
<br>     _Camp Fire Men_--Employees who do nothing but keep water boiling for the
<br>cook tents.
<br>     _Candy Butchers_--Peanuts, popcorn and candy vendors.
<br>     _The Blues_--Unreserved seats.
<br>     _Starbacks_--Reserved seats.
<br>     _Ducats_--All tickets.
<br>     _Stiffs_--The hard, general admission tickets.
<br>     _Longs and Shorts_--Passes.  Longs carry admission to reserved section.
<br>Shorts call for general admission only.
<br>     _Jig Band_--Colored band for sideshows.
<br>     _The Red Wagon_--The wagon where money and tickets are kept and where
<br>employees are paid off.
<br>
<br>     This is from Zit's, "Vaudeville Philosophy" by Speakin' Frank, 23 March
<br>1935, pg. 3, col. 3:
<br>
<br>     As long as I can remember people have been howling "I saw it first."
<br>Long before Columbus had a tough time proving it, the question had had its
<br>juggling from time to time.  Miners all over the world are battling over it.
<br>We find that a daily conjecture in show business.  Say, even the columnists
<br>are adding the "don't forget you saw it here first" line.  But amongst the
<br>show people we have heard the indignant rise of the voice to emphasize that
<br>they had heard it, said, saw or did it first...well, many times it has been
<br>proven true.  But you can usually bank upon the originality of a good many
<br>gags, bits, or even daily idioms if you peer into the vaudeville game where
<br>much of our present words and slang phrases first burst into dawn by a casual
<br>conversation amongst the troupers.  Observations would show that troupers live
<br>in a world all their own, fitting and exchanging their hobbies, ideas, and
<br>habits amongst themselves.  Instinctively they seek to originate something, to
<br>be a little different, and their language has even found a different aspect
<br>than the layman and often we will hear a slang word, or an idiom passed on to
<br>the world at large where it gets its relay to farther usage.  One may classify
<br>the troupers as a tribe of different people.  The laymen are always curious
<br>about the lives of the troupers and often are eager to catch on to a new
<br>saying or gag that may circulate amongst the actors or those associated with
<br>them...Many coined idioms originated from the chatter backstage within the
<br>social habitat...Take for instance the word "stooge" which was an old word
<br>amongst vaudevillians, attributed to one who, in travelling wiht an act,
<br>learned, by experience, the ways of the show world.  It was a contraction of
<br>the word student.  I recall, long ago on the Delmar time, an act called
<br>Galetti's Monkeys that had, travelling along, a chap whose business it was to
<br>nurse and care for the animals, check the baggage, get tickets etc., on the
<br>route.  He was a stooge.  Many stooges had inherent ability and sought to
<br>learn the ways before they became proficient in developing their talents.
<br>Today the average person confuses a stooge and a foil.  They believe a stooge
<br>to be a dialectician in grotesque makeup who would interrupt an M.C. or a
<br>comedian to get laughs...and do a specialty...This type of performer is a foil
<br>or sometimes called a second comic.  A stooge doesn't necessarily mean a
<br>comedian...tho many comedians were once stooges...For instance Joe Besser, now
<br>a comic on his own, once trouped with Queenie Dunedin, an aerial act and never
<br>spoke a line or did anything before the footlights...And then there is the
<br>mistake of a straight man being a stooge...However, the word originated in
<br>vaudeville, as did many other expressions, like, as another instance
<br>"Chiseler" which wended its way even to high politics...It began from the
<br>mouth of a disgruntled actor who didn't like to kick back any more than the
<br>usual commissions.  The agent who sought to chisel some of the salary was
<br>knicknamed (sic) "Chiseler" but the word soon sailed along as ample
<br>description of an unscrupulous person...Likewise the word "Flop" came from
<br>vaudeville and served to express itself in every other business...I remember
<br>once Fred Allen casually speaking of an act "laying an egg"...the association
<br>of the audience responding to cackling on the stage made a comparative
<br>description of the way it went...since then the expression sailed along and,
<br>like many of his other sayings and gags, were repeated...Once the slang
<br>saying, "Cut the comedy" travelled along.  That too, came from a vaudeville
<br>agent's criticism of an act...Jimmie Durante's many sayings have been adopted
<br>in daily slang...most popular is the word "Pansy" with its inference...It
<br>started while in rehearsal of his number, "So I Ups to Him" with the trio and
<br>the band in vaudeville...he sought to replace "Fairy" in the song...Bill
<br>Drewes, his trombonist, suggested the name of that flower...Durante picked it
<br>up and made it popular and since then every comic and erstwhile humorist has
<br>used "Pansy" at least once, and the laymen responding with a laugh carried it
<br>further till the general every day audeince adopted it...A popular saying,
<br>"Walking out on him" came from a closing act's difficulty in holding an
<br>audience...Acts in vaudeville, kiding each other, brought out the "Can you top
<br>that?" or "Follow that" or "That kills me"...the intermingling at night clubs
<br>and elsewhere made these expressions contagious...but these and many more
<br>originated in the wings of vaudeville.
<br>
<br>     Zit's weekly cartoon "Burlesque Happenings" by Chas. Peanuts Bohn
<br>contained lots of theatrical slang.  The 6 April 1935, pg. 7 cartoon shows the
<br>saga of a "3rd Bannana."
<br>     "Burlesque Happenings'" 13 April 1935, pg. 7 cartoon explains in the last
<br>panel that "Quick Watson the needle" is "The latest cry in Burlesque."  The
<br>first panel asks the reader "Vas you there Sharlie?"
<br>
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<br>YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
<br>
<br>    I've heard "Know what I mean, jelly bean?" and "Know what I mean, bean?"
<br>since the 1960s.  Maybe McDonald's is advertising Beanie Babies this way,
<br>which would be cool beans.
<br>