End of ADS-L Digest - 9 Dec 1997 to 10 Dec 1997 *********************************************** Subject: ADS-L Digest - 10 Dec 1997 to 11 Dec 1997 There are 5 messages totalling 361 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. ADS-L again; Bean Town; Wicked Chicago; Nuts 2. Russian request - spoken dictionary (with address) 3. How cold was it? 4. night before xmas 5. Openness ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 11 Dec 1997 02:32:45 EST From: Bapopik Subject: ADS-L again; Bean Town; Wicked Chicago; Nuts ADS-L AGAIN How does that song go in OKLAHOMA!? The farmer and the cowboy can be friends? What about the sociolinguists and etymologists? Aren't the words and phrases we use and how we use them both equally important? Do you have to use the word "unprofessional"?? Ouch!! Now I know how dentists and chiropractors feel! Next time you get a toothache or a backache, you won't go to a professional brain surgeon, will you? Although no one's done so, give some thought to an online AMERICAN POPULAR SPEECH magazine such as the one I posted. The linguists might go to the AMISTAD review, the lexicographers might go to NEW WORDS AND PHRASES or NOTES AND QUERIES, and onomasts might check out the origin of Pumbaa in THE LION KING review. There's something for everybody--and I do mean that! I left something out of that posting--sound cards. The online magazine will have sound! It'll be amazing!! Cool! Neato! Even fun!! Say only one out of every thousand people who see a movie checks out our review of it. That's gonna be thousands of people! And say one of those people is a Bill Gates or Ross Perot, and he goes to our web site, and he reads about DARE. Or say it's a student, and that student then becomes interested in linguistics and wants to take your courses and buy your books. Think about AMERICAN POPULAR SPEECH again. I think it's our future. We shouldn't enter the next millennium without it. Hakuna Matata! (See LION KING review for etymology. Punch sound card for audio clip.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- BEAN TOWN RHHDAS defines "Beantown" as Boston, Massachusetts and has 1901 as the earliest citation. However, Boston's baseball team was known as the Beaneaters much before this. Actually, Boston stole Beantown! This is from the New-York Commercial Advertiser, 11 September 1871, pg. 1, col. 1.: A Bean Town. Beverly, Massachusetts, says a correspondent, is know as "Bean Town." (Boston is not mentioned!--ed.) No virtuous citizen of that place thinks of passing Sunday morning without baked pork and beans for breakfast. Formerly they went to the different bakeries Saturday nights, each man with his bean pot. Each pot was numbered with a check as received and the number given to the owner, and crowds would gather around the bakery door, Sunday morning, each man calling his number and receiving his pot. But now they have a pottery in the town, and each householder has had his bean pot made to order, with his name or initials baked into the sides, and the plan works beautifully. The bakers charge six cents for baking beans, and it is no mean source of revenue. (There it is--a thirty year antedate of American Speech. Not on the Dictionary Society of America's list. Right here on ADS-L! H. L. Mencken would be proud! For those who don't want to read this type of thing, think again about the above--where this would be in its own section.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- WICKED CHICAGO Before the "Windy City," Chicago was the "Wicked City." I've been going through the 1871 pre-Chicago fire newspaper sources, and "Wicked Chicago" is there. This is from the New York Sun, 9 August 1871, pg. 2, col. 7: DOC PLATT'S PATHETIC BALLAD OF CHICAGO (_with the accent heavy on the "go"_), TOUCHING THE DIVORCE CASE OF CRAIG VS. SPRAGUE. I sing a breach or promise That happened long ago, Where the waters of the river Like roses seem to flow, Where Amanda Craig was trifled with, In the town of Chicago. There was an ancient duffer, As rich as rich could be, Who loved the fair Amanda, "The inexpressive she." And "he loved her as his Jesus," And he spelled it with a "G." Amanda was no chicken, Though tender as a dove; She lived in Cincinnati, Where the market is out slow; So she listened to the duffer Of the wicked Chicago. (...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------- NUTS Just a minute. My apartment has been invaded by Rowan Atkinson! POPIK: Get out of here, Bean!! You missed your cue!! I did "Bean Town" two etymologies ago!! Sorry. Good thing that guy doesn't talk! On to "nuts." The RHHDAS has a very large "nut(s)" entry. I posted the song "I'm a Nut" a few months ago. This is from the New-York Commercial Advertiser, 15 September 1871, pg. 2, col. 3: The exposure of the spoliations committed by the carpet-bag governments in some of the Southern States is "nuts" for the Richmond _Whig_. And the worst of it is, that it can with such perfect confidence, defy the President to crack them.