Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 19:52:37 EST

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: Re: G-string



Norman Roberts writes,



New York columnist Earl Wilson (1940s) did a piece on the G-string. I

recall reading it in his book in the late forties. Sorry to have forgotten

the title, but an aging memory has its problems. He wrote that the G-string

on the bass was low, hence the name of the article worn by showgirls

because it was worn low. He also commented about the article appearing in

low places.



Ah, Earl Wilson. There's a name to conjure with; I remember his columns in the

New York Post when I was growing up in the fifties, back when it was a

progressive tabloid rag instead of a right-wing tabloid rag. But this sounds

like an urban legend (if I may use the term anachronistically). If the

G-strings of the showgirls were morphologically and functionally analogous to

those (or to the gee strings) of those 19th century male Native Americans, the

explanatory force of the Earl of Broadway's proposal strikes me as, shall we

say, a mite scanty. --Larry