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Apple Pie and American Pride - a Double-Crust History of "It's as American as...
[B]lessed be the unknown person who invented the apple-pie! Did I know where the grave of that person was, methinks I would make a devout pilgrimage thither, and rear a monument over it that should...
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A Pie-in-the-Face Update
Last year, I posted a piece about the history of pie-in-the-face humor.(See, Homelessness, Hunger and Domestic Violence - a Serious History of the Pie-in-the-Face Gag.)In that piece, I traced the...
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Perching Birds and Nudity - the Naked Truth about "as Naked as a Jaybird"
(CNN)There he was, the leader of the free world, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, aboard Air Force One standing in front of reporters, naked as a jaybird.To be fair, it was a hot, sunny day....
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Sticks and Canes May Break My Bones - a Battered History and Etymology of...
Without My Walking Stick, I’d Go Insane – Louis Armstrong.More [Blank]than you can “shake a stick at” – is an American idiom that refers to: A large quantity, more than one can count . . . . This idiom...
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Indians, Pawnbrokers and Flappers - the Evolutionary History and Etymology...
“Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” But what is a “monkey's uncle?” Is it: 1. an echo of a politically incorrect British play from the 1840s? 2. a reference to a late-1880s play about a brass monkey in...
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Wind-Jammers, Jazz Jammers, and Jam Sessions - an Improvised History and...
Virginia City is going to have a new brass band. Its leader’s name is Ripingham. It strikes us that the boss of a squad of wind-jammers had better been named Lungbuster. But what’s in a name?Carson...
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Gimme a Shimmy - Hold the Shiver - Why Chicago was a "Toddling Town"
Chicago (that Toddling Town)Chicago, Chicago, that toddling town . . . The town that Billy Sunday couldn’t shut down . . . .They have the time, the time of their life . . . I saw a man he danced with...
View ArticleThe Return of the Prodical Song Title - a History and Etymology of "If I Knew...
If I knew you were coming, I’d have baked a cake! (1950)Steven D. Price, author of Endangered Phrases, calls this American idiom an, “expression of delighted surprise at finding someone whose...
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"Toddle Town" - the Pre-history of "That Toddling Town"
Earlier Toddle-TownsChicago, known as “that Toddling Town” or “Toddle Town” in the early 1920s, was not the first “Toddle Town.” There are at least three references to “Toddletown” or “Toddle Town,”...
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"Teddy Bears" and "Teddies" - the Surprisingly Literal Etymology of "Teddies"...
Two Types of Teddy BearsIn 1906, stuffed “Teddy Bears” changed the toy industry. Although they had been made as early as 1902, there is no evidence of their being sold under the name, “Teddy Bear,”...
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Taximeter, Taximeter, Uber Alles - a History of the Taxicab
“Über den Taxanom” . . .. . . (“About the Taximeter”) was the title of a lecture given by Ferdinand Dencker before the Mathematical Society of Hamburg (Germany) the evening of May 9, 1885. More than a...
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Flight School "Taxis" - a History and Etymology of "to Taxi" (like an Airplane)
In 1875, Wilhelm Friedrich Nedler, a music teacher from Berlin, Germany, invented the taximeter; the device automatically calculates cab-fare in real time, based on time and distance covered, and...
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Escapes from Alcatraz - a History of Swimming from and Escaping from Alcatraz
When I was young, the common impression was that “escape from Alcatraz” had always been “Impossible.” The mystique was bouyed by popular films like 1979’s Escape from Alcatraz, and periodic TV,...
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Get My Goat Update - Navy Boxers in Earliest Example
"GET MY GOAT" UPDATE The idiom, "to get one's goat," is an idiom that means, "to make one angry or annoyed." Its earliest examples of use, however, reflect a slightly different sense; namely, to make...
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Dodgers and Dips - the Dark History of the Dunk Tank
Lelands.Com, Lot 862, August 31, 2001 (it's not what they thought it was). In 1895, sportswriters first referred to the National League’s Brooklyn baseball team as the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers. The...
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Irish Stew, Irish Militias and Chowder Parties - a History and Etymology of...
"The Mulligan Guard Lies But - Surrenders" (Puck, 1884 - a precursor of "Mulligan Stew"?) Mulligan Stew is “a stew made from whatever ingredients are available.”[i] In the early 1900s, it was closely...
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Swat Mulligan, the Sultan of Swat and the Taliban – a history and etymology...
The Evening World (New York), August 15, 1908, page 4.In golf, and in life, a do-over is a “Mulligan” - and has been since at least 1936:[T]he serious slangsleuth Paul Dickson reports the earliest...
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The "Kouta-Kouta" and the "Coochie-Coochie - a History and Etymology of the...
When Charo famously cooed, “coochie, coochie,” in her many guest-spots on The Love Boat in the late-1970s, she was only the latest in a long line of entertainers who shook their hips in a...
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Part II - the History and Etymology of the "Hoochie-Coochie" Dance
Part IINaughty Doings in the Midway Plaisance. . .On the Midway, the Midway, the Midway Plaisance,Where the naughty girls from Algiers do the Kouta-Kouta dance.Married men without their wives give a...
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Parlor Quoits, Bean-Bags, and Faba Baga - a History of "Cornhole" (the Game)
In 1885, in the face of increasing professionalization of previously recreational sports, one observer was at least cheered by the fact that “bean-bags” was still an innocent pastime: Base ball is...
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