BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:WORDS,WORDS, WORDS #4

FRANKIE LAKE, MEMBER OF BIG BOY’S GANG, AND PAT O’BRIEN IN CHICAGO AND THE LADY FROM BRISTOL

“We were pals. He sat down , opened his coat. In full view
(Glimpsed in a mirror) was a grim .45 in a shoulder holster. To put it mildly, I was somewhat concerned.   "Hey, Frankie boy — what the hell?”
   Frankie smiled . “Don’t panic, pal —I’ll park the Lady from Bristol — pistol in Cockney slang —“behind your mirror.”
   “B-b-b-b-b but why, Frankie?
   He cut me off. “Hell, pal, I can’t tote a rod in the theater  — they’d think I’m a gangster! I’m leaving the Roscoe here — justnput it back of the mirror like a nice boy.”


Pat O’Brien: The Wind at My Back: the Life and Times of
Pat O’Brien (Garden City,New York: Doubleday & company,1964).
**
ACRONYMS FOR ALL OCCASIONS 

FUBAR — Fucked up beyond all recognition
SNAFU — Situation normal, all fucked up
JACFU—   Joint American-Chinese fuck up
JANFU —- Joint Army-Navy fuck up
SNSFU. —  Situation  normal, still fucked up
TARFU —    Things are really fucked up
See Newsweek (February  7, 1944). In that article the F word
was changed to Foul up or fouled up)

**

THEATRICAL SLANG — THE GODS

“During the Twenties —and indeed long before and for a time afterwards — throughout Great Britain the galleries of theaters, the cheapest sections that hugged the roofs, were known to many as ‘the Gods’.
   Because of the low cost of seats at this time, the majority of gallerygoers were young, with girls, usually, outnumbering the boys.’

Hence, from 1922-1930 in London Tallulah Bankhead was
Known as “The Darling of the Gods”.

Kieran Tunney. Tallulah Darling of the Gods. (New York: 
E.P. Dutton & Co.  1973)

**
ON THE WORD AUTOPSY

“The word autopsy goes back to the Greek  word autopsia
which means literally to see for yourself. In other words you’re going to open up that body and look for yourself to see what happened to this person. But it could apply to apply to anything.”Patricia Cornwall

Quoted by John B. Valerie. “Patricia Cornwall” in
Mystery Scene magazine, no. 170 (Winter 2021)
**

ENGLISH

What Eden offers better sentences,
Sometimes larger than hedgehogs,
Burrowing adjectives to tease
With whoop, hail, brief pause,
Verb rabble, then trouble,
Adverbel jigs,
PIping unto the catalogue of saints?
What can be more pure
Than doric orders of pronouns,
Some handsomely spotted
& farsighted as any grammar
Besieged by exclamations! Alas!
Inspiring a wicked broth
Of exchanges 
Endured by linguists
& their next of kin,
Nouns: Rakehells on holidays,
Not pious, not always Proper,
Some phrases clipped
To the nose,
But loose as Bojangles.
A lingo whose prepositions
Stampede even unto
The Anatomy of Criticism.

Louis Phillips