So, as I mentioned in my last entry, I�ve been reading The Pocket Dictionary of American Slang from 1968, and it�s really pretty awesome. I mean a lot of the words are pretty standard and/or self-evident (like, did you know that �to go to bed with someone� means that you�re having the sex?), but some of them never quite became fixtures in the cultural lexicon, shall we say. Also, it being 1968, they really shy away from directly identifying the sexual connotations of various slang terms. For example, they have the word �dildo� in there, but they identify it as meaning �a stupid person�. I guess �big, plastic cock� was too racy for 1968. Like anybody wouldn�t know what that meant anyway. I mean, you�d have to be a real dildo not to get it.

Then again: below, I present to you five slang terms from 1968, and only one of them actually has anything to do with the sex in any way. Can you guess which one it is?

Pants Rabbit
Booboos
Cootie Garage
String-Whanger
Wood-Pussy

A Pants Rabbit is �a louse�. That�s it. Derivation? Hobo slang. Yeah, you heard me��pants rabbit� comes to us direct from a burning oil drum beneath an overpass near the railroad tracks, and it means �a louse�. They don�t go into any more detail than that, so I can�t tell you if that means, like, louse as in the singular of �lice�, or louse as in some douchebag who lies and stuff. I�m guessing the former, if it�s the hobos. I don�t mean to be judgmental or whatever, but I�ve heard questionable things about their hygiene.

If you guessed Booboos, you are the winner. �Booboos�, you see, are �the testicles�. That really doesn�t sound right to me, but then I wasn�t alive in �68 so what do I know? But honestly, look at that and try to tell me the editors didn�t just fucking make that up. I can see it now: either they were trying to flesh out the B�s, or some dude who probably never got laid in his entire life wanted to fit in and when all the cool linguists were trading slang words for �testicles�, this one guy was so desperate to be acknowledged that he just blurted out, �Booboos!� and they all kind of looked at him askance and one of them probably repeated it back all scornful and with a barely stifled snicker, but the other linguists were like, �Oh, sure, Simmons, okay, �booboos�. Yeah, that�s great�hey, where�d that originate?� and of course Simmons didn�t have an answer, which is fine because they were just fucking with him anyway, and they all decided just to put it in as kind of a joke, and then every time they have holiday parties, one of them has too much eggnog and pulls the dictionary out and makes everybody read it out and then laughs really loudly while Simmons dies inside a little bit. I�m guessing the latter.

Cootie Garage, while it sounds like a particularly unhygienic (and well-worn) something-or-other in the nether regions (or possibly just Paris Hilton), actually means �One of a pair of hair puffs worn over a woman�s ears�. This comes to us from �c1920�. I guess I don�t know much about girl hair, but�do they mean like Princess Leia? Or is that supposed to describe earmuffs? Perplexing. I like my answer better, frankly.

String-Whanger is probably my favorite, because it really sounds filthy for no particular reason. Like, sure, there�s the whole �wang� sound in there, but �whang�, while homonymous with �wang�, is something else entirely. So it sounds dirty, but really isn�t. And even if it were �string-wanger�, what would that mean? Like, someone�s got a long, skinny, yarn-like hoo-ha? That�s a bizarre image. That would be like if, in the original The Fly, where Vincent Price exchanged heads with the eponymous insect, he had really just exchanged his man-parts with the fly�s proboscis. THAT would be a horror movie. Anyway, a string-whanger is �a guitarist�. Thanks, jazz world.

And at last we come to Wood-Pussy, which I imagine no one chose because it would be way too obvious. I mean�come on. What it means is �a polecat� (which is something like an evil hybrid of a weasel, a badger, and a skunk). No origin note, except that it is �dialect�, which�again, come on. Aren�t all these words �dialect�? Anyway, I was surprised if only because I thought �polecat� was slang, and who could ever call anything a �wood-pussy� without bursting out in a fit of pubescent giggles? Plus which, why would you refer to anything called a �polecat� as anything else? What a great word! There are clear reasons this word never caught on, but thanks anyway, Slang Dictionary!

Anyway, this is what I�m doing with myself in what little downtime I have left: scouring an archaic dictionary for naughty words. Not unlike how I spent my pre-teen years. There�s something to be said for nostalgia, though, I suppose. Anyway, 23 skiddoo!

Someone Got Here By Searching For: Christopher Walken and Grace Jones kissing I�m Watching: Nothing. For once, I�m watching nothing, because I HAVE NO TIME! I�m Reading: See above.

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