Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 November 8

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November 8

What makes hash so special it gets its own verb?

Hash really is a lowly food but it's hogging its own special verb, sling/slung—what makes it think it deserves such deference and why is it getting away with it? Haughty nouns piss me off.--68.237.2.254 (talk) 15:09, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll suggest that what's "slung" is not restricted to the literal hash per se, but generalized to include similarly unpretentious dishes such as what's served up by a short-order cook in a diner and/or comprising leftovers. -- Deborahjay (talk) 15:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Let he who is without sin sling the first mud. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:02, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

It gets its own key on the telephone as well.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:41, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I was about to take Clarityfiend to task for 'Let he ...' rather than the grammatical 'Let him ...', but googling I find that rather a lot of people have perpetrated this one. (Hmmm. I usually play the game called pedantry only when somebody else has started it, but I seem to be firing the first salvo this time. Oh well). _{discussed below}--ColinFine (talk) 19:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

"Something for the weekend"

The latest email from World Wide Words discusses the English phrase "Something for the weekend":

It was traditionally a discreet query in a hushed voice from a barber to his customer at the end of a haircut or shave, asking whether he wanted any condoms (though they were never called that).

The article goes on to say that they can find nowhere where the phrase was ever written down prior to a Monty Python sketch in 1972. But Dennis Norden, in his memoirs, claims that he and Frank Muir tried to title a BBC radio program Something for the Weekend in the '50s, but the BBC refused to allow them to use the title due to its "vulgarity". Does anybody in the UK of a Certain Age remember this usage? Any documentation of its use prior to 1972? Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 22:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

No idea, but can I just express my amazement that they were ever sold by barbers! -- JackofOz (talk) 22:51, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I've never encountered it myself, but it makes sense. What other kind of business is there that a man could openly visit on a frequent basis in those straitlaced days, but where no woman would normally go? --Anonymous, 05:35 UTC, November 10, 2008.

Yes, you're absolutely right. I guess it comes under the heading of "business diversification". Barbers also used to sell cigars and related products. And long ago they were surgeons and apothecaries - The Barber of Seville (play) was about a body cutter rather than merely a hair cutter. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

In the 1920s and 30s in the US (and presumably elsewhere), barbers were also used as a means of distributing girlie magazines like Spicy Stories and La Paree. Not that we would think of them as porn today, but they often couldn't be sold openly on a magazine stand. Matt Deres (talk) 15:00, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I dont know how much background the newsletter gives, but this phrase was on the BBC's Balderdash and Piffle wordhunt appeal for the OED. The resulting entry is here. You won't antedate 1972 by any Google search. It makes sense that they were sold by barbers, to the kind of person who today buys them from vending machines in pub toilets. jnestorius^(talk) 00:22, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I remember them being sold by barbers in England in the 1970s.