Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Flapper dictionary's got my number


I am a crumb gobbler. I declare that proudly. In fact, I am a crumb gobbler who enjoys his noodle juice. I even like a little whangdoodle, and I try to remain kluck.

That's how a flapper might describe me, I guess. I ran across this post from a book shop owner who happened upon a stack of old editions of Flapper magazines ("Not for Old Fogies"). The July 1922 edition included "A Flapper's Dictionary," running down the slang terms common to liberating women of the day. "The flapper movement is not a craze, but something that will stay," the author asserts. "Many of the phrases now employed by members of this order will eventually find a way into common usage and be accepted as good English."

A "crumb gobbler," for instance, is a "slightly sissy tea hound." Tea itself is referred to a "noodle juice." (Crumb gobbler I get, but I'm not sure what tea has to do with squeezing pasta. Or perhaps it means, rightly, that it's fuel for your brain?) Also, there's "Cake eater — see 'Crumb gobbler'."

Read the whole dictionary here. Do you find it to be the cat's particulars?

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