I think the Flapper Dictionary (to which I may have been alerted by friend and colleague-in-slang Tom Dalzell) was a big hit across the small-town press in 1922 and thus it's hard to settle on the original publication. I found it all over the place. I wrote about it and other aspects of the flapper lexis in my Sounds and Furies (2019), a failed but i hope fun attempt to trace a parallel world of woman-coined slang.
The "un--" construction doesn't lend itself to many verbs. As with unswallow, I guess you could un-eat, but you can't unkick, unburn, uncopulate or unexcrete (just trying to improve the tone of my own thoughts). Maybe it only works with intransitive verbs. Can you unthink when something is unthinkable?
Also, although I have nothing to go on but my own towering opinion, I think "frail" was used to describe any young woman that one didn't know. It could be dismissive and ironic at the same time.
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you, but I think a fair number of transitive verbs can be un-ified: for example, you can "untie" a knot, "undo" your last change to a document, "unpack" your bags, "unfriend" someone on Facebook, and "unring" a bell. (Or if not, then you can at least use those words in saying that you *can't*!)
The Google Ngram Viewer shows steady use of "unswallow" since 1830 with a bottoming out in about 1875 but then bouncing back up again and still in use. Who would have thought?
On the basis of absolutely no actual knowledge or research, I had always assumed "frail" in this context meant something along the lines of "your younger male companion with whom you probably have a sexual relationship in which he is the bottom," but, again, I cannot offer any source that would back me up on that.
The Random House slang dictionary (cited in my post) gives only female senses for “frail," including “the passive partner in a lesbian relationship" (prison slang).
The line doesn't make a lot of sense to me (at least from the context here — I haven't seen the movie), so I totally get why you'd interpret it to mean something a bit different.
Maybe it makes more sense from a production (out-of-universe/Doylist) perspective: she's not saying it because it makes sense for her to say it, but rather, because it's necessary setup for the humor in the next line?
This will be the most valuable thing I'll read today!
It's still early, Benjamin!
Well, I am about to read Daphne du M's "Don't Look Now," but we'll see....
I think the Flapper Dictionary (to which I may have been alerted by friend and colleague-in-slang Tom Dalzell) was a big hit across the small-town press in 1922 and thus it's hard to settle on the original publication. I found it all over the place. I wrote about it and other aspects of the flapper lexis in my Sounds and Furies (2019), a failed but i hope fun attempt to trace a parallel world of woman-coined slang.
I need to get my mitts on a copy of Sounds and Furies!
I can ask the publisher. Or maybe there are giveaway priced copies on bookfinder.com
The "un--" construction doesn't lend itself to many verbs. As with unswallow, I guess you could un-eat, but you can't unkick, unburn, uncopulate or unexcrete (just trying to improve the tone of my own thoughts). Maybe it only works with intransitive verbs. Can you unthink when something is unthinkable?
Also, although I have nothing to go on but my own towering opinion, I think "frail" was used to describe any young woman that one didn't know. It could be dismissive and ironic at the same time.
"Can't unsee," a recent development, is an exception to the no-transitive-verb rule (if it's a rule). Can't Unsee is even the name of a game for software developers: https://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/a1hz8q/cant_unsee_a_game_to_explain_the_pain_of_frontend/
Also, all those Orwellisms, including "unthink" and "unsay."
And "unpublish," which Substack just asked whether I wanted to do!
Sorry if I'm misunderstanding you, but I think a fair number of transitive verbs can be un-ified: for example, you can "untie" a knot, "undo" your last change to a document, "unpack" your bags, "unfriend" someone on Facebook, and "unring" a bell. (Or if not, then you can at least use those words in saying that you *can't*!)
The Google Ngram Viewer shows steady use of "unswallow" since 1830 with a bottoming out in about 1875 but then bouncing back up again and still in use. Who would have thought?
I saw that trendline too, but I suspect it isn't the “vomit” sense of unswallow, but rather expressions like “She tried to unswallow her tongue.”
I are now smarter and almost looking forward to my next unswallowing event!
On the basis of absolutely no actual knowledge or research, I had always assumed "frail" in this context meant something along the lines of "your younger male companion with whom you probably have a sexual relationship in which he is the bottom," but, again, I cannot offer any source that would back me up on that.
The Random House slang dictionary (cited in my post) gives only female senses for “frail," including “the passive partner in a lesbian relationship" (prison slang).
The line doesn't make a lot of sense to me (at least from the context here — I haven't seen the movie), so I totally get why you'd interpret it to mean something a bit different.
Maybe it makes more sense from a production (out-of-universe/Doylist) perspective: she's not saying it because it makes sense for her to say it, but rather, because it's necessary setup for the humor in the next line?