Thursday, May 29, 2014

Word Odyssey: Don’t “Bogart” That Eponym, My Friend

Posted By on Thu, May 29, 2014 at 10:00 AM

Eponyms are names that have become immortalized in well known words, such as syphilis, sadism and masochism. We’ll get to those, but let’s start with a favorite, bogart, which is slang for hogging something, like a medical marijuana joint at a party, instead of passing it on. As movie buffs will guess, bogart comes from Humphrey Bogart, who had a cigarette continually dangling from his lips—just like the guy at the party. The term got a big boost from the 1969 flick Easy Rider, which featured the song “Don’t Bogart Me” by the pretty well-forgotten band “Fraternity of Man”, whose lyrics began with “Don’t bogart that joint, my friend, pass it over to me.”

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