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To: sparklite2; All
I LOVE the Flatiron building and yes, the story I was told, when I was bitty ( by my grandmother ) does include that area.

The "23" in the term, does indeed come from 23rd Street; however, my gran told me that at one time there were "undersireables" ( her word...but meaning the worst sorts ) that would hang around the Flatiron building, the cops would tell them ( not nicely! ) to "MOVE ALONG". This then became a slang term, for them, which they would say when they saw cops approaching, which then spread to others, meaning lets get out of here.

"SKIDDOO", alone, actually means : "LEAVE QUICKLY!" :-)

I love the English language and have many books that deal with it, euphemisms, idioms, and such. A really cute book to uses as reference/to read just for fun is one from the LET'S BRING BACK series, titled :THE LOST LANGUAGE EDITION, by Lesley M.M. Blume.

93 posted on 02/02/2019 2:15:45 PM PST by nopardons
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To: nopardons

HL Mencken wrote some great books about the language.

https://www.amazon.com/American-Language-Second-H-Mencken/dp/0982129882/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1549150282&sr=8-4&keywords=mencken+the+american+language


96 posted on 02/02/2019 3:32:26 PM PST by sparklite2 (Don't mind me. I'm just a contrarian.)
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