[Beetle Bailey, May 12, 2023. Click for a larger view.]
In the second panel of today’s Beetle Bailey, Beetle makes the effort the look up the meaning on his phone. “To spend time idling,” he reports. And Sarge accuses him of lollygoogling.
A good dictionary would reveal an interesting history for lollygag. From Merriam-Webster:
Since the 19th century, lollygag (sometimes also spelled lallygag) has been used as a slang word to describe acts of wasting time as well as displays of affection. Nowadays, lollygag doesn’t usually refer to flirting or cuddling, but back in 1946, one Navy captain considered lollygagging enough of a problem to issue this stern warning: “Lovemaking and lollygagging are hereby strictly forbidden. . . . The holding of hands, osculation and constant embracing of WAVES [Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service], corpsmen or civilians and sailors or any combination of male and female personnel is a violation of naval discipline.”The Oxford English Dictionary entry for lallygag (U.S. slang, origin unknown, “to fool around; to ‘neck’; to dawdle, to dally”) includes a citation from 1868 with this choice phrase: “lascivious lolly-gagging lumps of licentiousness.” (That sounds like something written by one of William Safire’s ancestors.) Green’s Dictionary of Slang has an entry for lallygag with a wealth of citations. The Google Ngram Viewer shows lolly- far outpacing the lollygagging lally-.
I think lollygoogle might have some usefulness as an arch way to describe idle searching, but I prefer to use DuckDuckGo.
[William Safire: responsible for Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism.” And if you’re now wondering: lollipop is a much older word that may derive from lolly, a dialect word for tongue. Might lollipop have something to do with lollygagging? Dunno.]
comments: 4
The Idler’s Glossary doesn’t have an entry for lollygagging, but does have one for loll: “To lean idly, to recline or rest in a relaxed attitude, supporting oneself against something. Lin Yutang suggests that we can achieve “the highest wisdom of living” by alternating between the “absolutely erect working posture” and “posture of stretching ourselves on a sofa.”” Hmm, I wonder if there is a book called ‘The Tao of Beetle Bailey’?
Thanks, Jim, for mentioning that book, which I have. Lollygagging isn’t in The Wage Slave’s Glossary either. The writers must have been slacking off. : )
Do you know the word ‘lollpoop’?
I learned it from a kids book by Joan Aiken, one with her heroine Dido Twite.
Lollpoop (Grose 1811 Dictionary)
A lazy, idle drone.
Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose.
Now I do. Thanks, Fresca. That makes me wonder if there’s a lollpoop and lollipop connection. For now it’ll have to wait.
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