Need 1940's US slang

[Guest]

"Beat me Daddy, eight to the bar!"

I am writing a female POV story set in the Amercian Midwest during WWII. It is the story of two middle class white late-teen brides who find many different types of solace in one another's company while their husbands are fighting in the Pacific Theatre.

I am fairly deep in period pop references and have enough military background, history and jargon to cover what small role the war itself plays in the story, but I could use suggestions on source material for appropriate slang. I don't want to flood the story with slang. That can be distracting; I just need a little to create the ambience.

 

[Guest]

Forgive me

Please add the word "PLEASE" to the beginning of my post, and then please add the words "THANK YOU" to the end of my post.

I can be such a twit sometimes.

 

[Charly]

Can't help much directly, but may I suggest that you get a copy of From Here To Eternity or another of James Jones' work from the fifties. A chapter or two would set you up with a pack of luckies rolled into the sleeve of your tee shirt and you'd be away! Here's a little bit about him:

The life of James Jones is archetypal American myth. Born in 1921, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1939, was wounded in World War II, went AWOL for a time from a Memphis military hospital, and returned to his Illinois hometown an embittered, angry man. He wrote. From Here to Eternity topped the bestseller list in 1951. Other books followed, some great (like The Thin Red Line) and some not well received (such as Some Came Running), and for the first time in his life Jones had real money and fame. He helped bankroll a writers colony (for people who wanted to become writers) in Marshall, Illinois, some 15 miles north of Robinson. This colony (which existed from about 1949 to 1964) was a cherished dream of Jones's mentor, Lowney Handy, a Robinson intellectual and free spirit. Jones continued writing novels and short stories, and built a dream-house batchler pad (which cost $85,000 in fat 1950s dollars). He frequently travelled, especially to New York City, the literary mecca of the 1950s, where he quickly made friends with literary figures such as James Baldwin, Norman Mailer, William Styron, and Budd Schulberg, among others. Through circumstances as legendary as other events in his life, Jones met, married, and stayed married (in a profession notorious for marital discord) to a beautiful, fiery, and enigmatic woman. James and Gloria Jones moved to Paris, where they became part of the second generation of American Expatriots. Writers, artists, and other intellectuals from throughout the world visited the Joneses when in Paris. Jones died in Long Island in 1977. He had become one of the most significant writers of his time.

 

[Charly]

OOPSSSSSSSSSS I WAS WRONG

http://hometown.aol.com/musichick4/


I found a page that has exactly what you are looking for. Sorry, I should have thought of it before my previous post.

http://hometown.aol.com/musichick4/

 

[Guest]

Thank you

Thanks,
Charly