Our choir is learning a 1930’s Medley that includes ‘Jeepers Creepers’. There has been some discussion about the lines ‘Golly gee! When you turn those heaters on – woe is me – Got to put my cheaters on!’ Am I correct in assuming the ‘heaters’ refers to eyes and ‘cheaters’ to sunglasses?

Vic Neilson, Munster, Lower South Coast, KwaZuluNatal, South Africa
vneilson@mweb.co.za

Sounds good to me.

Not to me.
In my neck of ths woods "cheaters" in this context refers to better seeing glasses not dimming glasses e.g. Hand me my cheaters so I can read the small print.

Of course "heaters" are not "hooters" so that term must be a musical license term for "eyes".

Good luck.

Yes, jj is right. The whole song is about eyes, so "heaters" are eyes used to attractive advantage: musical license indeed; cheaters are ordinary eyeglasses, slang of the period.

Yuppers! ! !

Only problem: that meaning of cheaters doesn't fit the sense of the song.

Only problem: that meaning of cheaters doesn't fit the sense of the song.

The context of the song is rather strange. In the 1938 movie, Going Places, Louis Armstrong sings it to a race horse. There's a clip on YouTube. With a horse and eyes, you'd think of blinders, not glasses.

With a big enough hammer, I can make it fit!

Okay, maybe it makes more sense if they are sunglasses, but I never heard that usage in actual conversation, as I did in reference to ordinary glasses. Jeepers creepers, I admit I've never taken the song seriously enough to look for sense in it.

Good move.

D'accord.

Then, the standard slang definition of heater is 'gun'. I think we have to take the use of these words in this song with a grain of salt. I think they were chosen more for poetic reasons, for their assonance with "Jeepers, creepers."

So right you really are, Faldage.

Unless we are to dump the semantic rule of precedent we must accept the slang meaning of "heaters" as "guns" as well as "cheaters" for "eyeglasses".

I am surprised that Tromboniater and zmjezhd argue logic when we are talking language.
Of course, that is, unless we are talking nuance which is alltogether a different matter.

Well, in modern day slang guns can refer to biceps, who knows what guns might have referred to in the '30s.

Yes, because any one word can have one and only one definition, slang or otherwise, nor may anyone alter or reinvent definitions for (shudder) poetic purposes.

But then, we use language to argue logic, so logically all discussion is pointless. Nuance, shcmuance; think I'll have some ice cream.

as long as we're trying (very trying) to get all logical about this, "cheaters" would seem to be sunglasses for some instances; you can see other people's eyes, but they can't see yours - that's cheating.

What are "heaters"?

RESOLVED : A UNION OF LOGIC AND PRECEDENCE

Special thanks to the tsuwms, the Faldeges, and the zmjezhds of this World, as well as the Tromboniaters, the LukeJavans and all other romantics of their World, for their small contributions in constructing this resolve.

I Mercer/ Miller wrote the lyrics for JEEPER CREEPERS expressly to effect a humorous interplay of meanings as Louis Armstrong sings a lovesong to a racehorse.

II The term "heat" in horseracing originated in the thermal heating of the horses especially in preliminary races.

III "When you turn those heaters on, woe is me. I got to get my cheaters on."
It follows that "turning heaters on" refers to the sudden burst of speed that a racehorse makes as it rounds the backstreach and "cheaters" refers to binoculars or field glasses.

Does anyone else have something further to add?

oh, that's wonderful.. except for the rest of the song he's singing to the horse about her eyes!

edit: btw, here he is

Yes I know, master tsuwm. I think that is what I said.

I agree. Seems simple enough.
He aint putting them on to see better, he's putting them on to stop the brilliant glare.

mebbe so; but it's not all that you said.

My, my, do we here on AWAD talk cryptically or can we plainly say what we meant to mean?

No.

Apparently.

pot:kettle

Wrongo Buffalo.
Some people are curt and others are not.

Just to add to this compendium of strange facts:
Google reports that Ray-Bon sun-glasses newly invented back in 1923 were sometimes called sun cheaters with cheaters being a colloquialism for glasses.

If I am not mistaken, people in England wear what they call windcheaters, which we call windbreakers.