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stranger
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I was always intrigued by the line from the song "Ya Got Trouble" from the musical "The Music Man" that went like this: "Well the next thing you know your son is playing for money in a pinchback suit..."
I always assumed that was "pinchback" connoted a style of tailoring, perhaps with pleats on the back of the jacket. Maybe the word, however, was actually "pinchbeck," as in a fabric that was some sort of counterfeit of a more expensive fabric.
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Carpal Tunnel
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pinch-back over pinchbeck. - joe (six to nothin') friday
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Webster online sure has a lot of synonyms
Deception: Untrue; mock, sham, make-believe, counterfeit, snide, pseudo, spurious, supposititious, so-called, pretended, feigned, trumped up, bogus, scamped, fraudulent, tricky, factitious;bastard; surreptitious, illegitimate, contraband, adulterated, sophisticated; unsound, rotten at the core; colorable; disguised; meretricious, tinsel, pinchbeck, plated; catchpenny; Brummagem.
Ornament: Finery, frippery, gewgaw, gimcrack, tinsel, spangle, clinquant, pinchbeck, paste; excess of ornament; (vulgarity); gaud, pride.
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Carpal Tunnel
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looking up both pinchback and pinchbeck, it seems to me the word in the song would/should be pinchbEck:
adjective - appearing valuable, but actually cheap or tawdry.
though perhaps it's not.
Last edited by etaoin; 11/19/07 06:35 PM.
formerly known as etaoin...
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addict
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addict
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May want to consider that source includes "three-reail billiard shot".  So many posted lyrics are flawed, as if recorded in text from listening to the selection.
ÅΓª╥┐↕§
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May want to consider that source includes "three-reail billiard shot". So many posted lyrics are flawed, as if recorded in text from listening to the selection. hence my yeahbut®.
formerly known as etaoin...
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hence my "six to nothin'" notation; to wit, try googling "for money in a pinchback suit" (or pinch back / pinch-back) vs. the alternative. the "s are important.
of course, everyone could have it wrong.
-ron o.
edit: there is one(1) hit for pinchbeck -- it seems to be from an NPR radio transcript, which you can buy.
Last edited by tsuwm; 11/19/07 10:07 PM.
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good stuff from WWW: pinchbeckand t, that's what I figured you meant.
formerly known as etaoin...
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old hand
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Pinchbeck is a metal alloy. It is used for things like photo frames. Its main use was in the 19th century for the preserver matts and frames around daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. When used in this context in America it is called Preserver. Pinchbeck is its British name. Here is an example of a Pinchbeck preserver frame from my daguerreotype collection: 
Last edited by The Pook; 03/05/08 06:32 AM.
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Pooh-Bah
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The frame is great. Is he a relative?
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I think it's Severus Snape.
formerly known as etaoin...
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old hand
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old hand
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I think it's Severus Snape. So did I! That's what I captioned it with on my dating photos page for 1840-1860 - Dating Photos 1840s-1860 Sadly I don't have any daguerreotypes of relatives. I have no idea who it is. I bought him on ebay (where else?). The oldest photos of relatives I have only go back to the 1860s and are collodion prints on paper.
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I bubble this thread up today because I opened Daniel Pinchbeck's 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl last night and discovered this line: "For a few years, I flourished in the hectic hothouse and pinchbeck glitter of the "roaring eighties."
ol' Daniel must have really gloried in that usage.
-joe (gaudy) friday
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