Life — October 12, 1928 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

RT DbDE, ALONG THE Dear Pat Witvarp: What with the radio and Syeryehing, things fly quickly around the country, so it would be silly, I fear, to ask if you have been making whoopee. If he haven't been making it, surely you've en saying it, and if you haven't done either, Willard, get in on the controversy that is going on as a result of this phrase. There's plenty of excitement over it, and naturally I am with the lad who they say porulanieed the expression, because he appens to be a namesake of mine. I understand that this fellow Winchell was formerly a hoof- er in vaudeville and then turned into a Park Rowgue, con- necting with the Graphic, a tabloid paper in New York. His is the Broadway beat, the night clubs and the other phony parts of the town, and as Courtenay Ter- rett said the other night, the newspaper business is the only business where you can have so much fun for so little money. I guess he meant it is fascinating because Newspapermen meet so many uninterest- ing people. At any rate, this Winchell guy gets most of the credit for spreading the ex- pression “making whoopee,” and a lot of people are saying, “Why, I heard that ears ago when I was a boy in the West.” But Winchell keeps repudiating the credit for the word, admitting freely that “whoopee” is from the cowboys. He says he first heard a cowhand shout it during a rodeo at Madison Square Garden, and he later applied it to a couple in a café who had gone wild on laughing soup and were cooing right out loud. He wrote of them: “Josephine Blank and Fred Dott made whoopee at Texas Guinan’s last night.” or he phrase caught on, it appears, and every New York paper is now employing it in headlines or stories, and songs have been written about it and Ziegfeld is pre- paring a show named after it and a book and movie have swiped it, too. Some Westerners ignore Winchell’s by Walter Winchell repudiation of the word “whoopee,” and say that he stole it from the cowboys and Injuns. He didn’t steal it—but he did give it a new meaning. He feels that if any- one is going to rate any bows on the phrase “making whoopee,” he’s the one to bend the body, and he has a scrapbook of clippings in tavor of it. There's Bide Dudley, once of Denver | | and Kansas, for instance, who came out recently and said: “There's an inane ar- gument going on over who coined the ‘making whoopee’ expression. All I can say is, the first time I ever heard of it was when I read it in Walter Winchell’s column.” Burns Mantle likewise. The N. Y. World, ditto, and a former cow: hand named Mark Barron of the Herald Tribune agreed. Burton Rascoe, once of Oklahoma, and a leading literary critic, said the same thing, as have several former Westerners, although some of them feel that “whoopee” is derived from “yippy!”” or “yuppy!”” which the rangers yelled when they went on a tear. Whatever the argument is, or who- ever deserves the credit, why has it taken so long for the word to get famous? Even though it may have bees heard frequently in Texas, it was never heard in Guinan’s until Winchell put it there. Personally, | think the opposing factions to Winckel are “drys,” which I shall have to tell him, heheheh. Anyway, everyone who offers an argument credits it to different sources or persons, but Will Rogers hasn't been heard from yet. He should know, having once been (they tell me) a cow-person himself. Some one recently pointed out that “whoopee” is the only word in the lan- guage that tells a whole story, but the Herald Tribune's definition is better, It said: “ ‘Making whoopee’ means to experience exception- alexcitement process of intoxicating liquescents, mel- odies, terpsichore, or what not.” That's a pretty comprehensive summary of the situation; but just what does the Herald Tribune mean by “what not”? THE PRODIGAL SON-IN-LAW Girv’s FatHer: Young man, are you able to support a family? Younc Man: Yes, sir; how many are there in your family? Sax: Hey, how do ya spell insouciance? Puno: I dunno, All I can spell is the tenor part of “Constantinople.” comicbooks.com