Lounge lizard

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A lounge lizard is a man who frequents social establishments with the intention of seducing a woman with his flattery and deceptive charm. [1] The term is reported to have arisen around 1915 in New York. A 1931 book described them as men "[in] the habit of lounging in different dance resorts from tea time on, on a chance of picking up a few dollars; or they might be habitués of the place or of an outer room, described as a 'lounge', for the purpose of picking up girls and women. In Europe, he subsequently evolved into what is now known as the gigolo." [2]

Contents

Examples

In the 1919 Charlie Chaplin film Sunnyside the term appears as a title card, describing a group of men reading newspapers in a hotel lobby.

In Buster Keaton's 1924 film Sherlock Jr. , Keaton plays a projectionist at a movie theater where the movie showing is Hearts & Pearls or The Lounge Lizard's Lost Love. The movie within a movie has a character who is good looking and well dressed who is romantically involved with a wealthy young woman.

In first story of Agatha Christie’s Parker Pyne Investigates , ‘The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife’, the character of Claude Luttrell is referred to as a “lounge lizard”. [3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Safire, William. "On Language". New York Times . Retrieved 2012-06-28.
  2. ↑ Irving Lewis Allen (1995). The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech. Oxford University Press. p. 81.
  3. ↑ Christie, Agatha (1934). Parker Pyne Investigates (1st ed.). London: Collins Mystery. pp. 3–28. ISBN   978-0007154821.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
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