Trombonist Benjamin Jacobs-El, who toured with jazz great Lionel Hampton, calls from Huntsville, Alabama, to say that Hampton regularly addressed friends and band members as gate, as in Hey, gates, how’re you doing? Is that because good jazz swings and a gate swings, too? It appears that’s the case, although it also may be a reference to Gatemouth, one of trumpeter Louis Armstrong’s many nicknames. When he played, audiences would shout Swing it, Gate! It’s also possible that Gate evolved into cat, as in a “hip or cool character,” a term also influenced by tomcat and the sly characteristics associated with a streetwise male feline. This is part of a complete episode.
What makes a great first line of a book? How do the best authors put together an initial sentence that draws you in and makes you want to read more? We’re talking about the openings of such novels as George Orwell’s 1984...
To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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