In the classic column on holographic images, Cecil dismisses his clarification that holograms do not actually have facets but rather quasihyperboloidal interference fringes by saying: “Amounts to the same thing as tiny facets, but they look a lot different and from the standpoint of conceptual grabbiness they’re strictly from hunger.”
“From hunger”, meaning deplorably bad or dreadful is one of those idiomatic phrases I understand in my gut (no pun intended) but it’s sort of incomprehensible how the phrase came to be. It’s never really used for things that have anything to do with the actual feeling or condition of hunger (see Cecil’s use above). I’m guessing it is of Yiddish origin, because it has that Yiddishish feel to it, but a bit of googling arounding hasn’t helped me to find where it came from (except for one tantalizing link to a subscription journal article I can’t access).
Actually, it’s “strictly from hunger,” and it once alluded to desperation or poor quality. I agree it’s probably Yiddish (being one of S.J. Perelman’s titles), but it’s also been called “beat slang” or “swing talk.”
I love words and slang, and I had never, ever read or heard that phrase before. I came in here just to open a thread about it - and I’m glad that Billdo did!
Now I’m going to have to use the phrase every chance I get, so that I can popularize it:
“Plaintiff’s brief was strictly from hunger.”
“That oral argument was strictly from hunger.”
“My last post on the Dope was strictly from hunger.”
Yeah, even without knowing the phrase I always figured the phrase itself was “from hunger,” with “strictly” as a generic intensifier (as in “strictly for the birds” or something).
With no evidence at all, I’m guessing it’s a geographical slur aimed at Hungarians. If true, it would align with the countless “dumb Polack” jokes and all the French=sexual usages; for example, French kiss, French letter, and pardon my French.
My guess, also with no evidence, is that it simply means that something was so badly wanted/needed (i.e., hungered for) that you took the best you could find or make up. Using the “oral argument” example that Elendil’s Heir mentioned, it would mean that the argument was manufactured strictly for the sake of justification.
RR
In matters of etymology, origins are rarely ironclad. In this brief thread, the OED says it’s US slang and JSTOR calls it Yiddish. Your own call is not supported by the “earliest cite,” which does not refer to playing crap to get food money.
The OED’s definition would mesh easily with an ethnic slur where Hungarian equals acceptable only as a last resort…very bad, lousy.
At least two other ethnic slurs are hung on shoddy goods; nigger-rigged and Jerry (German) built. Jerry-built, by the way, is not the same as jury-rigged, which can be complimentary.
I am unaware of any relationship between “jerry-built” and “German”, and the dates are against it, for “jerry-builder” is attested two generations earlier than “Jerry” for “German”. You have also given no evidence that “from hunger” has any connection with “Hungarian” beyond your own fantasy, and I am unaware of any resentment from Jews toward Hungarians in music; indeed, in 1935, the date of the earliest citation, one of the best known Hungarians in music was the operetta composer Emmerich Kálmán, who was himself Jewish, and so beloved in central Europe that a serious attempt was made by the Hungarian Nazis to have him declared an “honorary Aryan”. (Instead, he escaped to America; as a celebrity, he was allowed in; most weren’t.)
The Stack Exchange has a good page of discussion on this. They look at the Yiddish connection made by many, but note that all the earliest print references come from music. This one seems especially convincing to me:
Perelman was a fairly big deal in the 1930s, so his titling a book *Strictly From Hunger *would have spread the phrase to the hipper masses. He was a Jew who loved using Yiddish phrases and slang in his writing as well as a show biz guy who wrote the books for Broadway revues and musicals. (Not to mention two Marx Brothers movies, because he hated any mention of them.) He could have gotten the phrase from either direction - or both.
BTW, if you haven’t read Strictly From Hunger, it’s a must, one of the handful of most important humor books of the century. It’s dated, naturally, and it’s impact is muted because people have been stealing techniques from it for 80 years. It’s reached "what’s the big deal about the Beatles? status. The problem is that you’d have to find it in a library. There was one printing and no paperback, so even the cheapest copies are pricey. Time for a revival. You can find numerous cheap copies of his various “best of” books if you just want an introduction, though.
