A Glossary for Guys and Dolls
Often called the best American musical ever, Guys and Dolls premiered on Broadway in 1950. The show contains a number of topical references; many of these are understood from the context, but here’s a little cheat sheet to help you follow some of the ones which are more elusive to most modern ears.
Barbasol: A brand of shaving cream
Bromo Fizz: Like Alka-Seltzer or Tylenol Cold and Flu
Canasta: Nathan uses this sarcastically; a card game played mostly by non-gamblers
Dulce de Leche: Rum, chocolate liqueur, and milk
Emily Post: She wrote books on proper etiquette
Hollanderize: A cleaning process for fur garments
Hoyle: Playing “according to Hoyle” is playing by the rules in gambling
La Grippe: The flu
Lickerish Tooth: A longing or desire for something
New Rochelle: A wealthy suburb of New York, similar to Scarsdale (see below)
Nu: A Yiddish term, roughly equivalent to today’s sarcastic “Hello!” or “Duh,” Nathan uses this in the song Sue Me.
Pimlico: A horse-racing track in Maryland (home of the Preakness)
Roseland: A wild, crazy dance club in New York from the 20’s through the 50’s
Saratoga Another horse-racing track, this one in upstate New York on the route to Niagara Falls
Scarsdale Galahad: Sky sings about Sarah’s search for what he calls a Scarsdale Galahad. Scarsdale is a very rich New York suburb where so-called “respectable” people might live, people with Brooks Brothers suits (high-priced men’s clothing store), which come with two pair of pants, a custom of higher end stores at the time, since pants wear out faster than the jackets and vests. It is a putdown of the kind of straight, preppy guy, white knight (Galahad) she thinks she wants.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: 3 Biblical characters Sky had read about in his Gideon Bible. The Gideons are an organization devoted to distributing free Bibles around the world.
Studebaker: An automobile manufacturer of the time; it had a kind of pointy front
Vitalis: Men’s hair gel
Whitney Colors: Nathan refers to the wealthy New Englanders famous for their winning racehorses
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