Damon Runyon

The Bee/February 2, 1937

We fear that science has been trifling in a frivolous mood with a very serious subject, the Bronx cheer.

Moreover, its frivolity has caused science to confuse the Bronx cheer with other minor manifestations in an utterly inexcusable manner.

It all came out at the annual dinner of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences in New York last week.

The topic of discussion was announced as having to do with “the multi-vibrational beta,” which was described as a symbol that had been chosen after years of research to represent “a pneumatic acoustic phenomenon made with the lips and tongue to register varying degrees of disapproval.”

A delicate piece of machinery was unveiled for a demonstration in connection with the subject under discussion. Mr. Charles L. Lawrence, aircraft designer, told his audience of the “archeological incubation” and development of sound during the past 6,000 years, and said that a deep-seated social urge was behind the Bronx cheer, “also known as the bird and razzberries.”

Its representation by a scientific symbol, the ancient Greek letter beta, was a most logical and final step in its history, Mr. Lawrence said. Then there were demonstrations with the machine.

The boys were having fun, as we gather, and frankly, we don’t like it. We feel that this sort of jesting tends to make light of an old and honorable New York institution, the Bronx cheer.

Of course the Bronx cheer is not the bird, at all, nor is it the raspberry—misspelled, in levity, “razzberry,” by the scientists. If the scientists are not aware of this fact, their ignorance is appalling.

The Bronx cheer is a purely local phenomenon, mainly indigenous to that section of New York known as the Bronx. The Bronx cheer was discovered and titled by “Tad”, the great cartoonist, a matter of nearly thirty years ago, while on a trip of exploration to the old Fairmount Boxing club in the Bronx.

The Bronx cheer forms in the abdomen, not in the throat or mouth. It doesn’t issue quickly, and unexpectedly, like a belch. You can hear it sort o’ rumbling deep down, in the fashion of a meditative volcano, and it gathers in volume as it burbles upwards until it comes out like this:

“O-ooo-oooo-ooooooomz.”

The theory of the deep-seated origin of the Bronx cheer is that when a Bronxonian contemplates going somewhere he immediately begins thinking that he isn’t going to like it, so by the time he reaches his chair, the Bronx cheer is already commencing to form abaft his floating ribs. We do not say this is true—we merely say that it is the theory.

The Bronx cheer is a sinister and somewhat bovine moo. It can be long continued. A run of half an hour for the Bronx cheer when the officials have made the error of rendering a decision against a favorite from beyond Harlem is considered ordinary.

There is no deep-seated social urge behind the Bronx cheer, as the scientists, in their idle levity, suggest there may occasionally be the vague aroma of herring and onions behind it, but we wouldn’t call that a social urge. And sinister though it sounds, there is no real harm in the Bronx cheer, because after the Bronxonian has indulged in his favorite pastime at length, he is all tuckered out, and ready to go home and peacefully hit the old Ostermoor.

The Bronxonian is not, by nature, a man of violence. Out West, the beef often takes the form of rough imprecations. The Southern squawk adds gesticulations to angry words. The New England howl is short and sharp, and as a resigned note, the New Englanders are inherently martyrs. But the Bronxonian is a fellow who just likes to go “o-ooo-oooo-oooooom.”

The bird, or raspberry, as we all know, is strictly of English origin, and has no place in polite circles in this country. It is employed in the United States chiefly by movie directors as a comic touch in pictures.

In England, for years, they prided themselves on having the only really good birders, or raspberries in the world, but since Mr. George Perry visited that country, they haven’t held their heads so high.

That was quite a spell back, that visit of Mr. Perry’s. He is now a staid and slightly gray gentleman, who functions as an assistant to Colonel Jake Ruppert, owner of the New York Yankees, and brewer of beers, but at the time Great Britain was claiming the bird title, Mr. Perry was in vaudeville.

He was what is known as the scolder, or straight man, in a vaudeville act, and after an audience in a London music hall had harkened to his whimsies for a few minutes, it started giving Mr. Perry the bird. Some of the English champions must have been in the audience, as the first blast blew Mr. Perry’s dickey off his chest. He always worked in full evening dress.

The bird went on for fully ten minutes, with the entire audience joining in, and Mr. Perry, instead of retreating from the storm, as was the custom of the birded performers, stood there listening intently and critically. Finally he raised his hand, and the audience, in some amazement, ceased firing.

“You don’t know how to do it,” said Mr. Perry. “Listen to this.”

Then he filled his chest with air, inflated his cheeks, stuck out his tongue, and let go with a ploop that shattered the chandeliers, and cracked the plaster on the rear wall of the hall, and shamed the British birders forever more.

That may be the multi-vibrational beta, but is isn’t the Bronx cheer. And we hope science will stop monkeying with sacred subjects.