bean-flipper

[Note: Parts of this entry were originally included at the previous version of bean-shooter.]

bean-flipper n Also bean-flip, beanie-flipper, beany-~ Cf beaner n 2, bean-shooter n, bean-snapper n, beany n, flipper n1 3, nigger-flipper n, rubber flipper n

A slingshot; occas, some other implement for the same purpose (see quot 1931).

1868 New Albany Daily Ledger (IN) 8 Apr [2]/1 (newspaperarchive.com), It seems that these boys were each armed with a “bean flipper,” which is nothing more than an india rubber sling, with which they threw several pounds of shot through the window panes. 1894 Eve. Times (Monroe WI) 26 Oct [2]/4 (newspaperarchive.com) NYC, Some of the little bullets no doubt find their way into boys’ pockets to be used in bean flippers and crotchets, with which some of them are famous shots.—N. Y. Recorder. 1902 Salem Democrat (IN) 6 Aug [4]/2, Last Monday little Archie put out the left eye of his pet parrot by means of his bean flip and the entire Roosevelt household is inconsolable. 1931 Clovis NM Eve. News–Jrl. 14 Dec 6/3, Do you remember way back when the kids would steal the steel ribs out of mother’s corset and use them for bean flippers? 1940 Ada Eve. News (OK) 18 Mar 3/3, Foster became expert with his “bean-flipper” while a child in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas. 1952 Vidette–Messenger (Valparaiso IN) 7 Jan 1/1, Enlow’s father made him a “bean flipper.” Later he called them “sling shots.” Two bands of rubber, a forked stick and a soft leather piece to hold the bullet, were the principal parts. 1953 Smoke Signals (Pinedale WY) 1 Apr [5]/2 (newspaperarchive.com), The entire game was a chaos of wrestling, fist fights, hair-pulling, along with the use of beany-flippers, pop guns, spiders and frogs. 1956 Albuquerque Tribune (NM) 29 Feb 18/1, In Talburt’s cartoon today . . , he undoubtedly had in mind arming his David with a slingshot for use against the figurative Goliath. . . To us country boys, it comes up something else. . . To wit, that it is a bird-shooter, bean-shooter or even bean-flip, but not a slingshot—at least in such communities where boys had both and distinguished between them in use and terminology. [DARE Ed: The cartoon shows the device consisting of a forked stick and a rubber strap; in this writer’s vocabulary slingshot refers to a sling which is whirled around to hurl a stone.] 1962 Atwood Vocab. TX 68, The familiar piece of boys’ artillery made of a forked stick and rubber strips. . . Bean shooter and bean flip, which are very rare in Texas, appear fairly often in southern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. 1970 Tarpley Blinky 230 neTX, Boy’s weapon made of rubber strips on a forked stick . . [1 inf:] bean-flipper. 1976 McIntosh Co. Democrat (Checotah OK) 21 Oct [4]/1 (newspaperarchive.com), The boys flip each other and anyone else in range with beanie flippers and the girls giggle. 1978 Massey Bittersweet Country 181 Ozarks, I use a bean flipper to keep the cats away. 2008 in 2015 DARE File—Internet AZ, Its a long time homestead reunion tradition to have a beany flipper as I grew up calling it contest. Its kind of crazy that now my kids are part of the Flipper Contest instead of me. 2009 Ibid KS, Somehow I got a feeling you would kill just as many squirrels if you had to use an old fashioned beany flipper! 2012 Ibid nVA, Boys learned to build and use the lowly “beanshooter” or “bean-flip”. Our slingshots were cut from the crotch of a dogwood tree. . . I still have mine, which has taken lots of rabbits and small game for the pot. 2014 Ibid csCO, We made our own bean-flippers from a forked stick and a piece of rubber from an old intertube [sic], and a piece of leather for a pouch which held the rock. Our beanies were for shooting birds.