Entry · catalog no. 8183
Shorty George
/ /ˈʃɔɹti dʒɔɹdʒ/ /SHOR-tee JORJ
noun · Harlem, New York · 1930s
✓ Verified
1.
A Lindy Hop step in which the dancer, knees bent and leaning forward, travels in a low, swaying, side-to-side walk.
“Right after the swing-out they dropped into a Shorty George and strolled across the floor.”
2.
The nickname of George "Shorty" Snowden, the Harlem dancer who was a founding figure of the Lindy Hop at the Savoy Ballroom.
“They say Shorty George was the one who first made the whole floor watch.”
Origin & Attribution
The step takes its name from George "Shorty" Snowden, a Black dancer of the Harlem ballroom scene around the Savoy Ballroom, who is remembered as one of the founding dancers of the Lindy Hop in the late 1920s and 1930s. Frankie Manning and other Savoy dancers carried the step and its name through the swing era. The term belongs to Harlem's Black dance community; later swing revivals around the world kept the name but not always the story.
1930
Snowden dancing at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, where the step took his name
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Harlem, New York · 1930s
Spoken by
Black Harlem social dancers; swing and Lindy Hop community worldwide
$SHORTYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Historical96 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
35/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1930
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
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Citations & Sources
■
Frankie Manning Foundation, 'Shorty George Snowden' profile (archives of early Lindy Hop)
web
■
+ Cite a sourceSavoy Style, ''Shorty George'' Snowden, archive of early Lindy Hop
web
See also