stage-door Johnny
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈsteɪdʒˌdɔr ˈdʒɑni/
- Archaic
:
fanático del teatro
- As a dedicated stage-door Johnny, he never missed a chance to greet the performers after each performance.
Examples
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Many young fans become stage-door Johnnies, hoping to meet the stars they admire outside the theater.
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Oh, a stage door Johnny situation, huh?
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Paging stage door Johnny!
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I also attracted a number of stage-door Johnnies who plied me with flowers and candy.
Fiction book (1996) -
After the show, the excited stage-door Johnny eagerly waited to get his favorite actor's autograph.
Surface Forms
Morphology
stage-door + johnnie
The components 'stage' + 'door' and the name 'Johnny' allow a learner to infer a person associated with the stage door (i.e., someone waiting there), so part of the meaning is derivable from the parts. However the conventional sense—an enthusiastic fan who waits for autographs—is a culturally specific extension that is not fully predictable from the constituents, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Stage-door Johnny comes from the image of a man waiting by the theater stage door to meet actors after a show. Because Johnny is a common name for a man, the phrase came to mean 'a man who waits outside a stage to see performers or ask for autographs'.