stiff, you big

   In Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dick addresses himself as ‘you big stiff’. The term might more usually be used by a woman to a man, complimenting him on his physical size while implying that he was rather stupid at the same time.

   ‘Stiff’ remains an American rather than a British word in its slang senses. British speakers would not use it to refer to a labourer, for instance, nor would they have used it in its earlier slang sense of a hobo. If they described a corpse as a stiff they would consciously be using an Americanism. The possible implication of ‘you big stiff’ is that the person addressed has as much intelligence as a corpse.