haggies - dibs

[Laurence Horn]

>--- Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> 25.  Haggies or No Haggies...When someone bought a
>> box of candy, you would
>> yell haggies and he would have to share with you
>> unless that person had
>> shouted no haggies first
>>
>>     "Haggies" is, unfortunately, not in DARE.  It is
>> the rare term that's not
>> found on ANY of my search engines (Nexis, Dow Jones,
>> Alta Vista, Lycos,
>> Infoseek, Deja News, et al.).  Someone from the
>> Bronx had once asked me about
>> "haggies."
>
>"Dibs" or "first dibs"
>and "No dibs" when I was growing.  Are those more
>common or widespread terms?
>
>JIM

I don't recall "haggies" from my Manhattan rearing.  No relation to haggis,
I presume (or persume); derived perhaps from "halfsies"?
   "Dibs" is standard, but I can't remember when I first heard or used it.
One related expression that IS frozen in New York childhood time, though,
is "Blackjack no back" (or its variants, e.g. "black black no back(s)"),
which is what you'd say if you gave something you DIDN'T want back; sort of
the opposite of "no dibs".  You were supposed to touch something black when
you said it.
   Then there was "Frontsies-backsies" or "No frontsies-backsies",
referring to the practice of allowing someone in line (or should I say ON
line) in front of you and then switching places with them.  (It was de
rigueur to first allow them in front, since one didn't have the authority
to allow anyone into the line behind one.)
Ah, the ethics of childhood.

larry