Ofaginzy redux

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Wed Mar 28 01:04:41 UTC 2007


At 7:44 PM -0500 3/27/07, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>     Here are two relevant articles from Studies in Slang, vol. VI
>(by Gerald Leonard Cohen and Barry A. Popik), Frankfurt am Main:
>Peter Lang, 1999:
>
>1) Gerald Cohen: 'Black slang _ofay_ "white person" derives from
>_auf fait_ "socially proper; genteel",' pp. 48-51.

Jerry, are you really sure it's from the Franco-Prussian "auf fait"?
The simple "au fait" seems a bit more plausible...

LH

>
>2) Gerald Cohen: 'Black slang _ofaginzy_ "white person," pp.52-53.
>
>Gerald Cohen
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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