dub

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Fri Dec 11 19:14:56 UTC 2009


Does DARE have a cite for _the potentest thing_, as in Erskine Caldwell,
1935, "Journeyman"?

"He's _the potentest thing_," she said.

I've heard and used this practically since I learned to talk, ca.1940. My
mother, who'll be 97 in about three weeks, recalls it from as far back as
she can remember. Well, what she and I actually recall sounds like
"pote-niss thang." We're natives of East Texas. I'm following Caldwell WRT
the written form. It means something like "just about the cutest person or
thing that you've ever seen!" I recall it as being used exclusively with
reference to children, as a compliment to the parents. Of course, I was only
a child myself at the time, so I have no idea how the phrase might have been
used among adults. Caldwell sorta, kinda, maybe hints that the phrase may
have sexual connotations, based on _potent_, among adults. But it was in the
early '50's that I read the story and, even then, I still wasn't fully hip
to the jive, so to speak. Indeed, until I saw the phrase in Caldwell, I was
under impression that it was "the [im]portantest thing," even though
_important_ sounds like "imPAWtent and not like "imPOEtant." But that's how
folk - and even some "scientific" - etymologies are made.

-Wilson




On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Joan H. Hall <jdhall at wisc.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joan H. Hall" <jdhall at WISC.EDU>
> Subject:      dub
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> DARE's entry for "double-u" has a couple of examples of "dub(s).
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to come
from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain


 Your HTML signature here

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list