[Ads-l] CASE in the UD

[Wilson Gray]

jone
To "make fun of" is to "jone." Limited to DC region. ["Not hardly!", as we
said in The Lou, back in the day.] Word derives from the local African
American culture.
She was joning _on_ you because you're ugly.

In The Lou, one joned _with_, not "on." And joning is embarrassing someone
in front of a jury of his peers with a cutting remark relevant to what he's
just said, in a way that's laugh-out-loud funny, not merely insulting him
or picking on him. This takes a certain amount of skill and "everybody
ain't able." Trying to jone with someone and "squaring off" or "laming out"
is more embarrassingly funny than being joned with. Getting "fronted off"
by having your jone turned back on you is the worst.

"Understanding Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God"
 By Neal A. Lester has,

"They were joning her," without no preposition, making "jone" seem to mean
"pick on" for him, whereas, for me, it's one and done, absent the rare
front-off.
--


-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

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