ootsie?

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:34 PM -0400 4/8/02, Alice Faber wrote:
>On Monday, April 8, 2002, at 03:20  PM, Towse wrote:
>
>>Anne Curzan wrote:
>>>
>>>Does anyone know anything about the word "ootsie" and what it means? Tim
>>>Eyman, the sponsor of several tax-cutting initiatives out here in
>>>Seattle, is under investigation for apparent violations of
>>>campaign-finance laws. In an email that was recently quoted in the
>>>papers out here, Eyman writes:
>>>
>>>"I get ootsie even typing in the number but given the fundraising
>>>trajectory and the potential, it's the salary I want to try for."
>>>
>>>I just had a reporter call me asking what it might mean. Can anyone help
>>>here?
>>
>>"ootsie" in this context probably means "gooey inside."
>>
>>"ootsie" is the inside of a Tootsie Roll.
>
>My first thought was that it might be a variant of "ootchie", meaning
>'antsy, uncomfortable'. I'm not sure where that thought came from, though.
>  I'm pretty sure we had a discussion of the verb "ooch", including both
>vowel quality and meaning, some years back.
>--
Judging from google, it may have been an innovation of the Tim Eyman,
but the "gooey inside a la Tootsie Roll/Pop" interpretation seems the
opposite of the contextually plausible meaning here, i.e. 'guilty,
uncomfortable'.   Other hits on google and Nexis are typically for
dogs (a Scottish whippet, in particular) and people, or in some cases
for mistyped versions of "Tootsie".

larry