ootsie?

[Mark A Mandel]

On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Laurence Horn wrote:

        [Anne Curzan]
#>>>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."

        [Towse]
#>>"ootsie" in this context probably means "gooey inside."
#>>"ootsie" is the inside of a Tootsie Roll.

        [Larry Horn]
#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'.

Funny, I didn't see that as opposite at all, on the basis of associating
"gooey" with 'unsteady, squishy, wobbly --> queasy'. You seem to be
associating it with 'soft and sweet'. That works too, in the abstract.
Anne, do you have any more of the context to indicate whether the
writer, Eyman, was invoking positive or negative connotations?

-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
   Philological Busybody
   a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel