-iz(z)- infix

[Wendalyn Nichols]

As teenagers in the 1970s, some of my girlfriends and I used an infixing
secret language we called "Carnie"--I never knew why it was called that
before, but the carnival workers' language must be the source. The infix we
used sounded like "eerz": "Reerzick theerze feerzox" (Rick the fox, the guy
we talked about most in this language).

Wendalyn Nichols

At 07:21 PM 3/4/03 -0500, you wrote:
>On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>#>While to date I have no citations of the -iz infix prior to the
>#>1990s, where the use seems to start amongst the hip-hop/rap
>#>community and move on to general campus use, might I draw attention
>#>to one possible predecessor: the use amongst US carnival workers of
>#>the infix -eas, e.g. in ceasarnie (carnie), measark (a mark or
>#>sucker), heasar (here), neasix (nix) etc.
>#>
>#Can I ask how that one is pronounced?  (And does the "-eas-" indicate
>#a conventional spelling recorded in texts somewhere?)
>
>That looks like a representation (and the original "-iz" questin
>reminded me of an infix "secret language" used by Murray the K (and his
>Swingin' Soiree), a disk jockey in NYC in the 60s. That "language" was
>called /,mi. at .'z^r'i/ and was formed by infixing /i at z/ before the
>stressed vowel of each word: "Murray" => Meosurray, or however you wish
>to spell it; I don't know if there was an "official" spelling. Maybe the
>/z/ alternated with /s/; I don't remember.
>
>Of course, that tells us nothing about where Murray might have gotten
>it, if he did.
>
>-- Mark A. Mandel