prissy, 1842 (?)

[Jonathan Lighter]

Wilson, you may remember the 1958 hit, "Tom Dooley."  Well, the Kingston Trio jazzed it up a little bit from the way it was sung by Frank Proffitt, the old-time banjo-frailer from Sodom (no kidding), N. C., who taught it to collector Frank Warner who, etc., etc., etc., by the Kingston Trio.  Proffitt always sang, "You STOBBED her with your knife."  He was white, born about 1910.

I may be fooling myself, but come to think of it the comic-strip Tarzan in the '50s may have referred to his knife as a "dirk."  Not sure now. But if he did, it would have seemed like "literary" language to me, in NYC and all. It never entered my active vocabulary.

Will have to start using it.

Question: Does "dagger" sound "too Shakespearean" to people who grew up saying "dirk"?  (Macbeth. ... Is that a dagger I see before me?)

JL





Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
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On Oct 21, 2004, at 8:47 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
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> --------
>
> This may have nothing to do with George's question, but is worth
> reporting before I forget it.
>
> A few years ago I was alerted to a book that dealt with antebellum
> sexual attitudes in the South. It frequently cited unpublished court
> records. In one case, in Virginia around 1810, a rape victim
> testified that her assailant had broken into her bed chamber and
> approached her "with his dick in his hand."
>
> This would be an antedating by about 75 years of a now universally
> known term. It would also make it by origin an Americanism.
>
> Skeptical, I wrote to the Court House for a photocopy of the document,
> which soon arrived.
>
> As he was undoubtedly expected to do, the court stenographer had
> written his final draft in bold, graceful, and very legible script.
> There was absolutely no doubt: what the assailant had held in his hand
> was his "dirk."
>
> Chalk this false alarm up to someone's hasty transcription or
> proof-reading. But I was amused greatly when a colleague (not a
> linguist) suggested that the unmistakable "dirk" might well have been
> a slip of the pen for the putative "dick," since "'dirk' is too
> Shakespearean" [!].

I second that observation, i.e. the [!]. Remember the knife that Tarzan
wielded? Among us Southern blacks, that was a dirk. "I stobbed him/her
with my dirk" is a common blues line. BTW, FWIW, according to BET,
"stob" for "stab" is still used in living speech among black
Alabamians.

-Wilson Gray

>
> As for "prissy," I have no suggestions.
>
> JL
>
> George Thompson wrote:
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> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: George Thompson
> Subject: prissy, 1842 (?)
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>
> The OED says that "prissy" dates from the mid 1890s, and is probably
> compounded from "prim" and "sissy".
>
> Here is an occurence of the word from 1842. The meaning isn't at all
> clear, but it is obiously used in an affirmative sense, quite the
> opposite of the post 1890s meaning. The person described is Martin Van
> Buren, who was campaigning for the presidency.
>
> "Time has been merciful to him. He looks more fresh and prissy than
> ever we saw him, excepting that his locks are a little more like those
> of his 'illustrious predecessor,' being whitened by the snows of a few
> more winters." From the New Orleans Daily Picayune, of April 12 or 15,
> 1842, perhaps citing the Natchez Free Press; as cited in Ralph M.
> Aderman & Wayne R. Kime, Advocate for America: The Life of James Kirke
> Paulding, Selingrove: Susquehanna U. Pr., 2003, p. 272 and footnote
> 18, p. 383.
>
> Van Buren was 60 in 1842, and it would seem a bit extreme to describe
> a 60-year old as "pristine", -- myself being an exception, of course
> -- but could this be a shortening of that word?
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African
> Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.
>
>
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