prissy, 1842 (?)

[Wilson Gray]

On Oct 22, 2004, at 7:51 AM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
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> --------
>
>> I remember, and I can hambone, so proficiently that I also remember
>> bright red legs (inside, just above the lnees) from overdoing it.
>
>
> dInIs

And, as fate would have it, the last person that I saw with my own eyes
doing the hambone was a white man, Gary Busey, the actor, on a show
that aired on Comedy Central a while ago. He was pretty good at it,
too. Of course, given that Gary is also a native of East Texas, I
wouldn't have expected less.

-Wilson

>
>> On Oct 21, 2004, at 11:25 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
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>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> --
>>> --------
>>>
>>> I got hold of Abrahams' book around the time I started collecting
>>> slang, for obvious reasons.  It was considered so daring a
>>> publication
>>> when it came out that the copy I saw included a warning forbidding
>>> anyone who wasn't a doctor, sociologist, or law enforcement officer
>>> from looking at it.
>>
>> No kidding?! That's amazing!
>>>
>>> I figured "college student" was close enough.
>>>
>>> The "toasts" Abrahams recorded were the direct ancestors of rap. On
>>> the European side, the "flash songs" attributed to English crooks of
>>> the 17th and 18th centuries are to some extent comparable, at least
>>> in
>>> the context of their times.
>>>
>>> Whether the African-American "toast" tradition goes as far back as
>>> the
>>> 19th century remains unknown, so far as I can tell.  Which is, of
>>> course, not very far.
>>>
>>> JL
>>
>> Unfortunately, this kind of stuff is probably dead. When I was a
>> teenager in the '50's, whenever Billy, a talker of such renown that he
>> was given the nickname "Jerry Lewis," (a *hell* of a compliment, in
>> those days) would try to recite "Deep down in the jungle," he would be
>> shouted down. In the '60's, there was nothing that I could do to
>> persuade our premiere practitioner of the hambone, also named Billy,
>> to
>> demonstrate so much as a single thigh slap, after we got out of the
>> Army. Back in the '40's, Hambone Billy and his brother used to provide
>> what amounted to workshops in hamboning. Freddy, master of the bones
>> and the spoons, stopped all that after he got out of the Navy and got
>> into college. The only things that continue to be cultivated are
>> colorful language and the art of the insult.
>>
>> BTW, you may recall that Abrahams mentions that his informants could
>> sing. That is an understatement. Those men constituted two
>> nationally-known - among blacks, that is - singing groups. As the
>> "Gladiolas," they recorded the original version of "Little Darling."
>> As
>> "Otis Williams and the Charms," they recorded the original version of
>> "Stay," if there's anyone else old enough to remember.
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>>
>>> Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
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>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Wilson Gray
>>> Subject: Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> --
>>> --------
>>>
>>> On Oct 21, 2004, at 10:06 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>
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>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>>>> Subject: Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
>>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> --
>>>> -
>>>> --------
>>>>
>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>> Not to me, in any case. BTW, do you know of Roger D. Abrahams? It's
>>> pronounced as though spelled "Abrams," so I've heard. I have a book
>>> of
>>> his called Deep Down in the Jungle (1963) that, among other things
>>> has
>>> a very small list of black usages from Philadelphia, some of which
>>> are
>>> new to me or have a different meaning from the one that I'm familiar
>>> with. I've been tempted to post some of his stuff. But that would be
>>> fairly pointless, if everyone here already knows his work.
>>>
>>> -Wilson
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Wilson Gray wrote:
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>>>> -----------------------
>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>> Poster: Wilson Gray
>>>> Subject: Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
>>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> --
>>>> -
>>>> --------
>>>>
>>>> On Oct 21, 2004, at 8:47 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>>>> -----------------------
>>>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>>>> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
>>>>> Subject: Re: prissy, 1842 (?)
>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> --
>>>>> -
>>>>> -
>>>>> --------
>>>>>
>>>>> 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 (?)
>>>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> --
>>>>> -
>>>>> -
>>>>> --------
>>>>>
>>>>> 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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>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African
> Languages
> A-740 Wells Hall
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824
> Phone: (517) 432-3099
> Fax: (517) 432-2736
> preston at msu.edu
>