aste(r)perious

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Sep 5, 2004, at 3:37 AM, Jonathon Green wrote:

> Surely
> astorperious: arrogant, haughty.
>
> This reflects the position of the Astor family...

ah, this is the proposal in green's Cassell's Dictionary of Slang:

astorperious adj. [20C] (US) arrogant, haughty (cf. ASTORBILT).  [Astor
+ SE imperious]

clarence major's Juba to Jive has

Astorperious adj. (1930s-1940s) haughty.  (ZNH, AM, p. 94) Rare.
Harlem use.  See "Dicty."

(that's Zora Neale Hurston, "Story in Harlem Slang", American Mercury
55 (July 1942), 84-96.)

major's entry suggests that the word (and its variants) pretty much
died out after hurston's time.  we've seen that this isn't true, though
the citations i've collected so far are really scattered.

i tried e-mailing three of the sources of recent cites.  two of them
posted from aol accounts that are no longer functioning.  the third is
the fantasy author Linda Windsor, who's not especially likely to
respond.  i've also left a note on Barbara Neely's website, but that's
also not likely to pan out.

meanwhile, "dicty" (and its variants).  adj. or n.  major dates it from
1890s-1920s, defines it as "snobbish or pretentious" and marks it as
being of both southern and northern use.  green dates it as 1920s+;
defines it as "arrogant, snobbish, conceited" or "elegant, high-class,
sophisticated"; marks it as US Black; and speculates an etymology from
SE "decked" 'dressed' (lit. 'covered').

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu), still on the trail