siditty, saditty (1963), siddity (1965)

[Sam Clements]

I wonder if siditty started life as just a play on the word "city?"  Someone
comparing snooty city people with their less sophisticated country cousins.

I'm not a linguist, so don't know what you call that, or what the mechanism
is.

Sam Clements

----- Original Message -----
From: "Benjamin Zimmer" <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 3:21 AM
Subject: siditty, saditty (1963), siddity (1965)


> Let's hear it for Proquest's Ethnic NewsWatch. The archive of the _New
> Pittsburgh Courier_ easily antedates DARE/OED's 1967 cite for "siditty"
> and its variants. All but one of the cites below come from Whitelaw
> MacBride's "People in the News" column, which looks like a real goldmine
> for AAVE slang.
>
>
> * siditty
>
> 1963 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 6 Apr. 19 (Proquest) How a flock of members
> in the well-known "siditty" national women's organization is planning to
> desert to another group of the same ilk.
>
> 1963 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 27 Apr. 11 (Proquest) After that recent stag
> party in that exclusive Pittsburgh club, the siditty folks who rented it
> out the next night claimed that the joint was "dirty, nasty and filthy,"
> and complained loud and long.
>
> 1963 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 2 Nov. 15 (Proquest) How about the ruckus in
> that siditty Baltimore crap and poker game wherein D.C. cops, doctors and
> social workers really go at the bones in "dicty" fashion.
>
>
> * saditty
>
> 1963 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 28 Sep. 18 (Proquest) Schenley, stronghold
> of this city's "saditty" set, was invaded one recent Sunday afternoon by
> bearers of "way out" paintings, carvers of futuristic tree trunks, and
> be-sneakered exponents of "beatnik" poetry.
>
> 1964 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 25 Jan. 10 (Proquest) One saditty matron
> under fire claims she does so because her tan acquaintances "might not
> know how to talk" to her spouse's white colleagues.
>
> 1965 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 9 Jan. 9 (Proquest) Wasn't that Eastern
> barmaid surprised when a few of her more down-to-earth customers took her
> up on a casual invitation to "drop by the house during the holidays."
> Unfortunately, they turned up when some of her saditty relatives were
> there.
>
>
> * siddity
>
> 1965 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 27 Feb. 2 (Proquest) Siddity matrons along
> the East Coast have found themselves at a point of no return, so far as
> their ultra-ultra clubs are concerned.
>
> 1965 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 13 Mar. 2 (Proquest) The husband and wife
> team, both of whom have since remarried, are having their squabbles over
> the house they still own together in a siddity Pittsburgh neighborhood.
>
> 1965 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 1 May 11 (Proquest) Friends of a well known
> East Coast matron are sympathizing over her recent predicament. It is
> being said when she approached her jazzy mate about playing around with a
> gal who once came close to making the "siddity" set, he proceeded to put a
> few lumps on her head.
>
> 1965 _New Pittsburgh Courier_ 13 Nov. 13 (Proquest) A lot of the siddity
> set expressed alarm over the actions of another cullud group meeting at
> the same hotel in a Southern city recently. While the siddity folks were
> walking around proud as peacocks in their furs, their real live country
> cousins were sitting in the lobby eating box lunches and taking naps in
> those big plush chairs.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>