siditty, saditty (1963), siddity (1965)

[Wilson Gray]

On 7/20/05, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at rci.rutgers.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: siditty, saditty (1963), siddity (1965)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 02:45:33 -0400, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
>
> >I see four words with similar application, in approximately the same
> >milieu. Can we etymologize any of them?
> >
> >"Dicty"/"dickty".
> >
> >DARE speculates < Scots "dicht" (= "dight"). Hard to see the exact
> >evolution ... but note the Scots expression "dichty water English"
> >meaning "the affected speech of a Scot trying to sound English"
> >("Concise Scots Dictionary").
> >
> >"Hinkty"/"hincty".
> >
> >It has been speculated to be from "henk"/"hink" = "hesitation". But one
> >might also consider a connection with 'obsolete' Scots "hichty" =
> >"haughty". I see the form "hicty" once at N'archive (1929): just a
> >typo.? One might also ask whether there was ever "hichty-dichty" or so
> >(cf. "hoity-toity") to explain both "hincty" and "dicty".
>
> Any possible connection here with the derogatory terms "dinky" and
> "hunky"? Both appear in the glossary accompanying Rudolph Fisher's _The
> Walls of Jericho_ (1928), listed under "boogy" as "synonyms of Negro".
> Probably unrelated --

HDAS guesses that "dink(y)" is an alteration of "dinge"/"dingy."

My mother told me that, when she was young - ca.1914-1932 - the local
train that connected Marshall, TX with Longview, TX, was known as "The
Dinky," but only because it was literally "dinky," in the sE sense.
Its only raison d'etre was to transport blacks living west of Marshall
in Longview to their jobs in Marshall's railroad shops, sawmills,
piney woods, potteries, etc. and back.

I'm familiar with "dingy" only in its standard meaning - getting one's
whites white and one's brights bright was far more difficult in those
days of yesteryear than it is, todays. I know "dinge" as only a
literary term, an insult applied by whites to blacks, supposedly. I've
never heard it spoken by anyone in real life, though I've read it and,
perhaps, heard it in movies.

and "hunky" of course has that whole Hungarian lineage.

Needless to say.

-Wilson Gray

>
> >"Siditty"/etc.
> [...]
> >"Arnchy".
> [...]
>
> Plus "uppity" and "biggity", which Doug mentioned in another post. And
> where does "muckety-muck" fit into all of this? Any significance to the
> fact that Claude McKay spelled it as "mucty-muck" in _Home to Harlem_
> (1928), with that "-cty" ending reminiscent of "dicty" and "hincty"?
>
> Getting away from "-(i)ty" forms, another snobbish term is "kack", listed
> in Fisher's glossary as "extreme sarcasm for _dicty_."  And then there's
> "astorperious", previously discussed here.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>


--
-Wilson Gray