saditty, hincty + dicty

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 24, 2005, at 11:58 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: saditty, hincty + dicty
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 23:46:17 -0400, Benjamin Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 22:53:51 -0400, Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
>> wrote:
>>> On Jul 24, 2005, at 6:27 AM, Margaret Lee wrote:
>>>> What is the pronunciation of 'dicty' ?  --'dick-ty' or 'dike-ty'?
>>>
>>> For me, it's pronounced as "dick-ty." I'd be willing to spell the
>>> word
>>> as "dickty."
>>
>> And that is indeed the preferred spelling in what is perhaps the locus
>> classicus for "dic(k)ty" (adj. and n.), Rudolph Fisher's _The Walls of
>> Jericho_ (1928):
>>
>> http://print.google.com/print?id=k-nkjwg0AdYC&q=dickty|dickties
>>
>> And here's the "dickty" spelling from Marcus Garvey in 1920
>> (antedating
>> the 1923 cite in HDAS):
>>
>> -----
>> Marcus Garvey, "The Negro World" (1920) in _The Marcus Garvey and
>> Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers_ (1984), p. 509
>> If these big Negroes and dickty Negroes knew what I do, they would
>> come into
>> this movement now.
>> http://print.google.com/print?id=LBA_u5gz6vkC&q=dickty
>> -----
>
> One more interesting Google Print cite...
>
> -----
> _Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage_ (2003), edited by Richard
> Allsopp,
> p. 191, col. 2
> *dick ty* (dic ty) [dIkti] adj (Antg, Baha) [IF] [Usu of women]
> Elegantly
> dressed; [Derog] proud and haughty looking; [of a hairstyle] glamorous
> and
> showy. [Prob < (SE) _dignity_ with reduction and devoicing of
> intervocalic
> consonant cluster [dIgn at ti > dIgnti > dIkti]
> http://print.google.com/print?id=PmvSk13sIc0C&q=dickty
> -----
>
> Does the "dignity" derivation seem plausible? And could it have
> originated
> in Caribbean English? Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica, after all.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>

I really doubt it. There were a coupla three black-American calypsos,
way back when, but nothing permanent. And there was Stevie Wonder's
"Boogie On, Reggae Woman," which was aa reggae only in its title. The
influence is usually from the U.S. to the Anglo-Caribbean. The oldest
reggae whose title I know is "Work With Me, Annie" - cited as a
"typical" reggae in NewsTime in the '60's - is originally an American
R&B song, written and originally recorded by Hank Ballard and a
mega-hit in the late '50's, who also wrote and originally recorded "The
Twist," as well as "Finger-Poppin' Time," which lives on in musical
trivia as the only instance of an R&B song that has been covered by a
bluegrass group, and by no less a group than the Stanley Brothers, at
that.

Do you recall the DJ in the reggae movie, "The Harder They Come,"
putting on his best American accent?

And [dIgntI], with the cluster [gnt], is clearly not a possible English
word.

-Wilson