saditty, hincty + dicty

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 26, 2005, at 1:46 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: saditty, hincty + dicty
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>> -----
>> _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.
>
> As for the Caribbean origin, it's conceivable, but I think the traffic
> is
> often in the other direction. No information on dating in the
> Caribbean, I
> suppose?
>
> As for the etymology, I doubt the exact progression presented above.
> However, note 'obsolete' Scots "ding" /dIN/ as a variant of "digne"
> /dInj(@)/, descended from French "digne".

The above-suggested etymology by Allsopp is phonologically impossible.
At best, it's a linguistic equivalent of creationism. If language
worked the way required for the suggested etymology to be anything but
nonsense, the English language could be derived directly from the
sounds that chimps make. Allsopp's method allows us to derive, e.g.
"battery" from "batty." Insert schwa, yielding "batt at i." Insert r to
break up the hiatus. Ay wala: "battery" from "batty." The Scots example
doesn't speak to that problem at all. If the claim was that "dicty" is
derived by way of "dinkty," that would certainly be phonologically
possible. In fact, if it could be shown that historical -nkty, over
time, regularly changes to -kty in at least one dialect of English,
that would be very interesting. Of course, you'd then have to show why
"hinkty" hasn't become "hicty." But that's certainly doable, in theory,
at least.

-Wilson

> And look at the semantic match of US and Caribbean "dicty" with Scots
> (and
> northern English) "dink" [adj.] (origin "obscure" ... but perhaps
> related
> to "ding"??), still in use (I think), defined in SND as "(1) Neat,
> trim,
> finely dressed ... Applied only to women. / (2) Prim, precise;
> haughty."
>
> Is there any record of "dincty"/"dinkty"?
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>