ISHT

[Jonathan Lighter]

"J-bronie" represents "jabroney," "gibroney," etc., var. "jaboney," "giboney," etc., meaning "stupid or offensive person."  See HDAS I.

JL

"Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Arnold M. Zwicky"
Subject: Re: ISHT
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On Mar 10, 2005, at 8:07 AM, David Bergdahl wrote:

> I think this is to avoid being filtered out by search engines.
>
this is almost surely how it started. but it's gone past that. my
student reported people *saying* it (in informal, unmonitored
settings). some of the google hits don't sound like the writing of
people who are tailoring their language -- for example,

Low Budget Tone's News And Views Pertaining To Jacksquat
... Me? I'm sick as crap right now. Let me say some isht first. Whoever
the j-bronie is leaving stupid ass isht on my guestbook, is a retard.
...
www.angelfire.com/ny/blasphamy/March29th2g.html

[this is also worth attention for its apparently telescoped wh
construction. "j-bronie" is a insult label, quite possibly coined by
the writer of the above.]

and. as larry horn is about to observe in the very next ADS posting,
his yale students have been reporting (spoken) slang "ish" for "shit"
for some years. (i agree with larry that this is probably a
cluster-simplified version of "isht".) quite
probably taboo avoidance, but of the everybody-gets-it sort, as with
"freakin'" and "friggin'" etc. for "fuckin'" (see The F-Word for plenty
of examples).

some of the users might not even see the "shit" in "ish".

arnold


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