"fanelights"

[Lynne Murphy]

Thanks, Michael,

Saw this after the off-list help I mentioned earlier.  Glad to have an
answer!

Lynne

--On Sunday, October 1, 2006 8:51 am +0100 Michael Quinion
<wordseditor at worldwidewords.org> wrote:

> Lynne Murphy wrote
>
>> I'm doing a bit of research on the "jinx" ritual, where people race to
>> say "jinx" after speaking simultaneously.  My (English) partner says
>> that on his playground kids said "jinx and fanelights"--except that we
>> have no idea how to spell "fanelights".  A few attempts on google have
>> been fruitless. Does anyone know this word?
>
> Often written as "fainites" in reference works, though said in many
> different ways. See http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-fai1.htm, a very
> brief piece that gives the essential information that it derives from
> "fain I", or "fain it". See also OED2 under "fain" v2.
>
>
> --
> Michael Quinion
> Editor, World Wide Words
> E-mail: wordseditor at worldwidewords.org
> Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org
>
>



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer and Head of Department
Linguistics and English Language
Arts B133
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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