"fanelights"

[Paul Johnston]

Sorry, wrong message, but it gets to the same list.

There's variability in that "oi" in bird too.  I only grew up hearing
the originally "genteel" version--that is, like the English vowel in
bird  + /i/ , something like [3i].  Sometimes with only the bare hint
of the /i/, too, at least from (old) middle-class speakers.   Real
NYC vernacular speakers my age had a "full-blooded" one, but still
with a first element of [3].  So I thought the [^i] you heard in
gangster movies was a complete fabrication.  Then I heard Hudson
County, NJ speakers--one of only three (two?) counties that really
come from "Joisey"--and tapes of New Yorkers born about 1880.  It's
real too.  What isn't is anything with a rounded vowel in the beginning.

Paul Johnston
On Oct 1, 2006, at 11:26 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "fanelights"
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> In NYC in the '50s I sometimes heard "fins !" in precisely the
> general sense indicated in the 1870 quot.  The fingers of each hand
> were crossed as an accompanying visual signal.
>
>   At the time I thought the crossed fingers somehow represented
> fish's fins.  That didn't make any sense either, but what the
> heck.  But usually kids just said, "Wait a minute !" or "Time
> out !"  (Possibly also "Truce !" but I couldn't swear to this.)
>
>   JL
>
> Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Lynne Murphy
> Subject: "fanelights"
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> Off-list, I've been directed to _fain v2_ in the OED, which says:
>
> = FEN v.2 Used in the expression fains or fain(s I, fain it, fainit
> (e)s:
> see quots.
> 1870 N. & Q. 4th Ser. VI. 415/2 ‘Fains’, or ‘Fain it’A term
> demanding a
> ‘truce’ during the progress of any game, which is always granted by
> the
> opposing party. Ibid. 517/1 A boy who had ‘killed’ another at
> marbles, that
> is hit his marble, would call out ‘Fain it’, meaning ‘You mustn't
> shoot at
> me in return’; or if a boy was going to shoot, and some inequality of
> surface was in his way, which he would have cleared away, his
> antagonist
> would prevent him by calling out ‘Fain clears’. Ibid. 517/2 If a
> prefect
> wants anything fetched for him and does not say by whom, those who
> wish to
> get off going say ‘Fain I’. 1889 BARRÈRE & LELAND Dict. Slang, Faints
> [sic], in vogue among schoolboys to express a wish temporarily to
> withdraw
> from participation in the particular sport or game being played. 1891
> FARMER Slang, Fains! Fainits! Fain it! 1913 C. MACKENZIE Sinister
> St. I. I.
> vii. 103 He could shout ‘fain I’ to be rid of an obligation and
> ‘bags I’ to
> secure an advantage. 1927 W. E. COLLINSON Contemp. English 14 The
> custom of
> putting oneself out of the game altogether by crossing the fingers and
> saying pax! or faynights! [feinaits] or both together. 1948 J.
> BETJEMAN
> Coll. Poems (1958) 150 ‘I'd rather not.’ ‘Fains I.’ ‘It's up to
> you.’ 1960
> Guardian 1 July 9/7 The Englishman..could remain absolutely pax and
> fainites. 1969 I. & P. OPIE Children's Games i. 18 This rule is so
> embedded
> in children's minds that their immediate response to the proposal
> of a game
> is to cry out..‘Me fains first’. Ibid., He must safeguard himself
> by saying
> in one gulp, ‘Let's-play-Tig-fains-I-be-on-it’.
>
> Thanks very much!
>
> Lynne
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Get your own web address for just $1.99/1st yr. We'll help. Yahoo!
> Small Business.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org