"fanelights"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Bill, even my 19th C. grandparents waited "on" line.

  JL

"Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC"
Subject: Re: "fanelights"
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The term used in Nashville, early 1970's, was "cutbacks". And we waited
"in line". I never heard "on line" until I was well into adulthood, and
thought it was only a British usage even then.

>
> This reminds me of another set of kids'
> expressions that didn't exactly involve games, but more like
> rituals. One in NYC (early 1950s) was "frontsies-backsies"
> (when you were waiting "on line", as we called it, and
> allowed someone in line ahead of you--since it was illicit to
> let them in line behind you--and then you traded places,
> whence also "No frontsies-backsies" from those in back of you
> in the line, who were thereby pushed back a place.
>
>

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