"fanelights"

[Mullins, Bill AMRDEC]

I bet they didn't live in Middle Tennessee.


>
> 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"
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------
>
> 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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