Ofaginzy redux--("au fait" = socially proper, genteel)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>     A few days ago I promised to send information on black slang "ofay"
> (white person) deriving from "au fait" (socially proper, genteel).  This
> use of "au fait" doesn't exist in standard French but does (or at least
> did) exist in limited use in black speech.

Does "limited" here mean "infrequent"? It seems that "au fait" = "proper"
was quite conventional in the newspapers back to before the Civil War.
Presumably it was used in black, white, and other speech?

>1) Note Robert Gold's _Jazz Talk_ (under "fay/ofay"), which presents three
>possible etymologies for the term; the second is: "Jazz critic Martin
>Williams suggests that the term may derive from Louisiana Creole parents'
>admonition to children, 'au fait' -- show good manners à la genteel whites."

But is there any evidence of anyone ever uttering this admonition?
Particularly, pre-1900? Or might it spring purely from Martin Williams'
imagination?

>To African-American recipients of less than genteel treatment from whites,
>the dual au fait/ofay probably evoked some sarcasm.  Hence the derogatory
>use of "ofay."

The first citation in OED (1899!) doesn't seem obviously derogatory.

"Ofay" (various spellings) seems always at least a little bit derogatory
from its first appearance in the Baltimore "Afro-American [Ledger]" in
1920, however. "Au fait" = "proper" did not appear in this newspaper. (I
base these assertions on a search of the on-line pages from 1902 into the
1930's. Barry Popik more-or-less got the same results, I think.)

Note that there is an ice cream confection called an "aufait" (word appears
in MW3). I can find citations back to 1913 ... not many though. Maybe Barry
Popik knows how old this word is.

-- Doug Wilson


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