MOT (was Re: reputably = "reputedly")

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 8/7/07, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It strikes me as being a mispronunciation in BE. "Presumably" is not
> in common use and probably is usually pronunced "prolly." For me,
> anyway, "supposably" is easier to say than "supposedly," so I use
> "supposably" when speaking to other MOT's.
>
> Around the time that I learned MOT (member of the tribe), I also heard
> (or read in Mario Pei?) that it was originally a bit of Jewish slang
> meaning, "member of the tribe (of Judah}," misunderstood or
> re-analyzed by blacks as meaning "(descended from some unknown) member
> of a tribe (in Africa)." Any truth to that, does anyone know or care?

FWIW, the Jewish sense of "MOT" shows up in a 1948 _American Speech_ article:

--
M.O.T. _Member of the Tribe._ A fellow Jew. Usually a noun but
occasionally used adjectivally as in: 'That's an M.O.T. fraternity.'
-- Donn O'Meara, "American-Jewish Alphabetical Expressions" _AmSp_
23(3/4) p. 315.
--

OED and HDAS, meanwhile, have "member" meaning 'a fellow black person'
from 1962, in a "Jazz Lexicon" appearing in the New York Times
Magazine. Nothing on "MOT" used similarly.


--Ben Zimmer

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