MOT (was Re: reputably = "reputedly")

[Wilson Gray]

Thanks, Ben! I've heard it pronounced in black use both as "mot" and
as "member of the tribe." I first heard it ca.1952. That's early
enough for it to be shortened to "member" and to appear in the NYT.

-Wilson

On 8/7/07, Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      MOT (was Re: reputably = "reputedly")
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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