Ofaginzy redux

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Tue Mar 27 23:37:51 UTC 2007


>I'm a bit surprised by seeing "ofay" described as having "primarily
>literary distribution."

This puzzled me at first too. I think probably the intent is to say that
"foe" is primarily a literary word (rather than a word used in casual
speech), and that (therefore) "foe" would be an unlikely basis for a
'disguised' pig-Latin term. This objection to the pig-Latin etymology was
put forth by Frederic Cassidy in 1975 in a paper which argued for a Yoruba
etymon.

-- Doug Wilson



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