Ofaginzy redux

[Douglas G. Wilson]

At 09:04 PM 3/27/2007, you wrote:

>At 7:44 PM -0500 3/27/07, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>>     Here are two relevant articles from Studies in Slang, vol. VI
>>(by Gerald Leonard Cohen and Barry A. Popik), Frankfurt am Main:
>>Peter Lang, 1999:
>>
>>1) Gerald Cohen: 'Black slang _ofay_ "white person" derives from
>>_auf fait_ "socially proper; genteel",' pp. 48-51.
>
>Jerry, are you really sure it's from the Franco-Prussian "auf fait"?
>The simple "au fait" seems a bit more plausible...

Somebody apparently has seriously speculated "ofay" < "au lait".

-- Doug Wilson


--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.18/734 - Release Date: 3/26/2007 2:31 PM

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org