"gimme some skin", "righteous" (Burley, 1940)

[Dennis Preston]

I doubt if this was the context in which you heard or saw it. A much
better-known and more widespread version  of "Geechee" is its
reference to the Gullah people of the Georgia and South Carolina
coast and sea islands.

dInIs

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      Re: "gimme some skin", "righteous" (Burley, 1940)
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Ah ha. Thanks. I have seen "Geechee", though I don't remember where, and I
>didn't understand it.
>
>m a m
>
>On Feb 4, 2008 2:41 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  my mother once told me that, when she was in college ca.1930 at the
>>  same Wiley College featured in The Great Debaters (she used to babysit
>>  James Farmer), it was whatever word that they used for "hip" in those
>>  days to say, "Gimme some skin, frien'!" "Righteous" is probably as old
>>  as water. But, of course, it takes time for these things to get into
>>  print and some never do and some remain local, such as the East-Texas
>>  use of "Geechee" to describe a Creole-French-speaking black
>>  Louisianians or merely one with a French surname.
>>
>>  -Wilson
>>
>>
>--
>Mark Mandel
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA

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