Apology [was: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"]

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jan 24 19:33:16 UTC 2008


Aw, Joel, you don't ned to apologize for that kind of stuff! That's
like the time that I was chatting with another cat person about our
respective pussies and Eudora went nuts! Yet, not even the real Eudora
would have noticed anything wrong, just as I could find what the
problem was with your original post.

I have no idea where "n-word" came from, but I've been using "magic
word," whenever, for some reason, I didn't want to say or write
"nigger," since the 'Sixties.

-Wilson

On 1/24/08, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Apology [was: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> My sincere apologies.  Eudora was warning me about the N-word, which
> I had not noticed in one quotation for "okey-doke".
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/24/2008 11:14 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> >At 1/24/2008 09:27 AM, Amy West wrote:
> >>That sense is new to me, but that ain't saying much. I use
> >>"okey-dokey" for "OK", and get some giggles when I do. I always learn
> >>stuff here.
> >
> >I think I would get giggles if I said "okey-dokey" too.
> >
> >OED on-line (May 2004) has as its two earliest quotations for the
> >"confidence trick" sense:
> >1964 in R. D. Abrahams Deep down in Jungle v. 210 The reason why I
> >took you for the okey-dok [sic], is because you was the sharpest
> >nigger in town.
> >1975 R. HILL O. J. Simpson 13, I put the 'okey-doke' on them.  [Of
> >course we don't know from the OED who the speaker was!]
> >
> >But Eudora seems to be quite on the qui vive for something!  It warns
> >me that this message "is likely to offend the average reader.  You
> >might consider toning it down."  What could it possibly be alerting me about?
> >
> >Joel
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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