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

[Jonathan Lighter]

My desk copy of the revised ed. of Abrahams's book (Chicago: Aldine, 1970) (revised from his doctoral dissertation) indicates that the joke containing "okey-dok" (p. 225) was recorded in manuscript in 1958-59.

  FWIW.

  JL

  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
Subject: Re: Apology [was: Obama warns of the "old okey-doke"]
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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

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