dub

[Wilson Gray]

Does DARE have a cite for _the potentest thing_, as in Erskine Caldwell,
1935, "Journeyman"?

"He's _the potentest thing_," she said.

I've heard and used this practically since I learned to talk, ca.1940. My
mother, who'll be 97 in about three weeks, recalls it from as far back as
she can remember. Well, what she and I actually recall sounds like
"pote-niss thang." We're natives of East Texas. I'm following Caldwell WRT
the written form. It means something like "just about the cutest person or
thing that you've ever seen!" I recall it as being used exclusively with
reference to children, as a compliment to the parents. Of course, I was only
a child myself at the time, so I have no idea how the phrase might have been
used among adults. Caldwell sorta, kinda, maybe hints that the phrase may
have sexual connotations, based on _potent_, among adults. But it was in the
early '50's that I read the story and, even then, I still wasn't fully hip
to the jive, so to speak. Indeed, until I saw the phrase in Caldwell, I was
under impression that it was "the [im]portantest thing," even though
_important_ sounds like "imPAWtent and not like "imPOEtant." But that's how
folk - and even some "scientific" - etymologies are made.

-Wilson




On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Joan H. Hall <jdhall at wisc.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joan H. Hall" <jdhall at WISC.EDU>
> Subject:      dub
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> DARE's entry for "double-u" has a couple of examples of "dub(s).
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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-- 
-Wilson
–––
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.
–Mark Twain


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