"Coffee" as the name of a female slave

[Wilson Gray]

Oh, that comment wasn't aimed at you, Joel. I beg your pardon. That
was meant for "four-pages-of-Coffee-in-the-West-Los Angeles-telephone-
book-in-the-'60's." Yours is an interesting question. It made me
wonder whether day-names are only for males or, if they're not,
whether female day-names fall together with the male names.

I regret the misunderstanding. :-(

-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



On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 9:03 PM, 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: "Coffee" as the name of a female slave
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2/12/2009 01:52 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>As
>>for nicknaming someone on the basis of his skin tone, well, you can
>>*not* be serious!
>
> Wilson, did you miss that I said in 1713?  When this Rhode Island
> slave was likely named by her master, or her importer.
>
> What I wondered is whether it was unusual to give a *female* slave a
> name like "Coffee", since one of its possible sources is a male day name.
>
> Joel
>
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