Stanley Crouch ...

[Wilson Gray]

is the name of the author who has used in print the spelling "boody,"
preferred by this writer, in place of the unfortunately probably
now-standard spelling, "booty," which, among other things, falls
together with "booty" in the pirate sense and in other senses (is
anyone else familiar with the food product named, My Sister's Booty?)

The reviewer in the NYTBR *sic*-ed "boody." It took me about a week to
get that it was the spelling to which the *sic* referred, _boody_
having been my mental image of the spelling of the term since I was
about five years old.

Of course, this is hardly the only time that a BE obscenity has been
reduced to an ordinary, everyday term in standard English, cf. "hit
that (ass)," "tap that (ass)," most recently. There was even a
commericial in which a *woman* says about a passing man, "I could
_hit_ that." Aaarrrggghhh!!!

Though The Who don't mention it, a good reason to die before you get
old is to avoid having to feel the language shift under your feet.

BTW, to give the devil his - well, history its - due, The Bootery, the
name of a former Saint Louis shoe store, was good for a chuckle
amongst colored kids, even back in the day.
--
-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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