finif (was Re: jitney 1912 etc.)

[Barbara Need]

It was in a crossword puzzle today or yesterday. (Fin, that is.)

On 17 Mar 2009, at 1:47 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> "Fin," for short. But you don't much hear that or see it these days,
> more's the pity.
>
> On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 1:28 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Douglas G. Wilson
>> <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>> Of course what comes up today at N'archive may not reliably come up
>> tomorrow.
>> ----------
>>
>> _Daily News_ [Marshall MI], 23 April 1903: p. '2':
>>
>> <<Picturesque Additions to the Language Used by Newsboys. / Here is
>> the
>> St. Louis newsboys' glossary of slang, as revised and edited by
>> "Noddles" [?: "Noddies"?] Fagan, a famous newsboy now in St. Louis,
>> says
>> the Post-Dispatch of that city: / Meg, a cent; jitney, a nickel; case
>> note, a dollar; pubil, $2, finif, $5;
>> ...
>>
>> ... "Finif" would appear German. ...
>>
>> <<<<<<<<<<<
>>
>> I always took "finif" to be  Yiddish. Lessee...
>> -----
>>
>> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=fin
>>
>> fin ... U.S. underworld slang sense of "$5 bill" is 1925, from
>> Yiddish
>> finif "five," from Ger. fünf. The same word had been used in England
>> 1868 to mean "five pound note" (earlier finnip, 1839).
>> -----
>>
>> http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finif
>> (Shelta)
>>
>> finif
>> From the Yiddish finf, "five".
>> A monetary note of five pounds.
>>
>> References:
>> Language in Danger Andrew Dalby, 2003
>>
>> -----
>> http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.arts.sf.fandom/2006-03/msg00002.html
>>
>> Also finif, finiff, finnif; Yinglish, compare German fuenf.
>> Leo Rosten, _The Joys of Yiddish._
>>
>> -----
>>
>> But also "finif" in Pennsylvania German, which is unlikely to be the
>> source here -- just a parallel development to the Yiddish:
>>
>> http://preview.tinyurl.com/cgu475 (Google Books), from
>> The Pennsylvania German Dialect
>> By Marion Dexter Learned
>> Published by Press of I. Friedenwald, 1889
>> Original from Harvard University
>> Digitized Aug 2, 2005

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