"craps game"

[Herb Stahlke]

I'd argue that there's something else going on here.  At least one thing else.

Craps fits in with game names that have plural form but singular
agreement:  checkers, billiards, draughts, cards, tenpins,
tiddly-winks, etc.  The name of the game also serves often as the name
of a game piece, in which case it has both a singular and a plural,
checker/checkers.  But this doesn't work for all game names, like
craps, where a crap is probably not a game piece.

But there has also been a development in the history of English that
came to fruition probably in late 16th, early 17th centuries, in other
words, Early Modern English.  The -s of words in -ic, like physics;
the -s of words in -nce, like dependence; plurals with singular
agreement like news and checkers, and OE-derived compounds in -man,
like craftsman, spokesman, etc.--these different -s suffixes from
several different sources, some native and some borrowed, came
together during this time as a new suffix marking a kind of
nominalization, where an adjective or a concrete noun takes on a
somewhat more abstract sense.  In Shakespeare you can find "news," for
example, used in exactly the same sense with singular agreement in
some places and plural in others.  It was also about this time that
French borrowings in -nce lost their French pronounciation, with a
nasalized lower back vowel plus /s/ and became anglicized with a schwa
+ /n/ + /s/, with probably an epenthetic [t] between the consonants.

There's more evidence and argument on this in a paper that'll be out
in Word sometime soon.  I don't think craps is a plural in the usages
described by something between a game name and an abstract noun.

Herb



On 3/30/09, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "craps game"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am probably as old as John Lahr ("several decades"), but I've
> always known it as the "game of craps" -- that is, not only as the
> "floating crap game" of Guys and Dolls.   Does going back 16 decades,
> or appearing in the OED, make it more hyercorrect?
>
> craps
> A game of chance played with dice; to shoot craps: to play at this
> game. Also Comb. (see CRAP n.4).
> 1843 J. H. GREENE Expos. Gambling 88 The game of craps..is a game
> lately introduced into New Orleans, and is fully equal to faro in
> its..ruinous effects. 1850 MAYNE REID Rifle Rangers I. i. 9 So I
> stepped inter a shanty whar they wur a playin craps. 1888 St. Louis
> Globe Democrat (Farmer), A party of colored deck hands were playing
> craps. 1902 T. M. YOUNG Amer. Cotton Industry 103 The besetting
> weakness of the negro is gambling, and his favourite game is 'craps'.
> 1903 N.Y. Sun 12 Nov. 1 Two young toughs came along and started to
> shoot craps. ...
>
> In case one thinks "if 'craps' tells me to 'see crap n.4', then
> 'crap' is the correct form", the OED calls "crap" a "var.
> craps".  And with a smirk I suggest that, although the earliest
> quotation for "crap" is co-equal to that for "craps", the one for
> "crap" is clearly a case of a misplaced apostrophe:
>
> crap n.4
>   1. Var. CRAPS.
> 1843 J. H. GREENE Espos. Gambling 89 Ask many of the merchants, what
> has resulted to them in consequence of their clerks being decoyed to
> the crap's table. 1891 Amer. N. & Q. VIII. 41 There is a sort of
> gambling game, called crap, or 'shooting crap', much played by
> newsboys, bootblacks and negroes. ...
>
> Joel
>
> At 3/29/2009 08:26 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>I now see that Google Books has hundreds of exx. of "craps game" going back
>>several decades, but that doesn't make it any less hypercorrect.
>>
>>I.e., ridiculous.
>>
>>JL
>>
>>On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Jonathan Lighter
>><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
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>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> > Subject:      hypercorrect pluralization of attributives
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > The first of these I noticed was "the jobs market," sometime around
>> > 2002.
>> >
>> > This week's New Yorker contains a review of "Guys & Dolls" in the course
>> > of
>> > which (easily old enough to know better) writes not only "craps
>> > game" but also "floating craps game."
>> >
>> > Copy editing gone berserk, sez I.
>> >
>> > JL
>> >
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>>
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