"coony" adj. = sly, cunning, 1910

[Alison Murie]

On Feb 3, 2010, at 5:27 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      "coony" adj. = sly, cunning, 1910
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> The OED has "coony" (adj) only as "bald like a raccoon", with its
> only quotation
> 1887 Sat. Rev. 16 July 71 Hat-wearing man becomes Alopeciac, or
> 'coony'.
>
> The following seems to be an instance of "coony" (adj) = sly,
> cunning, from 1910.  Perhaps a variant of "canny", for which the OED
> says "Also in north Eng. dial. conny."?
>
> "In order to avoid accidents coony old Antonio had had false bottoms
> put in his two valises as well as his trunk, and in the pocket of one
> of them he had stowed away the baggage-check and a sight draft for
> twenty-four hundred pounds."
>
> From Arthur Train, "The Spanish Prisoner," "Originally published in
> the March, 1910, issue of THE COSMOPOLITAN
> MAGAZINE."  Source:
> http://www.hidden-knowledge.com/funstuff/spanishprisoner/spanishprisoner1.html
> ,
> page 2.
>
> Joel
~~~~~~~~~~~~
' "bald" like a raccoon??'  Coons ain't bald.  Far from it.  'Possums
look bald, but aren't.   Perhaps the meaning of "coony" is really
cunning, which would be more appropriate altogether.
AM

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