bite one's finger tips

[Baker, John M.]

        I assume that the meaning is that the nervous brokers have
bitten their fingernails down to the quick, and even beyond.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of George Thompson
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 12:00 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: bite one's finger tips

> I would have understood the phrase if it said they "have burnt the
tips
> of their fingers", or even "had the tips of their fingers bit".
>
> DanG

The Courier had more little typos than other papers of the era, but this
would be a pretty big typo.  Still, it makes better sense than "bite
one's finger tips".  "Prefer the more difficult reading", though.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, June 1, 2010 5:02 pm
Subject: Re: bite one's finger tips
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> I would have understood the phrase if it said they "have burnt the
tips
> of their fingers", or even "had the tips of their fingers bit".
>
> DanG
>
> On 5/31/2010 11:58 PM, George Thompson wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
-----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       George Thompson<george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> > Subject:      bite one's finger tips
> >
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
> >
> > This is an expression meaning to lose at the Stock Market, or to
> make a losing bet, or something.  It does not seem that the OED has
> anything like it, and I've never encountered it elsewhere.
> >
> >          The Stocks. -- The winds are not more variable than the
> price of Stocks as regulated by the Board of Brokers.  ***  So many
> long faces among the Brokers, we have not seen for some time, -- of
> course we infer that some of the initiated themselves, have bit the
> tips of their fingers by buying or selling on time.
> >          Morning Courier&  New-York Enquirer, October 22, 1831, p.
> 2, col. 2
> >
> > GAT
> >
> > George A. Thompson
> > Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre",
> Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
> >

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org