the jig is up

[victor steinbok]

I opened this thread by posting "jig is over" from 1760. OED has the
same or similarly dated entries for "jig is over" and "jig" in this
sense (although "jigaboo" is a bit earlier ~1900, and "jig is up" is a
bit later 1800). But "lynching" has a long and diverse history,
starting with Judge Lynch locking up Royalists during the
Revolutionary War. If there were any "lynchings" of blacks between
1775 and 1860, they would have been isolated and would not qualify as
a social phenomenon. "Lynching" became associated with black victims
only during or shortly after the Civil War.

VS-)

On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 8:12 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> HDAS has "The jig is over" from 1777, and "The Gig [sic] is up" from 1778
> (showing the contemporaneousness of {jig} and {gig}).  The 1777 ex. is the
> only one in the U.S. that I'm aware of with "over" rather than "up."
>
> HDAS has "jig," 'black person,' from 1922.
>
> JL

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