the jig is up

[Douglas G. Wilson]

On 4/12/2011 8:20 PM, victor steinbok wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       victor steinbok<aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: the jig is up
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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).
--

IIRC "jigaboo" with the appropriate sense is only from the 1920's. HDAS
shows some bracketed examples of "jijiboo" etc. earlier, with unclear
sense AFAIK. "Jigwalk" however is apparently from as early as 1899 (with
presumably erroneous spelling in OED under "ofay" per our discussion a
few years back).

Nowadays we see on the Internet "we[e]aboo" [usually derogatory] =
"Japanophile" or "non-Japanese who desires to be/act Japanese": supposed
origin from a nonsense word in a comic strip, but I dunno.

-- Doug Wilson

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