Heard on The judges: "Ripping and running"

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 7:40 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:> wrote:
> Rippin' and Runnin' - Tiny Bradshaw & Ork (Lay It) King 4547

I've now acquired a copy of this, together with 1950's

The _Boodie_ Green

by 1961 covered and already respelled as

The _Bootie_ Green.

I came across the title spelled as

The _Boo-Dee_ Green

in 1959.

Ca. 1943, I learned a schoolyard poem that rhymed "her boo[...]y" with
"Miss Moo_d_y." As a consequence, were I in charge, the canonical
spelling would be _boody_, no doubt [= "without a ..."], with _boodie_
as an acceptable alternative.

As for the innumerable spoken instances of, e.g."boo-TAY" [bu.'te],
indicating that the underlying segment is, indeed, /t/, I have only a
very weak counter-argument, given the lack of documentary evidence.
Indeed, such documentary evidence as I'm aware of is of no help.

Once, in the NYT BR, I read a review by a black woman of a book
written by a black man. In the reviewer's excerpts from the text,
there occurred many instances of the word, _boody_. The reviewer
sic-ed each instance. My immediate interpretation was that she was
some kind of prude, grossed out by his continual use of the obscenity.
However, upon closer reading, it became clear that the reviewer's
problem was by no means with the word. Rather, what was bothering the
hell out of her was, in fact, the spelling of it,: _boody_!

It's merely a matter of random choice as to who was in the right, in
this case. I agree with him, of course. But there's nothing there to
prevent another from agreeing with her that the brother mussa done
los' hiz min'.

Of course, Clarence Major 1970, 2nd ed. 1994, has no problem with
either spelling, beyond asserting that _boody_ is older. Well.
actually, it's possible to suppose, from his God-damn-it-I'll-bite-you
presentation, that he doesn't think that these two spellings
necessarily have the same referent. That's what annoys me about him.
You don't find, e.g. Jonathan Lighter - just to pull a name randomly
out of the air - going into publication half-assing it like that!

IAC, what might be termed "emphatic T-ing" is commonplace in BE. E.g.
there exists a blues song which opens with a woman saying,

"I'm leaving *you*, daddy ['dA.ti]!"

in which the pronunciation _dat-ty_ is used to indicate her
determination to get hat.

Unfortunately, not knowing that I would have any future interest in
this otherwise-forgettable record, I have no further memory of it.

In the movie, Barber Shop, the evil 'hood-boss says to the chump dumb
enough to accept a loan from him and who is now trying to get out from
under by returning the loan the very same day that he got it, so as to
avoid having to pay the vigorish,

"This is the first time that *ANYbody* ['IntI.badI] as tried to give
me my money back [sc. without paying the vigorish]!"

My mother used to use _anTy..._ all the time. And, just last week, I
heard someone say,

"I would be doing that, antyhow!"
--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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