_Boody_ "arse" vs. _booty_ "id."

[Jonathan Lighter]

Damned prescriptivists! They're everywhere!

JL

On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 12:38 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      _Boody_ "arse" vs. _booty_ "id."
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Some may remember an earlier post in which I mentioned the case in
> which a black male author's use of "boody" was _sic_-ed by a black
> female reviewer. My first impression was that she was annoyed by his
> use of the obscenity. Further reading revealed that it was, rather,
> the author's use of the spelling, _boody_, instead of -_booty_ .
>
> IAC, the book is Don't The Moon Look Lonesome and its author is Stanley
> Crouch.
>
> As for my further blather about "emphatic devoicing" being the
> probable origin of the feeling that the proper spelling of "boody" is
> _booty_, causing people to relate the word to _booty_ in the pirate
> sense, a clear example of this can be heard in the rap, Rapper's
> Delight, by the Sugar Hill Gang. The rapper has the audience repeat
> after him:
>
> "I. Am. Somebah.Tea!"
>
> --
> -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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