Ragged but Right, pt. 6 ("bufay", i. e., "ofay")

[George Thompson]

The OED has "ofay" from 1899, and from the Indianapolis Freeman, at that.
 Here is a variant form, "bufay", from the Freeman of 1903.


     In 1903 P. B. R. Hendrix reported from Chicago that, "Irving Jones,
for the past two weeks playing our leading vaudeville houses, cleaned up
everything.  The Bufays [i. e., white performers (note by Abbott & Seroff)]
hate for him to be on the bill with them for they have to work so hard to
make a hit with the audience."

     "P. B. R. Hendrix's Chicago Notes", *Indianapolis Freeman*, September
26, 1903

     Lynn Abbott & Doug Seroff. * Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows,
"Coon Songs," and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz*.  University Press of
Mississippi, 2007*, *p. 35; fn. 70, p. 386


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

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