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

[Douglas G. Wilson]

On 2/6/2012 11:50 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer<bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Ragged but Right, pt. 6 ("bufay", i. e., "ofay")
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 9:44 PM, George Thompson wrote:
>> 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
> The Scott Joplin scholar Edward A. Berlin notes another use of "bufay"
> in that very same issue of the Freeman (9/26/03, p. 5):
>
> ---
> "We are sorry to note the misfortune Mr. Scott Joplin met with his
> Ragtime Opera company while filling an engagement in Springfield, Ill.
> He has been doing big business, but his Bufay representative embarks
> with the receipts, leaving them in a hole. They are in Chicago for the
> present."
> quoted in: _King of Ragtime_ (OUP 1994), p. 126
> http://books.google.com/books?id=akWdAVXFmAsC&pg=PA126
> ---
>
> In a footnote, Berlin speculates about "ofay" and "bufay":
>
> ---
> The term "Bufay" is problematic. "Ofay," pig latin for "foe" and a
> term referring to whites, was in common use by blacks of this time. I
> suggest that "Bufay" means "black foe," as a black thief would have
> been in this case. See discussion in my article "On Ragtime:
> Understanding the Language," _CBMR Digest_ 3/3 (Fall 1990), 6-7.
> ---
>
> Leaving aside the highly suspect Pig Latin explanation of "ofay", I'm
> not sure Berlin is correctly interpreting "bufay" here -- Abbott&
> Seroff may be right in thinking that "ofay" and "bufay" were
> interchangeable. But it would be nice to see examples beyond a single
> issue of a newspaper.
--

If no other example can be found, one can consider the possibility of
typographical error. If I had the requisite databases, I would look (in
the _Freeman_ and elsewhere) for "Aufay" (meaning "Ofay"), and I would
examine the newspaper issue in question for possible examples of capital
"B" where capital "A" should be.

-- Doug Wilson

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