"sweet patootie" slightly antedated to Apr. 13, 1918

[Wilson Gray]

On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> a very strange usage

Apparently, this is Stephen's day for finding such! ;-)

Some may recall that I promised an essay on the meaning-shifts that
have been and are taking place in borrowings from Black English to
White English like _fuck over_ et al. I've decided not to bother.
There's no point. Who expects that any words will retain a particular
meaning or form, over time and across (sub)cultures? Who cares that
the standard form of _hula_ was once _hula-hula_? I've found people
who refuse to believe that "carib-BEE-an" was ever the "right"
prunciation of "Caribbean." ("You're just making that up!")

Just the other day, I came across a photo of a dried-out riverbed
captioned as that of a dried-out river*bank*!

Feh.

--
-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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