BE slang: _fade_ "white person"

[Margaret Lee]

One of the definitions of 'fade' in Major's _Juba to Jive_ is "a negro who fades into a white way of life." 
 
--Margaret Lee
 

________________________________
 From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2013 10:47 PM
Subject: BE slang: _fade_ "white person"
  
American Slang: 2nd Edition - Page 158

"fade 4 n _black by 1970s_ A white person"

http://goo.gl/b2J8s

Back in the day, during the course of a thread about _ofay_, I OT'ed
about the use, in addition to "ofay," of _fade_ as a term for "white
person" in Saint Louis BE, ca. 1950-. By the mid- '60's, I was living
in Los Angeles. The term was still unknown there. The only person that
I ever heard use it, a native of L.A., attributed it to me and
mispronounced it: "A 'fabe,' as *you* would say" or words to that
effect.

--
-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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org