Heard on "Judge Mathis": [Inz] "money"

[Herb Stahlke]

Saw a sign once on a permanent rummage sale along US25 in southern
Tennessee that read "Odds n Inns."

Herb


On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 7:21 PM, 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:      Heard on "Judge Mathis": [Inz] "money"
>
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>
> A gigolo being for the recovery of money is explaining to JM that he can't
> mount a proper defense for fear of embarrassing his patron.
>
> The Judge replies to the effect that
>
> "I know you don't want to be doing nothing like that, 'cause you want to be
> able to go back and get you some more of them _[Inz]_ from her!"
>
> I've heard [Inz} used to mean "money" since I was a child. But, for the
> obvious reason of the problem of slang compounded by dialect, I have no
> idea whether the word is "ends" or "ins," since semantic development is
> nugatory in either case. Money is the means to any _end. Money gets you
> _in_. At the _end_ of a job, you get money. Money _in_ your pocket. The
> means are your_ends_. With _ins_ you don't worry about being on the outs.
>
> UD has both _ends_ and _ins_ as "money." Quelle surprise! One poster
> asserts "< make ends (meet)."
>
> As good a WAG as any other.
>
> This was one of the few times that I've found anything ancient in UD that's
> also relatively rare, to the extent that I was surprised Mathis used [inz],
> he being much younger than I and it was never as hip as, e.g. _bread_.
>
> Google has nothing old enough to provide evidence for an etymology.
> --
> -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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