[Ads-l] Anatoly Liberman writes:

[Wilson Gray]

Thanks, Stephen! I've never heard of any game with such a name. But,

Youneverknow.

For example, I know "I spy" as a variant of "hide and (go) seek." The
latter has "Last night / Night before," etc. and a call of "All hid?" The
former has "I spy / Hick-a-mo-rye" / [forgotten] / It's a bird on a fiddle
/ Must I kill it?" After people stop shouting "Naw!," "It" calls, "All that
ain't hid, holler 'Eyeball!'" After the cries of "Eyeball!" cease, "It"
goes on the hunt.

OTOH, in an episode of something or other, mom and dad are driving with the
kids, who are getting a bit rambunctious in the backseat. Dad suggests,
"Let's play a game!" "Okay!" "How about 'I spy'?" "Okay!" "I spy / With my
little eye / something red." Etc.

Not the same game, needless to say.

"Hully gully" caught my attention because the song, "(Baby) Hully Gully" by
The Olympics is a brilliant, IMO, melding of old-school, Southern
call-and-response with new-school - 1959 new-school, that is - Northern
rhythm and blues dance rhythms. I find it irresistible. I've played it
surely hundreds of thousands of times since 1959. Indeed, I'm listening to
it even as I write.

W:Pedia, for some reason, claims that

"The Hully Gully is a type of unstructured line dance often considered to
have originated in the sixties, but is also mentioned some forty years
earlier as a dance common in the black juke joints in the first part of the
twentieth century."

The hully gully was neither "unstructured" nor a line dance and it
originated in 1959. If there was another dance called the "hully gully"
before 1959 or after, there's no connection.

W:pedia continues:

"In its modern form it consisted of a series of 'steps' that are called out
by the MC."

This is not the 1959 dance. Clearly, it's like "bring P" vs. "bring pee," a
random  coincidence.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 12:12 PM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Anatoly Liberman writes:
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson,=0A=
> =0A=
> I commented on Anatoly Liberman's blog post of 29 Nov. 2014, on the same
> da=
> y:=0A=
> =0A=
> "A brief look takes the game =93hull gull=94 back at least to 1807
> (earlier=
>  than the examples in D.A.R.E.)=96in The Remarks of Jeremiah Jingle
> (printe=
> d for the author, Hagerstown MD?). Since several early descriptions refer
> t=
> o chestnuts and similar objects that have hulls, concealed in a hand, one
> o=
> ption may be that it refers to a gull (one who may be fooled) guessing the
> =
> number of hulls of the nuts (or similar objects) in the hand of the
> challen=
> ger=96the rhyme being serendipitous."=0A=
>  =0A=
>
> http://blog.oup.com/2014/10/etymology-gleanings-hull-gull-brown-livid-one-=
> over/#sthash.6yjE0dIS.dpuf=0A=
> =0A=
> Yes, the 1807 text refers to a game. The text (unpaginated) is available
> at=
>  Google Books:=0A=
> =0A=
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=3DMwklAAAAMAAJ&pg=3DPT31&dq=3D%22hull+gul=
>
> l%22+intitle:jeremiah+intitle:jingle&hl=3Den&sa=3DX&ei=3DBf_QVKPMDIqqggTVhY=
>
> CQBw&ved=3D0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=3Donepage&q=3D%22hull%20gull%22%20intitle%3Ajeremi=
> ah%20intitle%3Ajingle&f=3Dfalse=0A=
> or=0A=
> http://tinyurl.com/pwpf4ls=0A=
> =0A=
> I imagine that the guessing game name likely influenced the record and
> danc=
> e name, but I have no proof.=0A=
> =0A=
> Stephen Goranson=0A=
> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/=0A=
> =0A=
> =0A=
> =0A=
> ________________________________________=0A=
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Wilson=
>  Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>=0A=
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 11:28 AM=0A=
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU=0A=
> Subject: [ADS-L] Anatoly Liberman writes:=0A=
> =0A=
> "I was also delighted to see Stephen Goranson=92s antedating of hully
> gully=
> .=0A=
> Unfortunately, I do not know this word=92s etymology and have little
> chance=
> =0A=
> of ever discovering it, but I will risk repeating my tentative idea.=0A=
> Wherever the name of this=0A=
> _game_=0A=
> was coined..."=0A=
> =0A=
> When did you date "fully gully" to, Stephen? Was the dated "hully gully" a=
> =0A=
> *game*, as Lieberman says? Is there any connection between the game and
> the=
> =0A=
> *dance*, "hully gully," and/or the record, "(Baby) Hully Gully," that you=
> =0A=
> know of?=0A=
> =0A=
> --=0A=
> -Wilson=0A=
> -----=0A=
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to=0A=
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.=0A=
> -Mark Twain=0A=
> =0A=
> ------------------------------------------------------------=0A=
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org=0A=
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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

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