[Ads-l] The UD isn't _always_ worthless!

[Flourish Klink]

"Sissy" always had the same rough sense as "pussy" to me (when used as an
adjective; female pudenda are not called "sissy" that I know of). So:
Cowardly as a girl. You might say "she's a girly girl" in a positive way,
but you would never say "she's a sissy" in a positive way—the sense is
"girly" but only in the negative aspects of being girly.

On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 8:54 AM Marc Sacks <msacksg at gmail.com> wrote:

> Maybe the meaning of "sissy" has changed since I was a child, but in those
> days it means roughly "girly." I was often called that name as a kid, but I
> think it referred less to cowardice than to being intellectual and
> disliking sports.
>
> A friend of mine told me years ago that his Polish-American working-class
> father discouraged him from taking music lessons because "only Jews and
> sissies do that." I don't think cowardice was intended by the latter
> epithet.
>
> Marc Sacks
>
> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 7:44 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: The UD isn't _always_ worthless!
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > -------------------
> >
> > BTW, my impression is that "sissy," applied to children, always means
> > "coward," but applied to men always means  'effeminate homosexual,'
> except
> > fig., of course.
> >
> > OED doesn't bother to differentiate these two distinct senses. (Millions
> > who use the "coward" sense have never even heard of the other one, IMO.)
> >
> > The earliest attestations are from the late 19th C.  Understandably they
> > refer only to children.  (Grownups: OED 1969, HDAS files 1914.)
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 7:34 AM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Against the judgment of the editor, HDAS was compelled to prefer the
> > > spelling "booty" on the OCD principle that the most frequently
> > encountered
> > > orthography must determine the shape of the lemma.  At least there's a
> > > cross-ref. at "boody"!
> > >
> > > HDAS exx. go back to 1926.  A much later memoir places "boody" [sic] in
> > > Kansas several years before that. (Complete with grade-school students
> > > giggling at the  homophonous "booty.")
> > >
> > > JL
> > >
> > > On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 4:27 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> _Boody_
> > >> booty _Boody is the traditional spelling for the word booty_. The
> > spelling
> > >> 'booty' became the accepted spelling at 70's band KC and the Sunshine
> > Band
> > >> had a popular hit called Shake Your Booty.
> > >> "Man, she's got a big boody"
> > >> #booty #ass #backporch #groundround #catcher's mitt
> > >> by JimmyCatfish June 22, 2006
> > >>
> > >> Not when it agrees with me, anyway!
> > >>
> > >> In fact, of course, it would be great to have a cite. But it's very
> > >> difficult to find a cite for a word unknown in the standard language
> and
> > >> that's also considered obscene in BE. I personally have found nothing
> > >> older
> > >> than the record-titles "Boodie Green"/"Boo-Dee Green," dating only
> from
> > >> 1950 and 1959, resp., IIRC.
> > >>
> > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9dLY8qBGz0
> > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbeQ3RLchf4
> > >>
> > >> My interpretation of the not-obvious spellings is that they are
> > >> euphemism-equivalents due to the word's perceived obscenity, as is
> also
> > >> the
> > >> case with _sissy_ re-spelled as _cissy_ in the record-titles, "Cissy
> > >> Strut"/"Sophisticated Cissy," wherein its meaning is understood to be
> > >> "fag(got)," though neither record has any words.
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> -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
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> > truth."
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
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> >
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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