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

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 22 22:02:03 UTC 2016


On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 7:44 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> BTW, my impression is that "sissy," applied to children, always means
> "coward," but applied to men always means  'effeminate homosexual,' except
> fig., of course.
>

That's the way that is works in BE, though I prefer "timid" and/or "shy" to
"coward." The "cissy" dances were some unknown folk-choreographer's
re-interpretation of the way that such men stereotypically walk.

One time, around noon in downtown Los Angeles, I happened to find myself
walking behind three unskilled-labor, strong-back, construction-worker
types on lunch-break and one of them, shockingly appeared to walking the
sissy walk. I decided that the guy must have had some kind of physical
impairment that affected his stride, since, clearly, no ditch-digger would
ever be out to his fellow-roughnecks. Then, he reached up to scratch his
head and I saw that his broken, dirty fingernails were painted scarlet!

Youneverknow.


-- 
-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



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