[Ads-l] Copasetic notes

[Jonathan Lighter]

>  In the purported original, it "signified an unusual depth of meaning,"
so it did not yet have the modern meaning.

My lexico-spidey sense tells me that this may be no more than coy humor
meaning, "We don't know what the heck it means or where it comes from."


JL

On Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 8:07 AM, Robin Hamilton <
robin.hamilton3 at virginmedia.com> wrote:

> There's also, of course, Scotch Passing.
>
> As Rob Roy McGregor (for obvious reasons) used the passing name, "Robin Roy
> Campbell".
>
> Frankly, given the associations of Clan Campbell in some areas of Scotland
> (where a MacDonald would refuse to sit beside a Campbell on a bus),
> choosing
> Campbell as a passing name could have a downside to it.  But the
> MacGregors were
> (are?) a Sept of the Campbells, which is why Rob Roy picked that version
> when he
> was travelling under an alias.
>
> The Other Robin
>
> >
> >     On 10 March 2017 at 10:57 Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >     ________________________________
> >     From: American Dialect Society <...> on behalf of Wilson Gray <...>
> >     Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 12:26 AM
> >     To: ...
> >     Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Copasetic notes
> >
> >     On Thu, Mar 9, 2017 at 6:19 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >     > to (literarily) "pass."
> >
> >
> >     What does that mean?
> >
> >
> >     --
> >     -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
> >
> >     Wilson, I don't recommend this book, but here's a paragraph (p. 289,
> yuck)
> > that may answer your question:
> >
> >     So McKay tries, and almost succeeds, in making his talent a white
> > talent--white as leprosy is white. It would be absurd to single him out
> for
> > especial blame. he reflects a part of his literary material, even if more
> > often than not the worst part--"pink-chasers" who try to "pass." It is
> not
> > kopasettee. But it is inevitable that prominence, or even any sign of
> promise,
> > should expose the coloured artist to-day to an excess of blond
> influence, and
> > natural, I suppose, that the worse should prove more infectious than the
> > better. Perhaps McKay will yet learn to shame the devil and exploit the
> true
> > McKay vein. Let us hope so."
> >
> >     Stephen
> >
> >
> >
> >     ------------------------------------------------------------
> >     The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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