[Ads-l] "There are no backsies" -- an adult adopt's a feature of children's speech
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Jan 5 19:30:34 UTC 2019
> On Jan 5, 2019, at 8:42 AM, Mark Mandel <Mark.A.Mandel at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> I've never seen or heard "buttinsky" used in this way, but only referring
> to a person who speaks out of (informal) turn or who pokes into other
> people's issues that are none of their business. I think I've also
> encountered it in adult speech ("What a buttinsky!").
>
> I *do* remember "frontsy-backsy" from growing up in NYC, late '50s - early
> '60s, but not later.
>
> Mark
Ditto on all (though, as an elder, I can attest “frontsie(s)-backsie(s)” back to the early ‘50s).
LH
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 4, 2019, 10:55 AM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com wrote:
>
>>> Is “fronties-backsies” just a NYC thing?
>>
>> We had "no butt-in-skys" when I was a kid. "No backsies" was more often
>> "no take-backs".
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 3, 2019 at 7:21 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Is “fronties-backsies” just a NYC thing? No relation to “no backsies”
>>> (which my spellcheck insists should be “no backsides”). The idea is that
>>> when you’re waiting on line (this is New York, so it’s not *in* line),
>> you
>>> can’t let a friend in the line behind you without violating ethical
>> rules.
>>> But you can let them in in front of you, and then they can trade places
>>> with you. Of course, this can be objected to by some, with the cry “no
>>> frontsies-backsies”. Oops, just realized this rang a bell, and sure
>> enough…
>>>
>>>
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2006-October/063223.html
>>>
>>> But I’m not sure this made it to adult speech, or the other example I
>>> cited in that thread, “black black no back”.
>>>
>>> LH
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
More information about the Ads-l
mailing list