[Ads-l] booty, 1938

[Jonathan Lighter]

Since Lomax was from Texas, I assume the word was his rather than Delmas's
in Michigan. In any case, I think he'd have put it in quotes had it been
new to him.

 I much doubt the OED's wild guess at an origin in the English nursery word
"bot" (for "bottom"). "Body" would seem just as likely or unlikely. Even
standard "booty" isn't inconceivable as an etymon.

And there's always Wolof...

JL

On Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 4:38 AM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Of interest because
>
> I'm not particularly familiar with Lomax's note-taking style - fellow-Texan
> though he be -
> but he takes no particular notice of _booty_, as though he finds nothing
> unusual about
> the use of the word in this rather-specialized, extended meaning.
>
> On Fri, Nov 25, 2022 at 10:29 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Of interest because it's early and in white use.
> >
> > 1938 Alan Lomax "Mss., Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois"
> >
> >
> https://www.loc.gov/resource/afc2004004.ms070205/?sp=76&r=-0.381,0.818,1.941,0.887,0
> > The people here have the pioneer candor. Potter, Delmas and the rest [of
> > the lumbermen] loved their wives...because they were good partners in the
> > bed and say so. Delmas, the old man, was terribly sentimental about his
> > dead Indian wife, proud of...her ability to cook and her good booty.
> >
> > JL
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > 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
>


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

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