[Ads-l] Antedating of "Dicty" (Adjective and Noun)

Sat Jun 7 18:46:43 UTC 2025

I figured that you'd seen those, Fred, and that you were wisely being cautious.

FWIW, in her 1926 play "Color Struck," Zora Neale Hurston used
"dickty-doo" for a Black woman who was assumed to have been refined or
high-class or snobbish.

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(Via Google Books):

Emma: "Bet you' wife wuz some high-yaller dickty-doo."

John: "Naw she wasn't neither. She was jus' as much like you as Ah
could get her."

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It's possible that Hurston picked that up from "Dicty Doo(s)" as it
was used for minstrel shows and similar 20 years earlier, but I wonder
whether her connection between "high-[yellow]" and "dickty-doo"
suggests that the ca. 1905 "Dicty" in "Dicty Doo(s)" may have
similarly reflected "high-class" or "refined."

-- Bonnie

P.S. There's an appearance of "dickty-du-weary" in an article about
Black comedy troupes in The Freeman (Indianapolis), 27 April 1901, p.
5; https://books.google.com/books?id=x48nAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA5&dq=dickty&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q=dickty&f=false

On Sat, Jun 7, 2025 at 10:36 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> When I searched, I saw the "Dicty Doo" citations, but I wasn't sure whether that was an unrelated coincidental term.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Bonnie Taylor-Blake <00001a89b77a7850-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Friday, June 6, 2025 9:14 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Dicty" (Adjective and Noun)
>
> It's interesting that "dicty" and variants show up a bit earlier with
> regard to song titles, group names of Black performers (or whites
> performing as Blacks), and Black character names.
>
> For example,
>
> "When the Dictie Doos Come to Town" [Song title. The Barre (Vermont)
> Daily Times, 4 June 1904, p. 1,
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers.com%2Farticle%2Fthe-barre-daily-times-when-the-dictie-do%2F173979426%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C06c476a6d2e54c53e6b708dda560cbba%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638848557354795456%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=uCMR%2FwY%2F0yO491CJfv4J%2FM6plNce1M%2FDS%2BAcMPCpHgU%3D&reserved=0]<https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-barre-daily-times-when-the-dictie-do/173979426/>
>
> Fully 600 members of the congregation and their friends were present
> to enjoy a minstrel first-part, given by the Dicty Doos. ["By the
> Dicty Doos," The Boston Globe, 15 February 1905, p. 5;
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers.com%2Farticle%2Fthe-boston-globe-dicty-doos-2151905%2F173979056%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C06c476a6d2e54c53e6b708dda560cbba%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638848557354817296%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Kf23J6ZFLFiYaayl7eahVFyrNYn%2BGYKAHVzePyElA0o%3D&reserved=0]<https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-dicty-doos-2151905/173979056/>
>
> "Dicty Doo" [The name of a character in "The Hottest Coon in Dixie."
> The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 July 1905, p. 9;
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers.com%2Farticle%2Fthe-post-intelligencer-dicty-doo-7319%2F173979142%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C06c476a6d2e54c53e6b708dda560cbba%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638848557354831097%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=lNmx9kFbXdgMW008MZrZRvHu43dd0BQZfZrXoXfNEEU%3D&reserved=0]<https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-post-intelligencer-dicty-doo-7319/173979142/>
>
> SAPARO and BONNY. DE DICTY DOOS, The Best Colored People Before the
> American Public. [A comedic duo, presumably in black-face. Anderson
> (Indiana) Morning Herald, 1 September 1908, p. 2;
> https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers.com%2Farticle%2Fthe-anderson-herald-de-dicty-doos-911%2F173979210%2F&data=05%7C02%7Cfred.shapiro%40YALE.EDU%7C06c476a6d2e54c53e6b708dda560cbba%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C0%7C638848557354844462%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=VqyjUG4Dghy95HPK9OK%2FE9PoZsaZ27DfEhWLVLX8eN8%3D&reserved=0]<https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-anderson-herald-de-dicty-doos-911/173979210/>
>
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 3:33 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> >
> > dicty (OED, n., 1916; adj., 1920)
> >
> > 1907 Advocate (Charleston, West Virginia) 2 May 1/6 (Newspapers.com)  The "dicty" naval officers ... are inclined to be "put out" over the prospect of having an officer of the black republic present.
> >
> > 1910 Bee (Washington, D.C.) 10 Dec. 4/5 (Newspapers.com)  Henry Lincoln resides somewhere in the Southwest ... as a result little is seen of him in the Northwest, where most of the "dicties" parade.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro

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