BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 08:20 PM

A most interesting thread, especially for someone in Oz who wondered why Eudora gave chillies to postings concerning HoS (the usual abbreviation for Head of School) and had to have basic US usage explained.

While Kevin posted "Context colours everything." I suspect much of the above discussion could be summarised as "Colour contexts everything." Usually unfortunately.

CHeers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 08:03 PM

Quite possibly, but not necessarily.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 03:47 PM

I'll follow Azizi's usage.
She is the only African-American who has posted here.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 12:24 PM

Words like that are only derogatory when they are used with that intention or received with that understanding.   Which apparently tends to be the case with nappy and kinky in the USA. (In the UK the words mean mean something completely different, and I don't think I've ever heard either used with reference to black people's hair. No doubt they do get used that way, since American expressions get picked up and used often enough.)

The point I was making was to remark the strange way that you get two words meaning the same thing, and one gets seen as offensive and the other doesn't. Not just in this context, in relation to body parts and bodily functions, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 10:41 AM

Look, I didn't say it had never meant the same thing, obviously; I'm not that clueless, but in my lifetime--which is admittedly not that long--I've never heard/seen the word "curly" used as a substitute for "nappy", "kinky", or any other clearly-derogatory descriptor. "Prior to the 1920's" isn't that long ago but it was a long time ago in the world of slang.

I'd also like to point out that I've seen the same, or nearly the same, songs with both words, which makes me suspect that they started out with an uglier pejorative and that "curly" was substituted later to make the more suitable for public performance, since it was less pointedly racist (at least, after the 1920's), in much the same way lyrics that were originally performed in heavily stereotyped black dialect eventually were converted to more standard language.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 10:30 AM

But it doesn't mean the same thing now, and the current flap wasn't caused by usage in historical context.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 May 07 - 04:42 PM

Scoville, 'curley' for the hair of Black men, prior to the 1920's, meant the same as 'nappy' in current language.
McGrath is correct.
As I posted, nappy did not appear in print with regard to hair until after the 1920's. Kinky was the term long used used by Whites, but it was and is considered derogatory by most African-Americans.

Azizi, the African-American who has contributed much to Mudcat, says in a post way up above: "I'm nappy and I'm proud." If all descriptive words are thrown out, how would one describe a person? Some of this language-filtering is downright silly.

Of course it can be used in derogatory ways, and Azizi pointed out that there is no 'consensus.' She also pointed out that it also depends on 'who's talking.'

I wonder what the term(s) is(are) in South Africa and elsewhere (I realized as I was typing that, with eleven official linguistic groups in S. Af., that there must be much variation in hair).

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 May 07 - 03:31 PM

In the context of songs like the song Q quoted, or Paul Robeson singing "My curly-headed baby", it means the same.

The fact that "curly" can also mean other types of hair is no more relevant really than the fact that "dark" or "black" or "brown" ("a dark stranger", ""the brown girl") can be used to refer to either skin or hair colour. Context colours everything.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 31 May 07 - 01:56 PM

And yet they mean the same thing.

No, they don't. "Nappy" has connotations of tightly-curled, wiry, and "unmanageable", as opposed to looser curls. Beauty standards have idealized curly hair for centuries.

Have you ever seen hair-product ads from the early part of the century? They often feature a dark-skinned little girl in pigtails (with "nappy" hair) contrasted with a light-skinned girl in smooth ringlets. Both have curly hair but one has "bad" hair and one has "good" hair.

Lots of white people have "curly" hair, too, but it it's rarely tightly-curled enough to qualify as "nappy". That's where the racist element comes in. "Nappy" is effectively black-only.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 May 07 - 08:49 PM

Curly (for kinky) was used before nappy was invented. Was 'curly' racist? Perhaps I should finish that verse:

Oh chocolate drop, that's me-
Jes' 'cause my hair is curly,
Jes' 'cause my teeth are pearly,
Jes' because I always wear a smile
An' dress up right in the latest style
'Cause I'm glad I'm livin'
An' take my troubles all with a smile
Just because my color shade is different
Maybe that's why they call me "shine."

The Cecil Mack-Lou Brown-Ford Dabney song from 1910 is posted somewhere in Mudcat.

The above lines are from Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra as I remember them. I may not remember them corectly, but they should be within the limits of variation-

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 May 07 - 07:54 PM

Nappy headed counts as racist. Curly-headed no problem. And yet they mean the same thing. Strange how words get divided into sheep and goats.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 May 07 - 06:39 PM

Quote from A. Lomax, "Mister Jelly Roll," 1952. "Light-skinned Downtown shared the bandstand with 'real black and nappy-headed Uptown."
Oliver, 1968, "Screening the Blues:" J. Pullum song with the line "Black gal, black gal, what makes your nappy head so hard?"-
Re-made, with 'big head,' into "Caldonia," a big hit for Louis Jordan, Woody Herman and many others in WW2 era.
Quotes from Oxford English Dictionary.

Earliest mention of 'nappy' in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary- 1928 (source not given).

"Jes' 'cause my hair is curly,..."

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 May 07 - 05:52 PM

"nappy headed" is a racial epithet used by bigots. It is not in the lexicon of Hip Hop.
"Ho's" is but the two being used together belies Imus' bogus statement that he learned it from Hip Hop lyrics.

"Captain called me a 'nappy headed bastard'
"Captain called me a 'nappy headed bastard'
"Captain called me a 'nappy headed bastard'
Hurts my pride (huhhnh) hurts my pride" .......Lyric from Take This Hammer (chain gang chant)

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,Latasha Willis
Date: 30 May 07 - 05:41 PM

Hello,

I received a Google alert about my poem being mentioned on this thread (thanks, Jim Dixon), so I thought I would read all of the comments. Interesting dialogue! I also had intense dialogue on my
blog if you would like to check it out. There were a lot of postings, so it may take you a couple of days to read it all. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 16 May 07 - 05:24 AM

Missed this thread until now - I'm glad I wasn't the only one who didn't know what this quote was about. Saw a report in a Time magazine that someone leant me and had to work it out by context.

Re: Azizi's find ...

"The Welsh name for the Devil, Bwcibo, entered English centuries ago. What word did it evolve into? Answer: bugaboo"

Yes. The actual word is "bwgan" and isn't 'the devil' but rather an evil spirit/fairy, and probably the Foggy Dew (and ilk) reference is a direct derivative. "Puck" in Midsummer's Night Dream is definitely a variation of the word; I've seen an academic paper somewhere that suggests that Shakespeare's granny was from Gwent (SE Wales). And I've also seen an article showing that it is also the root of 'bug' as in a computer 'bug', and 'bug on the line' in telephony. Oh, and did anyone else hear a story as a child about fairy rabbits? They were puccas or pukkas or something, weren't they? Like Harvey, in the film, but small. Always assumed it was the same lineage.

In Welsh, a scarecrow is a 'bwgan brain' (brain=crows, pr. 'brine')

Oh, and Thomas Jefferson was Welsh so the fact that he was "a man of pent up rage and anger and guilty nightmares" was probably more to do with being a morose Welshman, with the lust thing just providing an excuse.

So ... how do I score on Thread Drift? 7, 8 out of 10?

sian

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 May 07 - 04:41 AM

But there was that Hemmings woman.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 May 07 - 12:40 AM

Guest 6:12, Thomas Jefferson was a widower.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Peace
Date: 15 May 07 - 07:33 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 May 07 - 07:32 PM

"...'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?"

               It means you end up with a 40 million dollar law suit against CBS.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Peace
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:18 PM

"BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?"

It means someone has great difficulty with the English language.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Dickey
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:15 PM

That was "tattooed nappy-headed ho's"

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,nappyblack
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:12 PM

Ladies and Gentlemen! The proper question should be who said it first in American History, what exactly did he say, and to whom was he referring?

Answer: Thomas Jefferson, just after the first revolution in the States and the ratification of the Constitution. I believe, if memory serves me, the slaveholder writer and signer of the Declaration and voting ratifyer of the Constitution was here and not in France when he uttered the epithet against light complected and brown African American slave women when he was haviing a particularly trying time with Sally Hemming- his pretty and voluptuous slave concubine. TJ's conscience apprarently troubled him all his life even though it came along with some native generosity; sometimes he often had fits of rage and pique against Africans and the British. Often he blamed the British for introducing the poor innocent American colonists to the vulnerabilities of mercantile plantation life and the joyous culpabilty (hence irresponsibility) of slaveholding and increasing your flocks of workers with illegitimate children, who always followed the condition of their mothers into slavery and bondage. He blamed Sally - his mistress - for being beautiful and becoming the object of his amorous lusts. (He was not as attracted to his wife as he was her, folks speculate, but who really knows!) Because of this he became a man of pent up rage and anger and guilty nightmares. Well, I shouldn't throw stones, good was left behind in his life, I suppose, except for the fact that Black males have a similar residual anger and lust it would seem toward Black women. We young black men can't even pronounce whore properly! Ho is funnier and more "in" - wouldn't you say! But. Forget the socio-history for now.

The descriptive phrase in English from Middle English he used was (in the middle of his preroration of course): "...those nappy headed wenches...!"

A wench of course was a girl or young woman, sometimes a serving girl (waitress) who for a couple of pounds or less would bed the man or men she served supper and later was a common adjective for a poor street prostitute or even high class hooker, most of the latter had powerful friends in the monarchies and nobles and one could be hanged or worse for calling an enterprising hooker to nobles a wench. You dare not have ever called the winsome Sally a wench...but he did. Jefferson had a deep approach/avoidance with Black lovely women...

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 04:06 AM

I just wish I had some hair to get upset about.......

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:55 PM

No kidding. I wouldn't matter if they were the WNBA--they still don't deserve to be called names.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:28 PM

Like most students on college athletic scholarships, they receive tuition, living quarters and meals, special facilities and some other expenses are covered.
Pul-ease don't never no way use the word pay near college athletic facilities.

But that is a separate issue. No student should be subjected to such an appellation.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Greg B
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:16 PM

"It seems also a misuse of the term as these were college women and do not get paid for playing basketball"

Don't get paid?

You're kidding, right?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Alice
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 02:28 PM

Interesting radio program on the subject of nappy hair today on Here and Now.. liten at
http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/04/20070416_2.asp
"We speak to Zine Magubane, associate professor of sociology at Boston College, about the roots of the word. Also, Here and Now's Philip Martin visits a hair salon to hear more."

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 02:07 PM

Scoville, watch out for the DNA!

Years ago when Texas University was still all-white, we had a physical anthropology professor who, when discussing Negroes, would pause, slowly look around the room, turn back to the blackboard and intone, "hmmm."
Sidelong and surreptitious glances would result.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:21 AM

At least one of them; he's pretty light-skinned.

Most African-Americans have a considerable amount of white ancestry at some point, Irish or otherwise. PBS had a thing about it back in February ("Black History Month"). Tracing Oprah's DNA or something. Spike Lee or somebody was shocked by how "white" he was, genetically.

But then I'd be willing to bet that most Americans, unless their ancestors immigrated very recently, are not what they've been told they are. We had a friend whose mother and grandmother swore up and down they were "100% English". The friend finally did some genealogy and thought it was hilarious when she got back six or seven generations and everything turned to German and Cherokee. Not only was she not 100% English, she apparently wasn't English at all.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:16 AM

It isn't at all uncommon for black kids to have Irish surnames. One of my students, years ago, was Brian Patrick McIlhenney. He was an African-American kid. Had an Irish Great Grandfather, raised Catholic, and very proud of his Irish roots.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:10 AM

"how the Irish and the African descended folks lived together and had children"

One of Mohammed Ali's grandfathers was an Irishman, apparently.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:06 AM

BTW: Many native-born Americans did not consider the Irish to be "white" in the 19th century. They were considered a separate race with their own set of physical characteristics, hence the 19th century caricatures with pug noses, etc.

I have heard that jig as a perjorative has a different derivation than jigaboo. Jig was the same as a dance such an Irish jig. This came about in the 1870s and 80s in America and was quite popular. It was called "jig piano" because people danced jigs to it. IOW, it was a very early form of rocknroll where people cut loose and let it all hang out. Not stately ballroom waltzing but far more sensual and "scandalous." Since blacks were the primary players of jig piano and its primary fans, the word jig began being applied to blacks in general (although it had a not insignificant white fan base also).

That sounds like a naive bowdlerization of history to me. I'd like to see some documentation, since "sensuous" dancing was (still is) virtually synonymous with "black".

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:06 AM

"It's pretty clearly a ploy to get a guy in the sack."

Well, yeah - I'm always having pretty fair maids trying to pull the ol' boogerboo trick on me. Good thing I'm scruffy folkie and had heard the song a long time ago!

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:00 AM

RE: Guest, meself's posting of the Foggy Dew song:

The stories are identical even though the words here are a lot simpler. It's pretty clearly a ploy to get a guy in the sack. This is how it's spelled on the RCR album/liner notes.

BOOGERBOO
(as performed by the Red Clay Ramblers, 1974. They got most of their earlier material directly from 1920's and 1930's recordings so there is probably a very similar "original" out there somewhere.)

Come all you jolly [boglin'?] boys who want to learn my trade,
The very first wrong I ever done was to court [another?] [a lovin'?] maid.
I courted her the winter's night, the summer season, too,
But when I gained her free good will, I knew not what to do.

My love came to my bedside, so bitterly she did weep,
At last she jumped in the bed with me, she was 'fraid of the boogerboo.

All in the first part of that night me and my love did play,
All in the latter part of that night she rolled in my arms till day.

"Wake up, wake up, my pretty little miss; wake up, for day has come,
Wake up, wake up, my pretty little miss, the boogerboo has gone."

I went to see this little girl and loved her as my life,
I took this girl and I married her and she made me a virt'ous wife.

I never tell her of her faults, and dog me if I do,
But every time the baby cries I think of the boogerboo.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 08:44 AM

I wonder if there isn't some connection to the terms "jigaboo" and "jig", as pejorative descriptors for Black folks, and the Irish. I remember reading years ago in a book entitled "How The Irish Became White" about how the Irish and the African descended folks lived together and had children. There were cartoons from the 18th and 19th century pubs which showed negative caricatures of Irish and Black folks dancing together. I just wonder if there is a connection?

If you are interested in this book, HERE is a link to some reviews of the book.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 06:52 AM

When I was a kid in West Michigan, jig or jigaboo was very definitely a pejorative used to describe black people.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:41 AM

Unlike one of my Scottish grandma's songs, that we had to relegate to the no longer acceptable pile.

Because of her accent, I always thought she was singing:

Wee MacGregor
He's like an egger
His nose is painted red, white and blue
He wears a tammy
To please his Mammy
So what do you think of Wee MacGregor noo?

It was only when my children were small and I was singing it to them, that it finally finally sunk in, when I asked myself, "what's an egger?...... and the the realization finally sunk in....

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:38 AM

Not one 'g' in the alternate title- all 'j''s.

As I thought, here at Mudcat it is in the DT; correctly spelled -spelt.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:32 AM

Sheet music-
I've Got Rings on My Fingers

Should be on a thread here at Mudcat, but I haven't checked yet.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:30 AM

I guess I can again retain my love for the tune with no recriminations by softening the "g". LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:21 AM

You are likely quite correct Q. The only recording I have of it is a very old one, where the woman singing quite clearly says "jittibob J. O'Shea" and not "jijjiboo" or "jigaboo". LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:56 PM

Metchosin, I think a lot of people misheard the song. It is:

"I've got rings on my fingers; or, Mumbo, Jumbo, Jijjiboo J. O'Shay," Words by Weston and Barnes, Music by Maurice Scott, 1909, T. B. Harms et al. (Sheet music at American Memory)
There is no racial slur in the song.
First verse and chorus-

Jim O'Shea was cast away
Up on an Indian isle.
The natives there they liked his hair
They lik'd his Irish smile.
So they made him chief Panjandrum,
The nabob of them all,
They called him Jij-ji-boo Jhai,
And rigged him out so gay,
So he wrote to Dublin Bay
To his sweetheart just to say:
Chorus:
Sure, I've got rings on my fingers, bells on my toes,
Elephants to ride upon, my little Irish Rose,
So come to your nabob, and next St. Patrick's Day,
Be Mistress Mumbo Jumbo Jijjiboo O Shea. "Sure I've got Shea"

Lighter, in "Historical Dictionary of American Slang," vol. 2, as I noted before, questioned whether it had any relationship to the term jigaboo.

Jigaboo was once widespread; I first heard it in New Mexico-Colorado, but I also heard it in Illinois where I went to University. I have also heard it here in western Canada. But all of this was years ago; as far as I know it has disappeared.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:44 PM

I have heard that jig as a perjorative has a different derivation than jigaboo. Jig was the same as a dance such an Irish jig. This came about in the 1870s and 80s in America and was quite popular. It was called "jig piano" because people danced jigs to it. IOW, it was a very early form of rocknroll where people cut loose and let it all hang out. Not stately ballroom waltzing but far more sensual and "scandalous." Since blacks were the primary players of jig piano and its primary fans, the word jig began being applied to blacks in general (although it had a not insignificant white fan base also).

Jig piano then gave way to ragtime piano in the 1890s but the word jig remained, probably because it was so close to jigaboo.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:27 PM

Like Q, the first time I also heard the term "jigaboo" was in Rings on My Fingers when my grandfather used to sing it to me when I was small. I always thought the term of British origin and that it referred to those from India and had little, if anything, to do with Africa or North America.

Hence the chorus:

Sure I've got rings on me fingers
Bells on me toes
Elephants to ride upon
My little Irish rose
So come to your Nabob
On next St Patrick's Day
Be Mrs. Mumbo Jumbo Jigaboo J, O'Shea

On the west coast of Canada, later on in my youth, I heard the word used as a derogatory term for the native people here, sometimes shortened to Jig. Sort of took the exotic charm out of the song I found delightful as a child.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:18 PM

Actually, I wasn't thinking of the South in particular - I grew up in Windsor, Ontario (across the river from Detroit), and that term was kicking around, unfortunately.

Thanks for the response. Anyone else familiar with that word from where they grew up?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:58 PM

Let me correct this sentence:

Have I have had personal experience with racism? Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:55 PM

I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the questions you ask, but if the assumption is that jigaboo would be more widely used in the Southern region of the USA {and I don't know that that's a valid assumption} I'm only lived in the Eastern part of the USA. I have no Southern relatives that I know of, and I have only been "down South" {besides Washington, D.C} two times on business.

In my entire life-including the four years that I was one of 4 Black students who lived on campus at a small liberal arts college,
I haven't been around White people who would call me jigaboo to my face. And in my entire life, I haven't been around any Black people who would call another Black person that name to their face or behind their back.

Then again, I haven't had any White person or Black person or person of another race or ethnicity call me the "n-word" either.

So, is racism is less overt than it previously was? I think so.

Have I have not had personal experience with racism? Yes.

Do our mass media and educational systems do enough to rid the world of racism?

No.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 08:48 PM

Azizi - Just looked at that other thread - and was surprised that you were unfamiliar with that j-word - but that explains why you seemed so blase about it. I wonder if that means that it really isn't that widespread, as you speculate, or if in some areas, at least, white people were discreet enough not to utter it in the presence of black people, so that it eventually became more or less forgotten.

Anyone have an opinion or observation on that?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:39 PM

Very old, simple words such as nappy always seem to gather several meanings. Terrier's nappy headed horse is one of many well-known uses of the word. It is applied to people as well.
In Scotland and the north of England, a nappy is a drink, e. g. ale. The adjective means foaming.
In turn that usage comes from a very old word for bowl (which persists in the small bowls for individual servings of fruit, etc.: fruit nappies).

Look in the OED and there are others.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:25 PM

Yep, Charley. I think bugaboo was probably the originally word.

**

Here's a link to the thead
thread.cfm?threadid=100807&messages=11 Gigalo & other children's rhymes & cheers

If you have a mind to, check out the post in that thread that I wrote on 15 Apr 07 -07:14 PM.

In a not too convoluted way, that post connects up with this discussion.