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Folklore: US terms
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: LadyJean Date: 04 Nov 03 - 12:13 AM I live in Pittsburgh, where we have a language all our own. Many of you fine mudders will know what redd up means. But you won't know that, in Pittsburgh, a neb is an inquisitive person. Nebber is the other term. The adjective is nebby. I'm not sure why rubber bands are gum bands. Baby chickens are peeps, the real ones, not just the marshmallow kind they sell at Easter. Thorns jag, and roads are slippy. And the plural of you is "Yinz". "Yinzer" is the Pittsburgh equivalent of h dropper. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: InOBU Date: 03 Nov 03 - 11:22 PM I don't wear baseball hats, so I am not sure what a gimmee hat is, but I do on very rare occations use the word copasetic. Cheers Larry PS As to on the Traveller thread where all Americans were acused of chewing gum... I don't niether does my wife, who also does not wear baseball caps, but does NOT use the word copasetic... if that helps. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Nov 03 - 10:02 PM If you have a decent dictionary (e. g. Webster's Collegiate), a lot of them will be in there. Backsliding- moral lapse, or reverting to a worse position (usually when referring to religion) has been around since the 16th century. But Most will be in Google, as Amos pointed out. I learned something too- I had never heard of a blue dog democrat. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Amos Date: 03 Nov 03 - 08:50 PM Here's the clue on Yellow Dog Democrat. It was found by going to Google.com and typing in "yellow dog democrat" and pressing return. Dozens of hits. Repeat for each expression you are looking for. A |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: GUEST,laurenh Date: 03 Nov 03 - 08:41 PM okay i need help BAD! okay i have a project that my 5th period teacher assigned us and its on folklore terms (backslidin,yellowdog democrat etc) and i cant find any of them! please help! Lauren |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Mrrzy Date: 05 Mar 03 - 09:27 PM How would you define Ballad? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 05 Mar 03 - 09:20 PM Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, - The Only Historical Dictionary of Slang, Spanning Three Hundred Years of Slang Use in America, Volume I, A-G, J. E. Lighter, 1994, p. 483..
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Frankham Date: 05 Mar 03 - 05:03 PM I understand "copasetic" as being fostered by jazz musicians of the twenties and thirties. Not sure where it came from but it was a so-called "hip" phrase at one time amoung jazzfolk. Frank |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: curmudgeon Date: 05 Mar 03 - 08:08 AM Whatever happened to dogbone creases? That was my preferred style last time I bought a good hat (in my waning cowgirl days) in the early '60s. Linn |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 05 Mar 03 - 04:05 AM BTW, my brother-in-law once had to go to Houston on business and the firm he visited gave him a hard hat built into a plastic Stetson. He's not had the courage to wear it on site in the UK, it might amuse his men too much! RtS |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Steve Parkes Date: 05 Mar 03 - 04:04 AM You'd expect Hopalong's style to be limp, wouldn't you? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 05 Mar 03 - 03:40 AM Thanks for all the extra info guys, (especially artbrooks for the definitive set of hat dent styles). In defence of the non-BS status of this post all I can say is Staggerlee killed a man over a Stetson! RtS (I see Hopalong [Hapalong?]Cassidy had his own style as well as Tom Mix!¬) |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: JohnInKansas Date: 05 Mar 03 - 02:19 AM Here in the midlands, a "gimme" is anything that's free. Extends naturally to the "gimme cap," usually from the local co-op. Same term is used (e.g.) on the golf course where someone thinks their putt is so close they ought to be able to "count it in" without actually playing it. "That's a gimme, ain't it?" (Not done by honest golfers.) The feed caps go back to long before nylon mesh was invented, and were usually cotton, whereas the old style ball caps were commonly felt, or at least a "felted" or "brushed finish" cloth. The really old feed store "gimme caps" were often a "pleated" shape, more like those often worn by railroad workers - (make sense?) Until recently (say 1945) the feedstore caps might have a stitched brim of several layers of cloth, but almost never had the cardboard "stiffener" in the bill like ball caps. (You really needed to be able to stuff them in your hip pocket (or inside your bib) on occasion.) John |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Jim Dixon Date: 05 Mar 03 - 01:37 AM Roger, you're exactly right about the gimmee cap, though I'd prefer to spell it gimme cap. Gimme is a slurred pronunciation of "give me" (or was that obvious?) referring to their giveaway nature. Google gave me 13 hits on "gimmee cap" (in quotes); 502 hits on "gimme cap"; and 49 hits on "gimmie cap". "Gimme cap" is even listed in The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000, although it doesn't give much explanation. I'd be interested in knowing how many terms there are for this familiar kind of cap. The first term I heard was "feed cap" because they frequently advertised a brand of animal feed and were given away to farmers by the feed dealers. I have a genuine feed cap advertising Supersweet Feeds, from Chuck's Feed & Grain, Peterson, MN. Before that, they were probably called "baseball caps" because they have the same general shape as a baseball cap, but a purist would say they're a completely different thing. Baseball caps are made of cotton fabric; feed caps are nylon mesh. Baseball caps come in different sizes; feed caps are "one size fits all" by virtue of an adjustable plastic strap at the back. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: GUEST,Q Date: 05 Mar 03 - 12:19 AM Oh Frankie, won't you buy me an El Presidente Stetson Hat? Here it is- your lovin' Johnny: Stetson 100X |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 04 Mar 03 - 11:19 PM Art, my man! I'm throughly astounded! Twenty-four ways to crease a cowboy hat? If that ain't folklore I'll eat, well.... my hat, I guess. Who outside of the Wild, Wild West itself would have ever thunk it? And each style of crease is a statement about the hat owner's personality, no less. A psychological and sociological treatise in miniature, all wrapped up in felt and beaver with a band of leather (or rattlesnake skin) around it! Cool way beyond merely copacetic! And to think that GUEST accused this thread of being BS! (That's not to say that this post isn't BS. But, if it is, it is BS of a most aromatic variety.) Bruce |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: artbrooks Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:40 PM Mary, I thought the Chinook were a recognized tribe? They have a website, here. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: mg Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:31 PM I live near the Chinook peoples..probably on their land..and I recently checked a book out of the Ocean Park Library..forget which one..but it did mention that very well could be the origin of that word. Read up on the Chinooks if you can and try to figure out why their tribal status, so hardly won, was taken away from them. mg |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: GUEST,Q Date: 04 Mar 03 - 03:13 PM First in print in 1919, Bachelles, "Man For The Ages." "As to looks, I'd call him, as ye might say, real copacetic." Mrs Lukins expressed this opinion solemnly. Its last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning." OED, 1987 supplement. In 1926, Van Vechten used it in "Nigger Heaven." An aprobatory epithet somewhat stronger than all right. Also OED, 1987 supplement. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: CarolC Date: 04 Mar 03 - 02:02 PM I've heard copacetic/copasetic from time to time here in the US since the 1970s. I'm pretty sure I've even used it myself a few times. As far as I can make out, it sounds like Kevin Blackmore (from Newfoundland, Canada) says it at the end of the song "Is you 'appy". I've got it on Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellers' "Greatest Misses" CD. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: robomatic Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:29 PM I've heard it used in conversation in Northeastern United States. A radio etymologist who used to be on National Public Radio ("Good words to you") once aired the origin as blacks working in synagogues overhearing the Hebrew words "kol be sefer" meaning "by the book". |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: artbrooks Date: 04 Mar 03 - 11:54 AM Here is a link with these and many more hat brim and crease styles. 'Course, the way I wear my hat doesn't fit any of these. I know what copacetic means, but I can't recall ever hearing anyone use it in conversation. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Amos Date: 04 Mar 03 - 11:12 AM Here's a page that explores various possible alternative theories as to where copacetic comes from. Some associate it with the orighinal Bo Jangles, a Harlem soft-shoe dancer. Interesting that none of the leads on this page go back to the Chinook jargon reference Roger found, which actually sounds more plausible. There's also a quote of Lord Buckley using the word, which is perhaps where I picked it up. A |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: GUEST Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:59 AM Can this be transferred to BS please? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: katlaughing Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:56 AM Or is that citesapoc? |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: catspaw49 Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:47 AM So everything is copasetic now huh Rog? Spaw |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:05 AM Thanks for the links, guys. I see further down from Tom Mix is a hat "proudly" adcvertised as "the one Pres. Bush wears"! Tom Mix, Steve? I remember when Gabby Hayes was in dame school! RtS |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Steve Parkes Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:57 AM The Bad Guy! |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Mooh Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:52 AM From Partidge's Concise Dictionary of Slang: copasetic. All safe, wholly safe; all clear; excellent, most attractive: Can. adaptation, ca. 1925, of US copesettic...Ex Chinook jargon developed as trading pidgin by the water borne tribes of western Washington State and British Columbia. The original is copasenee, meaning "everything is satisfactory"... Copasetic? Mooh. |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Steve Parkes Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:47 AM I recall Dan Blocker - Hoss in "Bonanza" -- wore his hat without a crease at all, and very strange he looked. I found cattleman's & pinch creases, and gus & rancher creases (which seem to be the same): looks like one tilts forward and the other is horizontal. Roger, you're old enough to have cheered Tom Mix, aren't you? Steve |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: Amos Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:38 AM Copacetic is a slang term for harmonious, cool, groovy. It comes from the jazz culture of the 30's, if memory serves -- I think it may have been a back formation from syncopation, but that's just a SWAG (silly wild-ass guess). |
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Subject: RE: Folklore: US terms From: MMario Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:31 AM The only portion I know about is the "copacetic" - which I have heard in occasional use. Usually in the form of a question - "Is everything copacetic?" or "That copacetic with you?" |
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Subject: Folklore: US terms From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 04 Mar 03 - 09:24 AM OK, maybe not strictly musical (though a character was playing blues on a Gibson Hummingbird!) but someone in this US novel I was reading was described as having a Gimmee cap (which I guess is a baseball cap given away free with an advertising slogan or logo on it?) and others wore Stetsons with "cowboy crease" and "Canadian crease". What's the difference? ...and do Americans really say "copacetic" for OK? My dictionary says "origin unknown". Any ideas where it comes from? RtS |
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