End of ADS-L Digest - 6 Apr 1997 to 7 Apr 1997
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<br>
<br>Subject: ADS-L Digest - 7 Apr 1997 to 8 Apr 1997
<br>
<br>There are 12 messages totalling 286 lines in this issue.
<br>
<br>Topics of the day:
<br>
<br> 1. Tipping
<br> 2. poor whites
<br> 3. tipping
<br> 4. Tipping -Reply
<br> 5. tipping -Reply
<br> 6. Alan Thomas
<br> 7. Intrusive L (was Re: ADS-L Digest)
<br> 8. used to could
<br> 9. Not exactly double modals
<br> 10. Etymologizing (2)
<br> 11. Fw: Not exactly double modals
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<br>
<br>Date:  Tue, 8 Apr 1997 07:20:39 -0400
<br>From:  Leslie Dunkling  106407.3560[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]COMPUSERVE.COM 
<br>Subject: Tipping
<br>
<br>The supposed acronymic origin of tip (in its gratuity sense) is an old
<br>chestnut. It ranks with the `port out starboard home' explanation of posh.
<br>As Larry Horn implies, fanciful nonsense is often more appealing than
<br>etymological fact.
<br>
<br>There is a good summary of the various developments of tip in Partridge's
<br>_Dictionary of Historical Slang_. Although there are several coincidental
<br>connections with tippling, one did not derive from the other.
<br>
<br>By the way, _Tavern Anecdotes and Sayings_, by Charles Hindley, (1881)
<br>glosses tippling as "holding communication with disembottled spirits." And
<br>the subject of tipping recalls Groucho Marx in A Night at the Opera asking
<br>the steward whether tipping is allowed. When told that it is he says "Have
<br>you got two fives?" "Oh, yes, sir." "Then you won't need the ten cents I
<br>was going to give you."
<br>
<br>(And as for rule of thumb, wasn't the breadth of a man's thumb formerly
<br>used as a rough and ready measure of one inch?)
<br>