Date:    Wed, 11 Mar 1998 14:39:28 -0500
<br>From:    Beverly Flanigan  flanigan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: Ring around the rosie(s)
<br>
<br>I'm trying to recall the rhyme from the dim and distant past (a malapropism
<br>there?):  I assume the rosie is the person in the middle of a circle,
<br>around whom others ring.  But granted this, why did the British rhyme use
<br>rosies and posies in the first place?  I'm aware that "ashes to ashes, all
<br>fall down" referred to the plague, but I don't get the allusion to flowers,
<br>unless they're placed on the graves of the plague-dead?  What a macabre game!
<br>
<br>And while we're on games (a new thread?), does anybody recall "Antie I
<br>over" (sp?)?  We played it (throwing a ball over the house and then running
<br>around to tag people), but I have no idea where the phrase came from.  (I
<br>think I looked it up in DARE once but can't recall whether the words were
<br>explained or not.)  Ditto with "Allie allie in/oxen free"--why these words?
<br>
<br>At 11:34 AM 3/11/98 -0600, you wrote:
<br> On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Larry Horn wrote: 
<br>   These are all nice malapropisms, granted, although I'd also call them nonce
<br>   reanalyses and/or folk etymologies, since they all involve an invention of
<br>   transparency at some level.  Many of them are widely attested (the
<br>   "doggy-
<br>======================================================================
<br>
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<br>
<br>         ADS-L Digest - 8 Mar 1998 to 9 Mar 1998               98-03-10 00:00:13
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<br>There are 19 messages totalling 605 lines in this issue.
<br>
<br>Topics of the day:
<br>
<br>  1. Spittin' Image (2)
<br>  2. connecticut folk (revisited) (2)
<br>  3. Dictionaries on CD-ROM
<br>  4. Distnc. btw. "crick"&"creek", GREASY/GREAZY
<br>  5. Re[2]: Spittin' Image (3)
<br>  6. wife-beaters (5)
<br>  7. GREASY/GREAZY (2)
<br>  8. butt (2)
<br>  9. standardization of non-standard forms
<br>
<br>----------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>Date:    Sun, 8 Mar 1998 23:40:45 -0600
<br>From:    "Donald M. Lance"  engdl[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]SHOWME.MISSOURI.EDU 
<br>Subject: Spittin' Image
<br>
<br>FWIW.  The term 'spittin' image / 'spitten image' has been discussed once,
<br>maybe twice, on ads-l.  The 75th-Anniverary edition of TIME Magazine has
<br>this interesting letter:
<br>
<br>Oct. 11, 1927
<br>The records on "spittin' image" should certainly be kept straight. I don't
<br>think that the expression has anything to do with saliva. It originated, I
<br>believe, among the darkies of the South and the correct phrasing--without
<br>dialect--is "spirit and image." It was originally used in speaking of some
<br>person whose father had passed on--and the colored folks would say--"the
<br>very spi't an' image of his daddy."
<br>Joel Chandler Harris Jr.
<br>Atlanta, Ga.
<br>
<br>DMLance
<br>