Re: [tied] Re: Wuz

At 4:17:17 AM on Wednesday, July 14, 2004, tgpedersen wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 8:11:05 AM on Tuesday, July 13, 2004, tgpedersen
>> wrote:

>>> 'woozy' is known only to the American dictionaries, not
>>> to the English ones, so (by your logic) it can't be
>>> related to English 'ooze', but must be Arapaho, Chippewa
>>> or Sioux.

>> I'm intrigued to learn that the OED is an American
>> dictionary.

>> The <woozy> 'vochtig' noted by Verdam isn't the American
>> <woozy> 'dazed or confused; dizzy or queasy', which
>> actually is in the OED; it's a variant of <oozy>, from OE
>> <wo:sig> 'juicy, moist'. The OED s.vv. <oozy>, <ooze>
>> notes many <w-> variants.

> I think it's ultimately the same word, given the same
> sense occur elsewhere on the "Western Seaboard".

That's not quite the original sense, however. The American
word earlier had only the sense 'drunk, tipsy'. Moreover,
it is first noted only in 1897 (OED), though Mencken thought
that it was one of a group of synonymous slang terms dating
to the decades preceding the U.S. Civil War. I think it
likelier to be a variation of <boozy> or simply an
expressive term.

Talan