Re: Wuz

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

> At 6:45:53 AM on Thursday, July 15, 2004, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> > <BMScott@...> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> 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.
>
> > 'befuddled, intoxicated' is what I find, so 'drunk' is not
> > the primary sense, and I don't find that as primary in the
> > examples either.
>
> I have no idea where you're looking. 'Drunk, tipsy with
> drink' is the oldest attested sense of the U.S. word.

Oxford Dictionary of English, sec. edition
woozy (adj.) informal, "unsteady, dizzy or dazed", 19th cent. unkn.
origin

Oxford American Dictionary, 1980
woozy adj. informal "dizzy, dazed"

Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology 1966
woozy (sl.) "fuddled; muzzy" XIX, perh. alt. of 'oozy' f. 'ooze'

Webster's New World Dictionary 1966
woozy (prob. coined after 'wooze', var. 'ooze') "befuddled, as with
liquor; muddled"

Suppl. to OED
1 <Examples, of which one or two must be representing the
sense 'drunk'>
2 Representing or marked by mudled thinking or unclear expression;
lacking rigour or discipline; sloppy

(pretty much the sense of Danish 'vås')


And which are your sources?


Torsten