Re: Re[6]: [tied] Re: Brugmann's Law

When I was a kid, a scag was a whore or a
whorish-looking woman. Although the word was recorded
in the AA community, it could have been of Scots or
Irish origin like many words in Southern/African
American English. Given that in Nebraska, you can
practically count African Americans on the fingers of
one hand, the word would have arrived with them either
from the South or some other part of the Midwest

Regarding thing vs. thang --yes, thang is a regional
pronunciation BUT it's often used to emphasize or
exagerate by people who normally use -ing/k. E.g. my
shoes are "stinky" but your shows are "stanky".
You see the same thing with Spanish h as /silent/ vs.
/h/ in hediondo /eDyondo/ "stinky" vs. jediondo
/heDyondo/ "stanky" where people who normally leave
<h> silent pronounce it for exageration or comic
effect.
You see it in the rural pronunciation of <f> as /h/
among city folk for comic effect: "me gusta el guaro
bien juerte" --"I like my booze real strawng"
And in English intervocalic <o> as "aw" in "dawg"

--- "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

> At 9:19:11 PM on Saturday, January 19, 2008, Rick
> McCallister wrote:
>
> > --- "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> An 11/2002 addition s.v. <scag>:
>
> >> scag, n.
>
> >> * derogatory.
>
> >> a. U.S. (orig. in African-American usage).
> An
> >> unattractive woman.
>
> >> 1938 Amer. Speech 13 316/2 Slang among
> >> Nebraska negroes... A young woman of none
> too
> >> pleasing appearance is a skag or a hag.
> [...]
>
> > So, perhaps scag is from the Scots form of
> "shaggy" in the
> > sense of "unkempt". [...]
>
> Despite 'orig. in African-American usage'? And the
> pairing
> with <hag>?
>
> > And perhaps skank is from scag.
>
> > The meaning is virtually the same, although scag
> also has
> > overtones of ugliness and bad taste.
>
> Overtones? That seems to be the main force of '[a]n
> unattractive woman'.
>
> > A skank is a streetwalker or cheap prostitute
>
> Among others. 'A person (esp. a woman) regarded as
> unattractive, sleazy, sexually promiscuous, or
> immoral.' In
> the earliest OED citation that I quoted last time it
> is used
> of a couple of girls described as 'plain,
> promiscuous --
> prostitutes without pay'.
>
> > --not usually known for their good taste in
> make-up and
> > clothes. Scag, of couse, is or was also a slang
> word for
> > "heroin". Since I don't associate with that set, I
> don't
> > know what the current status of that meaning is.
>
> Before that it was a slang term for a cigarette.
>
> > Another phenomenon to consider is the -ing/k >
> -ang/k
> > change in Southern English for emphasis; e.g.
> stinky >
> > "stanky", thing > thang, etc. Perhaps skank <
> skink --just
> > a guess
>
> That's hardly just for emphasis, at least in
> <thing>: there
> are places where [TæIN] is the normal pronunciation.
>
> Brian
>
>
>

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