On the beer bpard recently someone said, "...But if we're choosing months, I get dibs on November! ..."

I asked what that meant and learnt that it means "I want to reserve November for myself" and that its British equivalent (which we still sometimes use) is "I bags". As in, "I bags November"

Who else has heard, and been puzzled by, these two expressions of similar meaning?

dibs ~ bags

Great, Richard. I'd never heard the British term before. Partridge has this to say: "bags! bags I! That's mine! Schoolboys' from circa 1860. Cf. bar, fain, pike. On illiterate says I.--2. Hence, I bags first go (innings): from not later than 1897, likewise schollboys'. Collinson." The A-H, suggests the etymologyo f American dibs is from dibstones 'counters used in a game'.

I haven't heard bags before either, though dibs is fairly common. Even little kids use it: "I've got dibs on the front seat!"

Like Richard, I remember "bags" from my school days. The word "dibs" is known to me; I suppose I must have come across it in my reading and guessed the meaning from the context. I've never reallly known what "cooties" are, though.

While 'dibs' is grammatically normal ('I've got dibs on the X', 'to call dibs on X'), 'bags' is most unusual and defective:

Bags I the X.
Bags the X.
I bags the X.
Bagsy the X.

?Hey, I bagsed that.
??Hey I bagged that.

?Did you bags it?
??Did you bag it?

?Jones bagsed the seat before I did.

It's only comfortably used in the first-person formula, and I'm not sure how to inflect it in other persons and tenses, but if it's a verb it seems to be 'bags' not 'bag'. I think the forms with 'bag' can only mean the other verb, 'successfully get, capture, get into the bag'. Bagging the front seat can be accomplished by putting a book or coat on it or just having the check-in desk allocate it to you; bagsing (?) it is a verbal claim not requiring physical reinforcement.

Also I can't tell which of the questionable ones people would actually say, cos it's an awfully wong time since I had occasion to.

I've only ever heard the verb declined as if its infinitive were "To bags", not "To Bag". Oxford suggests that the infinitive is "To bag" but its exemplar phrase is "Bags I" which would suggest, if the verb is regular, that the infinitve is as I suggest.

cooties

Cooties are literally body lice, but the word has come to mean in most young children's vocabulary a sort of undifferentiated infectious quality usually caught from a person of the oppisite sex.

Cooties .

Tinman

This discussion on school slang reminds me of another term we used which was "fains" or "fainites" (I'm not sure of the spelling).

If you were being attacked (as is common enough in boys' schools - I don't know about girls') and you needed to attend to something urgently, you could cross your fingers and claim "feins". This meant that battle would halt while you tied your shoelace or attended to whatever sudden need you had.

Rather like a truce it stopped the battle for a short while but didn't end it permanently.

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard English:
This discussion on school slang reminds me of another term we used which was "fains" or "fainites" (I'm not sure of the spelling).

If you were being attacked (as is common enough in boys' schools - I don't know about girls') and you needed to attend to something urgently, you could cross your fingers and claim "feins". This meant that battle would halt while you tied your shoelace or attended to whatever sudden need you had.

Rather like a truce it stopped the battle for a short while but didn't end it permanently.

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The term I remember for this is "barley", "I'm barley."

When I grew up "bags" was the term for reserving something. I've known about "dibs" for a long time, but I can't recall if I'd heard it when at school.

I've never heard of "feins" or "barley", but the word we used (accompanied by the crossing of fingers) was "olivese" or "ollies" for short (I don't know the spelling having never seen it written down). The context in which it was used was slightly more refined, as befits the sugar and spice gender : we used it when playing tick (or tag, or tig - are there any other names?) - if you were being chased and got a stitch, or lost a shoe or something, you could claim ollies, and the person who was 'on' (or 'it') would have to stop chasing you and either go after someone else or allow you to run off again after you'd attended to whatever it was that stopped you, before continuing the chase. Claiming ollies simply because you were tired, however, was cheating and not allowed (not that it didn't stop us from trying occasionally ).

We used 'bagsy' rather than 'bags', although we did sometimes use the latter. Bagsy me first!

Patridge, in his definition of bags, which I cited above, also mentions "bar, fain, and pike":

bar [...] also, the Public Schools' sense, 'to dislike (intensely)' may be s[lang]: late C. 19-20: see quotation at rag, v.t.]

fain I! fains! fain it! fainits! A call for a truce; a statementof opposition: schoolboys' from ca. 1810. See also faynights! Prob. a corruption of fen! ex fend; or possibly ex claim(s) I or fein; cf. bags (I)!, its opposite. The earliest forms are fen! q.v., and fin or fingy, qq.v.

fen An early (-1815) variant of or alternative to fains q.v.; esp. at marbles. Cf. also fin, and fingy that or you, Westminster College and Christ's Hospital resp. As a gen. term of protest or warning it has the † variant fen live lumber! (-1877). Note F & H at fains!, fen, fin and finjy!; and, here, see fains. Perhaps ex fend.

fin [...] 3. Variant of fen!, q.v. See fains and fingy.

faynights A late C. 19-20 variant of fainits!, q.v. at fains! Collinson.

fingy! or finjy! An exclamation of protest; Winchester College: from ca. 1840. Cf. and see fin, fen, and esp. fains.

pike I! An interjection implying prior claim or privilege; schools': C 18-mid-19; ob. ?=I go first. (Cf. bags and bags I; and pledge.) Also in the form prior pike!

"Ollie, ollie, oxen free" I recognize as an American term. When playing a game of hide and seek, it, or tag, it's the phrase one calls out when one gets home (some prearranged place) and hence is out one is out of the game. Quinion has this to say about it.

This is a fascinating subject. It sounds as if children have their own vernacular, while the specific words depend on what country they are from.

Where I was from people said "Ollie ollie Olsen free"...unless that is a mondegreen.

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Where I was from people said "Ollie ollie Olsen free"...unless that is a mondegreen.

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We said something similar, Kalleh.

My (childhood) theory was that it originaly meant,"All the outs in free."

BTW we played (gambled, actually) with marbles, which (in Southeast Kansas -- Galena) were called "doogies."""" Has anyone else heard of doogies?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jerry thomas,

I remember it as "ollie ollie oxen in free," though it may have been "ollie ollie ox in free." I vaguely remember playing marbles as a kid in southeast Kansas (Iola), Jerry.

Tinman

doogies

I know of doogies, but am not sure if I heard it or read it. There was a marbles craze at my school during 5th and 6th grade in Sonoma, California. I remember aggies (agates), cats' eyes, and steelies (ball bearings). It started out as simply shooting marbles at one another and keeping what you hit, until somebody started digging holes filling them with a number of marbles (the prize), and you have to shoot from a distance and get it into the hole; something like golf with marbles. Finally, after a story from my father, I took it to the next level, and created a carny-like device from a cigarbox with graduated holes in the front. The idea to get the marble to go through one of the holes. Set number of marbles prize was awarded to winners. I may even have had shills (i.e., friends who worked for the house gambling with marbles I provided them), but that may be fantasy. Anyway, the principal cracked down on me, but I escaped from detension. The marble craze was over.

Reviving a thread...

Eric Zorn, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, had a good article today on the origin of the word "dibs". "Dibs" always becomes popular this time of the year in Chicago because it is the season for the "dibs" war in the city. In other words, people have "dibs" (for the rest of the winter!) on the parking spot that they shoveled after the first snow. Strange city, this Chicago.

As you can see from the article, other terms that the British have for "dibs" might be "barley" (Virge mentioned that one), "bollars," "jigs," and in Scotland, "chaps" or "chucks." He also says that in London they say "squits." Do any of these words sound familiar?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

quote:

Do any of these words sound familiar?

Nope. Certainly not 'squits'. (It sounds rather unpleasant.) 'Bags' is the word we used.

There is a whole web-site devoted to the cruder aspect of this kind thing - Playground Law. My favourite is the upturned bicycle ice cream machine.

I won't give you a link for it, becuase the discussion board is definitely not work-safe.

We had bagsie at my school. When I read Enid Blyton characters saying bags, they sounded ever so posh.

We also said jected a lot - this gave us an injection that would save us from contamination. If you didn't say it quick enough you would be it.

I couldn't find "bollars" in the OED or Onelook.

"Jigs" (also "gigs" and "giggs" and gigges") was in the OED as "a mouth disease in horses" and in Onelook it just had the normal meanings that we all know.

"Chaps" just had the normal definitions.

"Chucks" also had the normal definitions, except for the slang meaning of "hunger following the withdrawal from heroin" and from the OED: "One of the small rounded quartz pebbles used in the game of check-stone or ‘chuckie-stanes’; hence chucks a name of this game; ‘a marble used at the game of taw, Dumfr.’ (Jam.). Also chuckstone." Perhaps "chucks" has been used to mean "dibs," from this OED definition?

"Squits was in "A Dictionary of Slang" as a British colloquialism, meaning "diarrhoea (1840)."

Therefore, of those words I posted, the closest word to meaning the same as "dibs" is "chucks," at least from my research.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
"Squits was in "A Dictionary of Slang" as a British colloquialism, meaning "diarrhoea (1840)."

So, "qu" is pronounced like "h?"

Tinman

quote:

So, "qu" is pronounced like "h?"

No, but it means the same thing. That's why I said earlier it sounded rather unpleasant.

[I might like this color scheme the best of all.]

Interestingly, Shu and I heard a report of new words given by Erin McKean on NPR. She mentioned "squit," I believe, but she didn't spell it, so I am not sure. She said that its etymology was not appropriate to be discussed on the radio. I can't imagine that "diarrhea" is that terrible of a word, so perhaps it was another new word that just sounds like "squit?" Also, it was singular, not plural. Did anyone else hear that report? They were discussing that the New Oxford American Dictionary's Word of the Year (another post), and I thought they mentioned "squit" as one of the new words.

The word meaning "diarrhoea" is always plural and uses the definite article: "the squits". For example:
Saturday night I had ten pints of lager then went out for a Ruby*. I had a bad case of the squits the next day.

*Rhyming slang: Ruby Murray = curry.

As I just posted in another thread, the word was "squick" and not "squit." I found the transcript of the show.