ChatterBank0 min ago
nitty gritty
12 Answers
Hi brainy people, Myself and my wife often get annoyed by the flippant use of the word "nitty gritty". We are under the assumption that this "phrase" comes from the long gone dark days of slavery and the plantations in South Africa when the "boss" used to say "im going down to the nitty gritty". thus meaning "im going down to the slave's for sex" . both my wife and i being from liverpool a city founded on slavery(shame) you may call me a hypocrite but the use of this phrase is now creeping into the media,everyday vernacular and god forbid the classroom. can anybody please give the true meaning of the phrase?????
Many thanks for all your help.
Marc.
Many thanks for all your help.
Marc.
Answers
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Ironically, not only is the phrase not associated with the slave trade of any age, good evidence suggests it originated here in the U.S., not later than about 1956 and zounds! was a phrase placed into the vernacular by blacks themselves.
Phrase Finders has it on good authority that: "...Where it does come from isn't known. It is one of the many phrases that use rhyming reduplication, for example, namby-pamby, willy-nilly etc....", However the origin is "... has no evidence to support the suggestion that 'nitty-gritty' has any connection with slave ships. It may have originated in the USA as an African-American expression, but that's as near as it gets to slavery. It isn't even recorded in print until the 1950s, long after slave ships had disappeared, and none of the early references make any link to slavery.
There are several citations of the phrase in print dating from 1956, for example, this line from Alice Childress' novel Like One of Family:
"You'll find nobody comes down to the nitty-gritty when it calls for namin' things for what they are."
Another is from the Texas newspaper The Daily Journal, in June 1956 and comes from a piece which gave examples of 'the language of 15-year old hepcats':
"She buys, with buffalo heads, ducks to the local flickers, but they prove to be corny and along comes a nitty-grittygator in a cattle train which she hops."
Unfortunately, the Journal didn't include a translation, but I have it on authority of several US contributors of the correct vintage that, in that context, a 'nitty-gritty gator' was a 'lowlife hip dude' and a 'cattle train' was a Cadillac..."
Lending itself to misinterpretation is that the phrase, in it's fullest rendering usually includes "... getting down to...", hence a possible mistaken application referencing a ship's hold for which the phrase was unjustly excoriated...
Phrase Finders has it on good authority that: "...Where it does come from isn't known. It is one of the many phrases that use rhyming reduplication, for example, namby-pamby, willy-nilly etc....", However the origin is "... has no evidence to support the suggestion that 'nitty-gritty' has any connection with slave ships. It may have originated in the USA as an African-American expression, but that's as near as it gets to slavery. It isn't even recorded in print until the 1950s, long after slave ships had disappeared, and none of the early references make any link to slavery.
There are several citations of the phrase in print dating from 1956, for example, this line from Alice Childress' novel Like One of Family:
"You'll find nobody comes down to the nitty-gritty when it calls for namin' things for what they are."
Another is from the Texas newspaper The Daily Journal, in June 1956 and comes from a piece which gave examples of 'the language of 15-year old hepcats':
"She buys, with buffalo heads, ducks to the local flickers, but they prove to be corny and along comes a nitty-grittygator in a cattle train which she hops."
Unfortunately, the Journal didn't include a translation, but I have it on authority of several US contributors of the correct vintage that, in that context, a 'nitty-gritty gator' was a 'lowlife hip dude' and a 'cattle train' was a Cadillac..."
Lending itself to misinterpretation is that the phrase, in it's fullest rendering usually includes "... getting down to...", hence a possible mistaken application referencing a ship's hold for which the phrase was unjustly excoriated...
I don't think you need be offended by words like this even if their origins are questionable.
Despite the attempts of those who accuse others of debasing the language words shift in and out of meanings all the time.
In the news section you often get people going on about Carol Thatcher's use of the word Goliw0g and complaining that there's nothing wrong with it - harking back to pleasnt childhod memories.
Of course words like this can become offensive but similarly words that were once offensive can lose force or even vanish in their offense.
Calling someone a cad was once fighting talk - yell that at a noisy neighbour these days and the street will probably collapse laughing at you.
So the origin of a word or expression is of course of academic interest but personally I think getting annoyed at the use of an old meaning is a bit like the joke of the nun telling off a teenager for whistling a filthy song.
Despite the attempts of those who accuse others of debasing the language words shift in and out of meanings all the time.
In the news section you often get people going on about Carol Thatcher's use of the word Goliw0g and complaining that there's nothing wrong with it - harking back to pleasnt childhod memories.
Of course words like this can become offensive but similarly words that were once offensive can lose force or even vanish in their offense.
Calling someone a cad was once fighting talk - yell that at a noisy neighbour these days and the street will probably collapse laughing at you.
So the origin of a word or expression is of course of academic interest but personally I think getting annoyed at the use of an old meaning is a bit like the joke of the nun telling off a teenager for whistling a filthy song.
It's a ridiculous false etymology which was suggested by someone from Bristol and received national and international coverage.
The slave trade was all about profit. There were many books written about how to maximise the return from slave transport, how to pack the human cargo and how to keep them alive at minimum cost. Does it not seem odd that no book or journal from the period mentions 'nitty gritty'?
Another well-known example of false etymology is 'brass monkey'. Everyone knows it has something to do with a cannon ball holder on a ship but no one can produce a written reference. It's an invention.
The slave trade was all about profit. There were many books written about how to maximise the return from slave transport, how to pack the human cargo and how to keep them alive at minimum cost. Does it not seem odd that no book or journal from the period mentions 'nitty gritty'?
Another well-known example of false etymology is 'brass monkey'. Everyone knows it has something to do with a cannon ball holder on a ship but no one can produce a written reference. It's an invention.
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