Nitty-gritty (=NG=)

[sevi...@gmail.com]

How on earth did this interesting word become part of our language? [I guess I've more or less answered my own question (below), but I would appreciate a response from this group.] The following are definitions from four dictionaries: (1) American Heritage Dic (4th ed): =NG= "n.informal. The specific or practical details; the heart of the matter. [Origin unknown.] (2) The Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus (2003):=NG= "n.slang.The realities or practical details of a matter. [20th c: orig. uncert.]" (3) The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Vol.II, revised & edited by C.T.Onions (1933): "Nitty a. Now rare. 1570. Full of, abounding or infested with, nits." No def.of =NG= (4) Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Editon, unabridged (1950): "Nitty adj. 1. Full of, or infested with, nits.2. Full of bubbles. Obs." No def. of =NG= Adam Breaux

[Don Phillipson]

Adam Breaux <sevi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:463a1796-0b32-4b58...@googlegroups.com...

> How on earth did this interesting word become part of our language?

> . . . .

> (4) Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Editon, unabridged
> (1950): "Nitty adj. 1. Full of, or infested with, nits.2. Full of bubbles.
> Obs.

And in the 19th century "grit" was common vernacular suggesting
courage or perhaps integrity. Political reformers in midcentury
English Canada called themselves the Clear Grits.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Peter Duncanson [BrE]]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:53:05 -0800 (PST), sevi...@gmail.com wrote:

>How on earth did this interesting word become part of our language? [I guess I've more or less answered my own question (below), but I would appreciate a response from this group.] The following are definitions from four dictionaries: (1) American Heritage Dic (4th ed): =NG= "n.informal. The specific or practical details; the heart of the matter. [Origin unknown.] (2) The Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus (2003):=NG= "n.slang.The realities or practical details of a matter. [20th c: orig. uncert.]"
>(3) The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Vol.II, revised & edited by C.T.Onions (1933): "Nitty a. Now rare. 1570. Full of, abounding or infested with, nits." No def.of =NG= (4) Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Editon, unabridged (1950): "Nitty adj. 1. Full of, or infested with, nits.2. Full of bubbles. Obs." No def. of =NG= Adam Breaux

A search for the phrase at Etymonline gives:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=nitty-gritty&searchmode=none

nitty-gritty (n.)
"basic facts," 1961, knitty-gritty, American English, said to have
been chiefly used by black jazz musicians, perhaps ultimately from
nit and grits "finely ground corn." As an adjective from 1966.

gritty (adj.)
1590s, from grit + -y (2). In sense of "unpleasant" (of
literature, etc.), from 1882, in reference to the sensation of
eating gritty bread. Related: Grittily; grittiness.

nitty (adj.)
"full of nits," 1560s, from nit + -y (2).

This might be one of those two-word phrases in which only one of the
words is connected with the sense of the phrase, with the other being
there to create a rhyming pair. For instance "higgledy-piggledy":
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/higgledy-piggledy?q=higgledy-piggledy

Origin:
late 16th century: rhyming jingle, probably with reference to the
irregular herding together of pigs

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

[John Dean]

"Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote in message
news:k80407$eue$1...@speranza.aioe.org...

OED says "etymology unknown". It dates the phrase no earlier than the 1960s
and places it in the USA, most specifically in Black America.

--
John Dean

[John Varela]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:38:59 UTC, "John Dean"
<john...@FRAGmsn.com> wrote:

> OED says "etymology unknown". It dates the phrase no earlier than the 1960s
> and places it in the USA, most specifically in Black America.

I first heard the term sometime in the 1960s from an engineer who
was originally from Oklahoma, went to grad school at Berkeley,
worked for a time at Hewlett-Packard when it was an instrumentation
company, then joined our company in Massachusetts in 1963. He was
just about the only person I ever heard use the term, but he used it
fairly often; I clearly remember him saying it in his stentorian
voice with the Oklahoma accent. I think at the time I noticed him
using it he had been working at the air traffic control center at
Jacksonville, FL. He might have picked it up there. I'm pretty sure
that's where he picked up and transmitted to us the habit of calling
the asterisk printed by a teletype machine a "splat".

--
John Varela

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will
herald the end of the republic. -- Benjamin Franklin

[Robert Bannister]

On 14/11/12 7:34 PM, Lewis wrote:
> In message <463a1796-0b32-4b58...@googlegroups.com>

> sevi...@gmail.com <sevi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> How on earth did this interesting word become part of our language?
>

> I just assumed it came from picking nits out of children's hair.
>
>

I always assumed it was "grit" = hard stuff and that the "nitty" was
simply added as a rhyme like "itty bitty" or "teeny weeny".

--
Robert Bannister

[Guy Barry]

"Robert Bannister" wrote in message
news:agitlo...@mid.individual.net...

> I always assumed it was "grit" = hard stuff and that the "nitty" was
> simply added as a rhyme like "itty bitty" or "teeny weeny".

There are a number of theories here, but no one seems to know for certain:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/nitty-gritty.html

--
Guy Barry

[Cheryl]

Really? I'm sure I've known "nitty-gritty" all my life, which extends a
bit before 1960, and I grew up in an area of Canada entirely
uninfluenced by Black America (or Black Canada, for that matter.

--
Cheryl

[Steve Hayes]

AOL.

I'm sure it was familiar to me before 1960, as was the related term "brass
tacks".


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[John Dean]

"Cheryl" <cper...@mun.ca> wrote in message
news:agk1s0...@mid.individual.net...

I was going off the DVD version of OED. Here are the earliest cites from
that OED:

1963 Time 2 Aug. 14/2 The Negroes present would know perfectly well that the
nitty-gritty of a situation is the essentials of it. 1963 Wall St. Jrnl.
12 Sept. 14/1 Says W. C. Patton, field secretary for?the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. 'Now we're down to the
nitty-gritty, the hard core who've never been interested in politics.'
1967 Freedomways vii. 186 All those 'nitty gritty' actions and styles which
set Negroes off from the rest of American society.

Double checking on the OED website I see they have produced some earlier
cites:

1940 Pittsburgh Courier 29 June 10 Any convention goes lacking when that
Joe Louis clenches his fists, put on the gloves, and steps into the ring in
his pretty satin trunks and whips another guy down in the 'nitty-gritty'.
1952 A. Murray Let. in R. Ellison & A. Murray Trading Twelves (2000) 27,
I say goddamn a motherfucking Haitian ritual. My kick is the local nitty
gritty.
1956 A. Childress Like One of Family 83 You'll find nobody comes down to
the nitty-gritty when it calls for namin' things for what they are.

Etymology is now "... Origin uncertain; perhaps a reduplication (with
variation of initial consonant cluster) of gritty adj.1
Other etymologies have been suggested but do not appear to be supported by
any firm evidence.
colloq. (orig. U.S. in African-American usage)."

World Wide Words puts in its two pennorth:

" ... nitty-gritty was originally a Black American English expression, and
some writers have guessed that nitty-gritty is a euphemism for shitty. Apart
from those tenuous associations, the evidence is all against the theory.
The first known example in print has recently been found by Fred Shapiro of
Yale University, in the Pittsburgh Courier of 29 June 1940: "Any convention
goes lacking when that Joe Louis clenches his fists, put on the gloves, and
steps into the ring in his pretty satin trunks and whips another guy down in
the 'nitty-gritty.'" The expression is almost certainly older (I know of two
people who claim to have come across it in the 1920s). But it's
inconceivable that it should have been around since slave-ship days without
somebody writing it down."

--
John Dean

[John Holmes]

Peter Duncanson [BrE] wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 00:53:05 -0800 (PST), sevi...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> How on earth did this interesting word become part of our language?
>> [I guess I've more or less answered my own question (below), but I
>> would appreciate a response from this group.]
>> The following are definitions from four dictionaries:
>> (1) American Heritage Dic (4th ed): =NG= "n.informal. The specific
>> or practical details; the heart of the matter. [Origin unknown.]
>> (2) The Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus (2003):=NG=
>> "n.slang.The realities or practical details of a matter. [20th c:
>> orig. uncert.]" (3) The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Vol.II,
>> revised & edited by C.T.Onions (1933): "Nitty a. Now rare. 1570.
>> Full of, abounding or infested with, nits." No def.of =NG=
>> (4) Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Editon,
>> unabridged (1950): "Nitty adj. 1. Full of, or infested with, nits.2.
>> Full of bubbles. Obs." No def. of =NG=
>> Adam Breaux
>
> A search for the phrase at Etymonline gives:
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=nitty-gritty&searchmode=none
>
> nitty-gritty (n.)
> "basic facts," 1961, knitty-gritty, American English, said to
> have been chiefly used by black jazz musicians, perhaps
> ultimately from nit and grits "finely ground corn." As an
> adjective from 1966.

It is the kind of expression that was probably used in speech a lot before
it ever appeared in print. OED has these citations earlier than 1960:

1940 Pittsburgh Courier 29 June 10 Any convention goes lacking when that
Joe Louis clenches his fists, put on the gloves, and steps into the ring in
his pretty satin trunks and whips another guy down in the 'nitty-gritty'.
1952 A. Murray Let. in R. Ellison & A. Murray Trading Twelves (2000) 27,
I say goddamn a motherfucking Haitian ritual. My kick is the local nitty
gritty.
1956 A. Childress Like One of Family 83 You'll find nobody comes down to
the nitty-gritty when it calls for namin' things for what they are.

--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au