Nixie on Your Tinty...
 
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Nixie on Your Tintype

Posts: 4
(@katiej)
Member
Joined: 15 years ago

It isn't "nixie," it's "ninny," as in the Spoonerized poem my mother (b. Fairmont, MN 1905) used to recite:

Once there was a molicepan,
Saw a bittle lum
Sittin' on a pence fost,
Chewin' gubber rum.
"O," said the molicepan,
"Won't you simme gum?"
"Tinny on your nintype,"
Said the bittle lum.


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Posts: 5
(@lloyd)
Member
Joined: 13 years ago

My mother also used to quote this ryme when she was trying to be funny.   She was born in 1908 in Mitchel, IN but grew up on a homestead in Othello, WA.   I agree with KatieJ that it was "Ninny on you tintype".   My mother would say it real fast, like a toung twister.  


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(@Anonymous)
Joined: 1 second ago

World Wide Words Newsletter  recently (Feb. 23)  had a short article on "not on your tintype" in which they quoted the poem:

Once a big molice pan met a bittle lum

Sitting on a sturb cone chewing gubber rum.

“Hi,” said the molice pan, “won't you simme gum?”

“Tixxy on your nin type,” said the bittle lum.

Ice-breakers, by Edna Geister, 1920.

    The article suggested that "not on your tintype" (which sounds like a variant of "nixie on your tintype") was in use with a meaning something like, "not on your life."


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(@Anonymous)
Joined: 1 second ago

Here is a slightly unrelated question. I did a search for Ice-breakers by Edna Geister and found it at Amazon with a sample of a few pages. On the first page I saw the word "ehaperone."   I immediately thought this was a typo of "chaperone" because "chaperone" fit well in the context.   But as I read further I found "ehaperone" used two more times on the first page.   I then did a search for "ehaperone" and found five hits on Google.   Each was in a newspaper and in each one I would have suspected a typo if it were the only time I had come across this word. Here is the question: Is "ehaperone" really a word? I've never heard of it. Or am I just continually uncovering typos?


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Posts: 722
(@dadoctah)
Member
Joined: 17 years ago

I think what you're seeing with "ehaperone" is an OCR error. Someone scanned in a document in a font with an oversized serif on the letter c, the scanner read the character as an e instead, and there's your new spelling.

Some of these errors can almost make sense. I find reference on the web to "ace of dubs" and "she shrieked in tenor".


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