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Nixie on Your Tintype

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(@grantbarrett)
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Joined: 18 years ago

If you want to sound defiant, you could do worse than exclaiming,"Nixie on your tintype!" This phrase, meaning something to the effect of "spit on your face," popped up in Marjorie Benton Cooke's 1914 book, Bambi (not related to the sweet little deer). Kristin Anderson, a listener from Apalachicola, Florida, shares this great poem that makes use of the phrase. This is part of a complete episode.

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(@katiej)
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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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(@lloyd)
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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)
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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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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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