Word: spit
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Joel Chandler Harris Jr. undoubtedly knows the language of Southern Negroes, but before his suggested explanation of "spit an' image" be accepted (TIME, Oct. 11), let your readers consider a passage in a 17th Century play. In 1694, Edward Ravenscroft's Canterbury Guests was given its first performance. Scene 2 of Act III is given over to a trumped-up charge against Sir Barnaby Buffler that he is the father of children by two women of unsavory reputation. One of them, Dazie, accuses him as follows...
Here is the fruit of his labour, hold up thy Head, Tommy. Look you Gentlewoman, is he not as like, as if he was spit out of his mouth...
...then there came a time when we knew that Grandma would never see another Spring, never be able to lean out of her sunny window and spit at the children in the park again. She was growing visibly weaker, and began to miss the doctor with the chamber-pot almost every other visit. There was only one bed left in the house. And Grandpa never did come...
Sirs: Your ''spitting image" (TIME, Aug. 30. p. 11), which is meaningless, should have been "spit an' image." You doubtless have interpreted what you have heard "spittin' image," and, being punctilious, have supplied the g. You may supply the d for an', too, if you wish. Saliva, like blood, breath, etc., has been regarded, by many peoples of the world, as having supernatural potency, and, of course, intimately associated with one's being. In the folk-mythology of both hemispheres, saliva is often associated with conception. It is reported that among the Gypsies...
TIME herewith accepts Anthropologist White's correction. Henceforth when two things or people bear a close resemblance, TIME will bear in mind the corrected phrase spit-&-image...