Re: 'Niss' or 'Nis'

On May 29, 4:33 pm, Peter Duncanson <m...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 29 May 2007 10:51:52 +0100, Blue Sow <janet.r...@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:





Paul Burke wrote:
Blue Sow wrote:
It was used in the sense of calling someone a bad name as in 'you niss!'.

Are you sure they weren't calling the person Eunice, as in the cricketer
Eunice Carne?

It was used to refer to any number of individuals, all of whom were considered
less wise, or less young, by the person saying it (and none of whom had the
syllable as part of their name).

Is this a pre-existing word or simply one coined for the programme to
avoid using a 'real' swear-word?

Was the program UK or US or even Australian? I've not heard the word in
Britain.

The programme is British English and was broadcast in 1969. The character who
uses the term is London English. Other characters are primarily London English
with some Scottish (the actors are generally English).
It was written by Robin Chapman (British).

This suggestion might be something or nothing, but there is a word
"nish":http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/n.htm

nish Pron./Adv. Nothing.

OED Online has it as a variant spelling of "nesh".

"Niss" might derive from "nish" or "nesh", it might be a more recent
local coining, or something else.

If it means nothing then we are back to a
contraction from German "nicht", ditto nix.

I'm more intrigued by the possibilities that
it could be derived from Hebrew "nisan",
roughly corresponding to March and April
which would imply "fool" (April Fool) as well
as be consistent with the allegedly irrelevant
musings concerned with anagrams and backwards
spellings and suchlike which are I gather a
feature of Kabbalah-ism.

At the risk of being labelled a hopeless
theist once again of course for making
observations that encompass the root
faith of the nominal religion all in
the UK are assumed to be by various legal
and administrative bodies unless they
specifically state otherwise (i.e. CofE)
and their shared concepts of bad, or taboo
acts and good, or worthy, acts

--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in uk.culture.language.english)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

G DAEB

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