[lit-ideas] Re: With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 08:07:46 EDT
Geary:
>My ex, who shares grandparentage with MY grandchildren, is called "Nonnie"
by
>the grandkids. I can't wait to tell her what it means.
Not to spoil your pleasure, but double check next time the way your grandes
kiddos, as you call them ('kiddos' is a farmer's word in Mexico), pronounce
the form. It could be a variant of 'nona', in Indonesian. So I read from the
OED.
Cheers,
JL
----
Indonesian nona woman (also as nonah; cognate with Javanese nonah in the
same sense) Further etymology uncertain.
It has been suggested that the Indonesian word may be of Portuguese origin
(< a shortened form of Portuguese senhora n. or an altered form of dona).
A more convincing theory is that is Chinese: it could be a reduplicated form
(perh. in a regional variant) of niáng ma, mum, mother, form of address for
a woman, and thus equivalent to English mama.
Other Chinese, as well as mixed Chinese and Portuguese, origins have also
been suggesed. It could equally be a native Malay and Indonesian word: see Tan
Chee-Beng Baba of Melaka (1988) 13-14 and 26.]
Unfortunately, the copies I have are of pp. 1-12, only.
In the Malaysian and Indonesian region: a woman, esp. one of Chinese,
Chinese and Malay, or other mixed descent; a Peranakan woman.
1934 Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang.,
Nona, nonnie, in Java, the daughter of a Malay mother and European father.
1957 M. FREEDMAN Chinese Family & Marriage in Singapore ii. 52 In the fourth
room there were an elderly nonnie, her daughter, and the latter's husband
and baby.
1978 J. PASSMORE All Asian Cookbk. (1979) 85/2 The offspring of marriages
between Chinese settlers and Malay women..became known as Nonnie (the females,
who have given their name to the cuisine) and Bobbie, or Baba (the males).
1993 National Geogr. Traveler Mar.-Apr. 103/2
But Peranakan food is what Singaporeans know best. Nonnies, as Peranakan
women are called (the men are called Bobbies, or Babas), have long been famous
for their expertise in the kitchen.
2000 Straits Times (Singapore) (Nexis) 11 Nov. 18 It is hard to think about
geriatrics..engaging in sex, without cringing or having a major case of the ‘
jijits’, as a young nonnie friend describes it.
----
Personally I am more interested, and I thought you would Geary too, in the
quote from
1535 COVERDALE
Goostly Psalmes
Introd. Epist. sig. iiv,
"They shulde be better occupied,
then with hey nony nony, hey troly loly,
& soch lyke fantasies"
"Troly loly" -- sounds devilish to me, but I would have to consult the
sources.
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