slippy - From Ulster to America
Source: From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish Heritage of American English
Author: Michael Montgomery
Comments: From Ulster to America recounts the lasting impact eighteenth-century settlers from Ulster have made on the development of the English language of the United States. The book documents over 500 vocabulary items contributed to American English by these ‘Scotch-Irish’ settlers. Each ‘shared’ term with its meaning is authenticated by quotations from both sides of the Atlantic. This searchable online version of his book takes its text from the dictionary part of the second edition published by the Ullans Press in 2017.
slippy, slippey adj Slippery. [oed slippy adj ‘slippery’ 1548→; snd slippy adj ‘slippery’ 1772→; dare adj chiefly Pennsylvania, also South]
Ulst.:
1892 Ballymena Observer (in 1898-1905 Wright Engl Dial Dict) ‘as slippy as an ell’ = said of a person.
1904 Byers Sayings of Ulster 51 A man may be … ‘as hard as Derry’s walls’, or ‘as slippy (slippery) as a Bann eel’ (at Toomebridge).
c1955 Montgomery Heard in Ulster 134 slippy tit = very hard to hold: ‘He’s a slippy tit, that gent’ (= untrustworthy in his dealings).
1983 Pepper Ulster Knowledge 46 He’s a slippy tit—even comes into the house like a drop of soot.
2014 Fenton Hamely Tongue 221 ‘There’s a slippy stane ootside iveryboady’s dorr’ = a cautionary reminder that any family may experience a ‘fall’ of one or more of its members.
U.S.:
1801 Osborn Diary (18 Feb) But the morning being wet made the roads slippy so that he did not Like for to go but would lay it over till tomorrow.
1931 Maxfield Speech SW Penn 20 The walks are slippey today.
1982 McCool Pittsburghese 32 slippy = slippery, as in ‘Watch your step, the sidewalk’s slippy’.
