So, you're 10 years old, playing with your best friend. Simultaneously you both spot a single gorilla mask abandoned on a park bench. Running toward(s) it, you shout the recogni(s/z)ed word for signal(l)ing a claim on desired objects. What is that word?
Chances are that there are dozens and dozens of ways to answer that question. The thing about childhood rituals is that they are passed among children, who tend to operate very locally--with their siblings, their schoolmates, their neighbo(u)rs. Words are invented, misheard, re-invented, borrowed and those changes don't travel far, but may be passed down to the children who are just a little younger, who later pass it down to the ones who are just a little younger, and so on.
Which is all to say, in the American idiom: Your mileage may vary when it comes to the playground terminology I'm discussing today.
But with that feat of (AmE) ass-covering out of the way, here's how you might have answered the question. In AmE, you'd probably shout dibs. In BrE, at least down here in the South, bagsy would do, though it might just be bags. (To get a feel for possible dialectal boundaries of this, see this thread at Wordwizard.) To put this in the verbal form, you can bags or bagsy something, but, as you can see from the OED examples, the spelling is hard to pin down:
But when I posted dibs/bagsy as the 'Difference of the Day' on Twitter, some BrE speakers questioned my translation, as they had understood (AmE) shotgun to mean the same as bags(y). But just as happens when words are borrowed from another language, the non-native users of the word have changed the meaning when they've adopted the word. And they have adopted the word, to some extent. Here's an example from a Twitter feed I follow:
You can see this in another tweet:
Calling shotgun could be extended and used metaphorically, as in this Canadian tweet:
Or, at least, that's how it is for an AmE speaker of my generation. We have a special word for that sweet seat, with its status and its anti-emetic properties, because it was a central part of our lives in childhood. With the exception of a few urban cent{er/re}s, you'd expect any family to have a car--and more than one child to fight over the best seat in that car. Americans can also get a (AmE) driver's license/(BrE) driving licence by age 16 in most states (as compared to18 17 at the earliest [see comments] in the UK). So, gangs of teenagers also need ways to establish pecking orders. But I have to wonder whether shotgun will go the way of the library card catalog(ue), since riding in a car is a completely different experience for children today than it was for children in my day. No more cramming ten kids into the back of a (AmE) station wagon/(BrE) estate car; everyone's in car seats now, and the law determines which of those are allowed in the front seat. While I think that's a good thing safety-wise, I'm getting rather nostalgic thinking about, for example, climbing in and out of the back seat of a moving car or cramming myself down in the foot-well when I felt like it. So maybe the kids in America have lost or are losing the true meaning of shotgun. *sob* You in the States can let me know whether this is the case.
By the way, I've left the Twitter window with the 'shotgun' search going. In the last hour, 50 people have used the word shotgun, often prefaced by I wish I had a. I'll sleep less well tonight.
Chances are that there are dozens and dozens of ways to answer that question. The thing about childhood rituals is that they are passed among children, who tend to operate very locally--with their siblings, their schoolmates, their neighbo(u)rs. Words are invented, misheard, re-invented, borrowed and those changes don't travel far, but may be passed down to the children who are just a little younger, who later pass it down to the ones who are just a little younger, and so on.
Which is all to say, in the American idiom: Your mileage may vary when it comes to the playground terminology I'm discussing today.
But with that feat of (AmE) ass-covering out of the way, here's how you might have answered the question. In AmE, you'd probably shout dibs. In BrE, at least down here in the South, bagsy would do, though it might just be bags. (To get a feel for possible dialectal boundaries of this, see this thread at Wordwizard.) To put this in the verbal form, you can bags or bagsy something, but, as you can see from the OED examples, the spelling is hard to pin down:
[1946 B. MARSHALL George Brown's Schooldays xxi. 89 ‘What about you doing the gassing instead of me?’ ‘But I bagsed-I I didn't’, Abinger protested. 1950 B. SUTTON-SMITH Our Street i. 25 [They] would all sit..‘bagzing’. I bagz we go to the zoo.] 1979 I. OPIE Jrnl. 28 Mar. in People in Playground (1993) 129 I'm second, I just baggsied it! 1995 New Musical Express 28 Oct. 28 (caption) Mark Sutherland baggsys a window seat. 1998 C. AHERNE et al. Royle Family Scripts: Ser. 1 (1999) Episode 2. 52 Mam. I think I'll do chicken. Antony. Bagsey me breast.A verbal form of dibs is also widely reported (I dibsed it!), but I'd be much more likely to say I've got dibs on it or I called dibs on that.
But when I posted dibs/bagsy as the 'Difference of the Day' on Twitter, some BrE speakers questioned my translation, as they had understood (AmE) shotgun to mean the same as bags(y). But just as happens when words are borrowed from another language, the non-native users of the word have changed the meaning when they've adopted the word. And they have adopted the word, to some extent. Here's an example from a Twitter feed I follow:
timeshighered We hereby shotgun the rights to the phrase "I survived Twitocalypse 2010" - this time next year, we'll be millionaires!In fact, if I had read this tweet without already having had the discussion with BrE speakers about dibs and bagsy, I doubt I would have been able to make sense of it. What's happened? The BrE speakers have heard Americans say shotgun in a place in a situation in which they would have said bags(y), and didn't reali{z/s}e that there's more meaning to shotgun than just 'I stake a claim on something'. Shotgun very specifically means: 'I claim the right to sit in the front passenger seat of a vehicle.'
You can see this in another tweet:
An AmE speaker immediately knows which valuable commodity the Zombies are not interested in. In fact, because the claimed thing is understood, it would be redundant (not to mention ambiguous) to say call shotgun on the front seat. Note also that it's not a verb. To me, to shotgun something would be like to machine-gun something. One calls shotgun. And once one gets the seat, one rides shotgun, which originally meant (and still can mean) 'To travel as a (usually armed) guard next to the driver of a vehicle; (in extended use) to act as a protector' (OED).downrightcreepy I bet Zombies don't call shotgun on road trips.
Calling shotgun could be extended and used metaphorically, as in this Canadian tweet:
Can I call shotgun on the yoga cd pls?...but this usually is done as a sly reference to the childhood car-seat experience.
Or, at least, that's how it is for an AmE speaker of my generation. We have a special word for that sweet seat, with its status and its anti-emetic properties, because it was a central part of our lives in childhood. With the exception of a few urban cent{er/re}s, you'd expect any family to have a car--and more than one child to fight over the best seat in that car. Americans can also get a (AmE) driver's license/(BrE) driving licence by age 16 in most states (as compared to
By the way, I've left the Twitter window with the 'shotgun' search going. In the last hour, 50 people have used the word shotgun, often prefaced by I wish I had a. I'll sleep less well tonight.
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