Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Wednesday Words ~ digs

Birds of a Feather (Book 2) ~ by Maisie Dobbs, 2004, mystery (England), 9/10

I ran across "digs" twice in this book and felt it was a later slang word, not from 1930.  Here are those two quotes, followed by the definition I found online:
(p. 71) ~ "The Square was busy when she closed the outer door behind her. There were people wandering across to visit friends, art students from the Slade returning to their digs, and a few people going in and out of the corner grocery shop where Mrs. Clark and her daughter, Phoebe, would be running back and forth to find even the most obscure items that the eclectic mix of customers in Fitzroy Square requested, despite the fact that the country was in the midst of a depression."

(p. 271) ~ "I'm on duty until seven, then I go back to my digs."
Definition:  "In British usage, to be in digs is to live in a room in a house with shared facilities, frequently with meals supplied by the landlady.  It's typically a lodging for students or young unmarried men and women.  It's short for 'diggings,' which is the older word for the same idea."

I thought it meant something like "the place where I live," but I seem to be wrong that it originated later.  Let's see what Merriam-Webster says:
"Digs is derived from the earlier term diggings, which shares the same meaning of 'living quarters' or 'lodging.'  This sense of diggings goes back to the 19th century."
Whoo-hoo!  It appears I had the right definition, and it isn't limited to a place where I "share facilities."  It's okay to say "my digs" when speaking of my apartment in a 10-story building.

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