Entry from March 07, 2005
Potsy
"Potsy" is the New York City term for the game of "hopscotch" (or a variant of this game). "Pot" has been cited since at least 1884 and "potsie" since at least 1897.
(Dictionary of American Regional English)
potsy n
also patsy; also sp pot(t)sie, pottsy; rarely pl: The game of hopscotch; the object used in this game. [Prob pots (at pot n 5) + -ie suff (also -y)] chiefly NYC
1905 Pedagogical Seminary 12.503 NYC, Potsie--a primitive kind of hopscotch.
1928 Amer. Mercury 14.58 NYC, Potsies, as I learned long after,...is the New York version of hopscotch.
1931 Recreation (NY) 24.672, Potsy is an adaptation of Hop Scotch...The "potsy" is a piece of tin, a rock or a puck.
1932 Sun (NY NY) 26 Mar 18/3, As any New Yorker will recognize, the potsy refers to the piece of tin can, doubled and redoubled and stamped flat with the heel, which is kicked from flagstone to flagstone...by the hopping, juvenile player of the game potsy.
Google Books
Games and Songs of American Children
by William Wells Newell
New York: Harper & Brothers
1884
Pg. 188: Hop-Scotch.
In Italy the three last divisions are Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. In New York the last is called Pot.
Chronicling America
4 June 1897, New York (NY) Daily Tribune, "Columbia Seniors at Play," pg. 7, col. 4:
After this the boys were too tired to play potsie, peggy, hopscotch, follow-my-leader and crossing, which would have completed the programme, but contented themselves with congratulating Hess on his victories, and in filling him up with ice cream sodas.
(Dictionary of American Regional English)
potsy n
also patsy; also sp pot(t)sie, pottsy; rarely pl: The game of hopscotch; the object used in this game. [Prob pots (at pot n 5) + -ie suff (also -y)] chiefly NYC
1905 Pedagogical Seminary 12.503 NYC, Potsie--a primitive kind of hopscotch.
1928 Amer. Mercury 14.58 NYC, Potsies, as I learned long after,...is the New York version of hopscotch.
1931 Recreation (NY) 24.672, Potsy is an adaptation of Hop Scotch...The "potsy" is a piece of tin, a rock or a puck.
1932 Sun (NY NY) 26 Mar 18/3, As any New Yorker will recognize, the potsy refers to the piece of tin can, doubled and redoubled and stamped flat with the heel, which is kicked from flagstone to flagstone...by the hopping, juvenile player of the game potsy.
Google Books
Games and Songs of American Children
by William Wells Newell
New York: Harper & Brothers
1884
Pg. 188: Hop-Scotch.
In Italy the three last divisions are Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. In New York the last is called Pot.
Chronicling America
4 June 1897, New York (NY) Daily Tribune, "Columbia Seniors at Play," pg. 7, col. 4:
After this the boys were too tired to play potsie, peggy, hopscotch, follow-my-leader and crossing, which would have completed the programme, but contented themselves with congratulating Hess on his victories, and in filling him up with ice cream sodas.