OK, i understand pig latin, but what does ixnay mean? Take out the piglatin and your left with Nix, right? What does that mean? It’s usually used when trying to hush something up, maybe I’m not hearing it correctly?
There’s a somewhat dated expression that goes “nix on <whatever>”. Someone’s lighting up in the non-smoking section? “Nix on the cigarettes, pal”. Someone’s trying to get into the nightclub while improperly attired? “Sorry, man – nix on the cut-off jeans.”
Nix means stop, forbid or veto. Like NIX lice treatment. or “She nixed the idea of Chinese food for the third time this week.”
It can also mean nothing, as is “I got nix, nada, nothin’.”
As for nix:
So you take a slang term and further obscure it with pig latin.
I think “nix” is from the German (maybe via Yiddish?) word “nichts,” meaning “nothing.” Interestingly, I think “ixnay” is one of the few Pig Latin words to make into general usage. Anyone got any others?
Yep: “amscray”
Good one. What’s cool is that there’s a bit of preserved '50’s slang in both “amscray” and “ixnay.” Linguistic flies in the amber.
Then, you should have written igpay atinlay. 
There are people who don’t know what *nix * means?
I’m not trying to be snarky, actually, this makes me feel old! 
When more common, nix was sometimes used in humorous movie-industry article headlines, like
“Stix hicks nix pic” or “The film didn’t do well during its trial run in some small city”.
I think that in some regions of the U.S., the term is still used to this day in spoken language. In other areas (mine), you’ll rarely hear someone say nix. You may well run across it in print, though.
Just out of curiousity, did you see Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Young Frankenstein? If so, were you confused by the use of “ixnay”? Or did you simply ignore it or let it pass as a reference you didn’t get?
To scram is 50’s slang? :eek: The things I learn reading the Dope…
The actual Variety headline was Hix Nix Stix Pix, referring to audiences in rural areas who didn’t like the way that rural communities were depicted in films.
In the Disney animated Aladdin, one of the things the genie says in his little disclaimer is:
“Ixnay on the wishing for more wishes…”
Leads me to believe that the pig-latin version is nearly as commonly used as the non-pig version.
I understood basically what was meant , say in the simpsons " ixnay on the omarmay!!"
But as the term “Nix” never made it this side of the pond, I was unsure as to what the sentence would be in non pig latin. Eh, english.
For the longest time, I thought it was icksnay, translated as “Snick”.
However, I now have the “Aightstray opeday”!
Esusjay.
We actually don’t refer to the pond anymore, we now call it the ** mucky puddle**.
This website says that “nix” originally comes from “eighty-six”. I can’t vouch for that, but I have seen the expression used in Dashiell Hammett novels (hard-boiled detective novels written between 1929 and 1934 - classic stories that are a must read.)
During the years he wrote those novels, Dashiell Hammett lived in San Francisco, New York City, and Hollywood.
No, not really. Scram goes back much further, and “amscray” is cited from at least 1934.
Not really.
Evan, at the time, was trying to relate “nix” with “eighty-six.” But he didn’t say that “nix” comes from “eighty-six.”
“Nix” as a word appears around 1800. As a variant of the German “nichts.”
Ixnay is first cited in 1929.