willy nilly

Keith Bradford said:
Who can tell? We only have that one phrase to go from and we need the previous context.
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He said that in the 60s there was a Stop and Frisk rule, which enabled officers to frisk people if they thought they might be invlolved in a crime. But then that rule "evolved to a tool" and police officers started to misuse it, thinking they could pat down anyone willy-nilly. So I don't think 'carelessly' is meant.
 
    • zaffy said:
    This man is talking about issues with officers patting people down. Now, here "will nilly" means "whether people like it or not", right?

    And then somehow it evolved into a tool where cops, not just in New York, would just approach people and pat them down nilly-willy.

    View attachment 61333
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    I think this means "without rhyme or reason". The police are patting down blacks without cause just because of how they look.

    Note: Crossed posts with Zaffy.
     
    Stop and Frisk was a New York Police Department phrase. Elsewhere it is called a "Terry Stop" after the Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio in 1968. (I had to look up the date).

    So this started sometime in 1969 and was common practice throughout the 1970s and 1980s. At some time in that period it was labeled "racial profiling" and fell in disrepute.

    On Long Island, a "seatbelt violation" was a substitute. Cops could stop someone for not wearing a shoulder harness and then search the vehicle. Later, seatbelt violations were no longer acceptable reasons for stopping a car. They had to be stopped for something else and the seatbelt violation could be added on.
     
    Packard said:
    I think this means "without rhyme or reason".
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    :thumbsup:

    I would call this standard American usage. Not this specific scenario, but the general idea. They don't have rigorous standards in deciding on who and when to initiate a pat down procedure. It's somewhat random and based on whim.

    Although, you can see how the other, "willing or not", definition is hiding down in there somewhere. I had never heard of that use before and my first reaction was they were totally different, but this example shows the connection. They are subjected to something you wouldn't normally expect them to approve of, due to the haphazard application of an idea/procedure.
     
    zaffy said:
    That's interesting. So is that a third meaning of that phrase?
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    "Without rhyme or reason" pretty much means "in a haphazard way". So not too far off from the same meaning.

    Crossed posts with Kentix. We appear to be on the same page.
     
    kentix said:
    :thumbsup:

    I would call this standard American usage. Not this specific scenario, but the general idea. They don't have rigorous standards in deciding on who and when to initiate a pat down procedure. It's somewhat random and based on whim.
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    It's standard UK usage too.
     
    And how about this example? Is that the ‘haphazard’ or the ‘whether we like or not’ one? He is talking about the rising popularity of reality shows on TV.

    That blur between what’s real and what’s not is pumped into media stream willy-nilly. There are now more reality shows on TV than there were shows on TV 20 years ago.

    1630503050460.png
     
    To be honest, the sentence doesn't actually make sense. A blur can't be pumped in.

    But in general I would take it as the haphazard meaning.

    (But then, that's the only one I've ever heard used regularly.)
     
    I rarely year "willy-nilly" in the USA. I can't recall hearing "shilly-shally", though it sounds vaguely familiar.
     
    This is all very curious. I've only ever thought it had the what's here being called the 'haphazard' meaning, but my Chambers Dictionary, says:

    adverb

    1. Willing or unwilling, whether one wishes or not
    2. Compulsorily, inevitably
    3. Haphazardly


    adjective

    1. Having no choice
    2. Being so, or occurring, willy-nilly
    3. Vacillating (non-standard)
    4. Haphazard
     
    Dictionaries reflect usage. My understanding is that the further down on the list, the lower the usage. I know that they add words to the dictionary based on usage. I do wonder how they derive the data that drives that decision.

    In any case, if they list it by frequency of usage, then the list seems entirely reversed to me.
     
    Well, at least one thing's clear - none of us uses it in the "erroneous"/"non-standard" sense of undecided or vacillating:cool:.
     
    I didn't know about the "haphazard" meaning at all. I thought that other people, while liking the sound of the phrase, just didn't know its precise meaning, so that they seem to use it "willy nilly".:cool:
     
    There's a key difference between willy-nilly and similar sounding terms like shilly-shally or pell-mell. The latter two are examples of rhyming reduplication, a common process by which can be 'stretched' or extended by adding a repetitive rhymed or assonant variant.
    Willy-nilly, however, is not rhyming reduplication. It is the good old Anglo-Saxon word willan, [be willing, wish, desire] coupled with the Anglo-Saxon ne negator, which can either stand on its own as a word or become a prefix [n~] that negates the word that follows. It's the same process that created 'neither' from 'either'.
    So, the 'willingly or unwillingly' definition is the core meaning, and the 'haphazard' definition is misuse.
     
    I just came across this example. The guy recording a police parking lot was detained. He claimed it was an unlawful detaintment and he adressed the cop saying "Listen, you just can't detain people willy-nilly". That means "haphazardly" again, right?

    1630697152041.png
     
    Uncle Jack said:
    I don't think we can tell without knowing more about the situation.
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    He was detained for taking pictures near the police headquarters. He was angry as he was not doing anything illegal and wanted to speak to the supervisor. The police officer in the screenshot is the supervisor who dismissed the police officers who had detained him. And the cameraman told him: "Listen, you just can't detain people willy-nilly".
     
    In this case, I would say willy-nilly means without specific good, legally justified reasons.

    In other words, he thinks it is being done on a whim and not based on any objective criteria.
     
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    What would it be using the other meaning?
    "You can't detain people whether you want to or not."
    "You can't detain people whether they want to or not."
    or something else.
    Obviously, I can't detain people just because I want to, but I also can't detain people because I don't want to? I'm confused. :)
     
    I use it in the 'whether you want to or not' sense only: "Young lady, you have to do your homework right now willy nilly, no matter who's on Ed Sullivan."
     
    Before I read this thread I would have found that sentence very confusing.

    [I would have checked that you didn't get your dosages wrong. :)]
     
    heypresto said:
    Wow, that's really fascinating. :) I've honestly never come across this usage before.
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    And I'm fascinated to see that no one else (if I read all the comments correctly) uses it in the "whether you like it or not" sense, which is right there in the WR dictionaries, of all places. :)
     
    Roxxxannne said:
    And I'm fascinated to see that no one else (if I read all the comments correctly) uses it in the "whether you like it or not" sense, which is right there in the WR dictionaries, of all places. :)
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    No one else? Not true. But you all seemed to be having such fun arguing about this that I didn't want to butt in.

    But of course will he, nill he (Latin nolens volens) => willy-nilly has equalled whether he wants to or not. for the past 400 years. The misuse other use with the meaning higgledy-piggledy is OK for people who haven't come across helter-skelter, slipshod, hugger-mugger, slapdash, confusedly, indiscriminately and all the other dozens of perfectly good alternatives.
     
    And there was me thinking that a hugger-mugger was someone who robbed unsuspecting courting couples while their attention was on other things.

    "Helter-skelter" has now been mentioned at least twice in this thread, yet I have never heard it being used to mean confusion. I have only known it to mean at high speed, but of course what it really is is a superior kind of children's slide. How I loved them when I was a boy:
    1630762936530.png
     
    Roxxxannne said:
    And I'm fascinated to see that no one else (if I read all the comments correctly) uses it in the "whether you like it or not" sense, which is right there in the WR dictionaries, of all places. :)
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    I think several of us have said we use or understand it that way;).

    This thread has been enlightening!
     
    Helter Skelter is pretty firmly associated with Charles Manson in this country. He was the famously psychotic leader of a murderous cult. He used the term as part of his ideology (based on lyrics in a Beatles song) and a very famous book about him and his activities had that as the title. It doesn't conjure up images of fair rides here. :)

    But it does get used as an adjective now and then, both for speed and disorganization. I think the second is a consequence of Charles Manson, probably, and what he did with the term.
     
    Loob said:
    I think several of us have said we use or understand it that way;).

    This thread has been enlightening!
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    I can't read until I've had my coffee, but that doesn't prevent me from thinking I can.
     
    mikael.toronto said:
    I'm watching 'the office', and I don't get the meaning of 'willy nilly'.
    Could someone help me with this one, in English.
    Thanks.
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    It is changing over time. The older meaning is “Whether I/you/they like it or not”. The other meanings are more recent, are becoming more common, and are probably more common in US than in UK. It can therefore be ambiguous.
     
    All I can say is that I've never, in all my 60-odd years of speaking BE known or heard any meaning other than the 'haphazard' one. This thread, to quote Loob, has been enlightening!
     
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