commando

July 23, 2020

23 July 2020

Commandos are elite, special operations soldiers, specializing in raids and operations behind enemy lines. Or at least that’s the prevalent definition today. But the word has its roots in Dutch colonial oppression in South Africa.

The word comes from the Portuguese, meaning a command or a party of soldiers. It was adopted into Afrikaans, the South African dialect of Dutch, in the sense of an armed party, specifically that of a local, paramilitary militia. It first appears in English in 1790, in a translation of naturalist François Le Vaillant’s Travels from the Cape of Good Hope. This citation is also an excellent example of how the brief usage citations found in dictionaries often do not convey the entire sense and context of usage. The Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED’s) citation, taken from a 1791 work that excepts the 1790 translation, simply says:

“A colonist,” says he [sc. Le Vaillant], “who lives [...] up the country [...] intreats a commando, which is a permission to go, with the help of his neighbours, to retake his property.”

And the OED’s definition for this sense reads:

An armed and usually mounted party of men, typically civilians, mustered, esp. against indigenous peoples, for forays, reprisals, and the recovery of stolen cattle; an expedition undertaken by such a party.

But the relevant passage in Le Vaillant’s book reads, in full:

A Colonist who lives two hundred leagues up the country, arrives at the Cape, to complain that the Caffrees have taken all his cattle, and intreats a Commando, which is permission to go, with the help of his neighbours, and re-take his property; the Governor, who either does not, or feigns not to understand the trick, adheres strictly to the facts expressed in the petition; a preamble of regular information would occasion long delays—a permission is easily given—'tis but a word—the fatal word is written, which proves a sentence of death to a thousand poor savages, who have no such defence or resources as their persecutors.
Thus the monster (regardless of religion) having compleated his business at the Cape, returns with an inhuman joy to his villainous accomplices, and extends his Commando as far as his interest requires; the massacres this occasions, is but the signal for other butcheries; for should the Caffrees have the audacity to attempt regaining any part of their lost herds. the confusion recommences, and only ceases when there are no more victims or no more plunder.

(Note that Caffrees, as spelled by Le Vaillant’s translator, is a highly offensive term today, akin to the N-word in American English.)

The brief citation does not convey the brutality with which the Dutch settlers oppressed the indigenous peoples of the region. Le Vaillant was clearly shocked by the Dutch tactics, so this is not a case of applying twenty-first century morality onto an earlier age. The OED’s definition and clipped citation are a whitewashing of the horrors of European colonial practices. (Note that the definition was written after the 1989 second edition, which reads similarly but is different; so, this is not a case of an old nineteenth-century definition just not being updated.)

Commando continued to be used in English in this sense through to the end of the nineteenth century. Then the Boer War of 1899–1902 saw the word used to refer to units in the Boer army, especially paramilitary, militia units. For instance, from the Edinburgh Evening News of 2 October 1899:

Trustworthy information has reached camp that the Boers intend attacking Dundee at an early date, and that a commando at Buffalo bridge has been detailed for this duty, and is only waiting for reinforcements.

It is during this war that the word is introduced to the British public at large, and the number of uses of the word skyrocketed. For instance, the Hansard Corpus of speeches in the British parliament records six uses of commando in the 1890s, but a total of eighty-six in the decade 1900–09.

I have also found a use of the paramilitary/militia sense of commando used in a non-South-African context. During World War II, the London Times uses the word to refer to unit of Greek resistance fighters on Crete in May 1941:

On report says that Greek passion reached almost a sublime intensity at one moment when a little half-armed commando called on a heavy concentration of German machine-gunners to surrender.

But this is not the common use of commando in that war, which introduces the sense of a unit of special operations troops, or the soldiers constituting such a unit. Winston Churchill was the first to use this sense of the word that have a record of, but he did not coin the term as it is clear from his use that this sense was already in use. On 2 July 1940, Churchill wrote to General Ismay about the German seizure of the Channel Islands:

Plans should be studied to land secretly by night on the islands and kill or capture the invaders. This is exactly one of the exploits for which the Commandos would be suited.

The name was undoubtedly adopted out of memory of the ferocity of Boer resistance in the earlier war, and the adoption resulted in commando being valorized and reclaimed as a positive term.

The existence of the special operations commando units was made public in late 1941. This mention appears in Aberdeen Press and Journal of 11 October 1941:

The secret of the “Commandos” has just been released. For more than a year they have been in existence—specially selected bodies of what the War Office last night called “Shock Troops”—men put through the most intensive training that any units of the British Army have had to undergo. [...] Men of the Commandos must be tough—as tough as the old South African Commandos during the Boer War.

From this British use doing World War II, commando has grown to unofficially refer to special operations troops and units of any nation.

It has also developed a slang sense. The phrase to go commando, meaning to forgo wearing underwear, was first identified in U.S. student slang in 1974 by linguist Connie Eble. The phrase was made famous in the 26 September 1996 episode of the sitcom Friends, “The One Where No One’s Ready,” in which the character Joey says:

It's a rented tux. Okay? I'm not gonna go commando in another man's fatigues.

The connection between commandos and underwear is uncertain. It could be a reference to the tough nature of the soldiers who don’t need comfortable clothing, or perhaps to the difficulty in obtaining fresh clothing during long-range patrols, or it simply could be a reference to being daring and unconventional.

So, commando has undergone quite a journey, from Dutch colonial oppression to elite soldiers to students going without underwear.

Discuss this post

Sources:

A Dictionary of South African English on Historical Principles. Oxford University Press, 1996, s.v. commando n.

“The Coming War.” Edinburgh Evening News, 2 October 1899, 2.

Davies, Mark. (2015) Hansard Corpus. Part of the SAMUELS project.

Divine, A.D. “‘Commandos’ Our Secret Shock Troops. Press and Journal (Aberdeen), 11 October 1941, 4.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. commando adv.

Internet Movie Database (IMDb), accessed 22 May 2020.

Le Vaillant, François. Travels from the Cape of Good Hope, vol. 1 of 2. London: William Lane, 1790, 355–57. Eighteenth Century Collections Online.

Matter, Kathy. “Slang: The Language of Students.” Lafayette Journal and Courier (Indiana), 22 October 1989, 41.

“No Respite Struggle for Crete.” Times (London), 26 May 1941, 4.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. commando, n.

Photo credit: Imperial War Museum.

colonel

July 22, 2020

22 July 2020

In most military organizations, colonel is the officer rank immediately below that of brigadier general. (Ironically, in the U.S. Army a brigade is commanded by a colonel, not a brigadier general.) Colonel is a sixteenth century borrowing from French, which got it from Italian. It would be an unremarkable etymology except for the word’s pronunciation. Colonel has an < l > that is not pronounced. Present day British pronunciation is / ˈkəːnl /, and U.S. pronunciation is / ˈkəɹn(ə)l /. Where does the / ɹ / phoneme come from and what happened to the / l /?

The word originally comes from the Italian colonnello, which is from the root colonna, or column, and a colonnello was originally the commander of a column of infantry. When the word was borrowed into French it became coronnel through a process called dissimilation. That is, when a word has a repeated sound, in this case a double / l /, the first of them will tend to disappear or change. To give another example, dissimilation is why many people don’t pronounce the first / ɹ / in February. In the Romance languages, when a word has a double / l /, the first often becomes an / ɹ /. Both / l / and / ɹ / are liquid phonemes and frequently interchange.

When colonel first appears in English it is with the < r > spelling. From a 1548 letter from Thomas Fisher to the Duke of Somerset regarding the Siege of Haddington, a battle in War of Rough Wooing (which is one of my favorite names for a war, second only to the War for Jenkins’s Ear, but I digress):

Emonge the whiche, there was slaine in the base courte a very nere kynesman of the Ringraves, who being uppon the first repulse left behind ded in the courte, certen of the worthiest Almaynes at the desire of their coronell, with a new showte eftsones approached and reentred the same, of purpose to fetche awey his said kynesman.

But in the early modern era, it was common for spelling to be altered to reflect a word’s etymology. Hence, the < b > in debt, from the Latin debitum. In the case of colonel, the < l > was reinserted in the spelling, although the pronunciation remained unchanged. We can see this a few decades later in Richard Knolles 1603 Generall Historie of the Turkes:

Amongst others of the nobilitie called to counsell, was Michaell Paleologus (of whom we haue before spoken) much superiour to the rest, as descended of the imperiall house of the Comneni, a man of a cheerefull countenance, gracious, and courteous, and withall exceeding bountifull and liberall, whereby he easily woon the hearts of all men in generall, but especially of the colonels, captaines, and other martiall men, commaunders in the armie.

This old practice of using etymology, rather than pronunciation, to guide spelling is one of the reasons that English spelling is so perniciously haphazard. But before you jump on the spelling-reform bandwagon, remember that processes like dissimilation are constantly occurring. Pronunciation is always changing and trying to keep spelling up to date with the latest changes (not to mention whose pronunciation you will use) is a fool’s errand.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Ellis, Henry. Original Letters Illustrative of English History, third series, vol. 3. London: Richard Bentley, 1846, 295–96. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Knolles, Richard. The Generall Historie of the Turkes. London: Adam Islip, 1603, 111. Early English Books Online.

Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories, 1991, s.v. colonel.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. colonel, n.

Photo credit: U.S. National Archives.

cold war

July 21, 2020

21 July 2020

Image of US Pershing II intermediate-range ballistic missile in West Germany, 1983–91

The Cold War was the period of heightened tensions between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies following World War II. Credit for the coining the term cold war is usually given to George Orwell (pen name for Eric Blair), but this is only partially correct. In the 19 October 1945 issue of The Tribune, Orwell wrote:

The atomic bomb may complete the process by robbing the exploited classes and peoples of all power to revolt, and at the same time putting the possessors of the bomb on a basis of military equality. Unable to conquer one another, they are likely to continue ruling the world between them, and it is difficult to see how the balance can be upset except by slow and unpredictable demographic changes.
For forty or fifty years past, Mr. H. G. Wells and others have been warning us that man is in danger of destroying himself with his own weapons, leaving the ants or some other gregarious species to take over. Anyone who has seen the ruined cities of Germany will find this notion at least thinkable. Nevertheless, looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity. James Burnham’s theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of “cold war” with its neighbours.

Orwell was the first to publicly use the phrase cold war to refer to the post-war competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, but he was not the first to use the phrase to refer to conflict between great powers that falls short of war.

The period of rising tensions leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939 was sometimes referred to as a cold war. Journalist Joseph Barnes wrote of a possible cold war between Germany and Poland in the 30 July 1939 edition of the New York Herald Tribune:

All Sections of Population Are Resolved to Fight but Defense in Long-Drawn “Cold War” of Nerves Is Not So Certain [sub-headline]
If German forces move into Danzig to annex it, they will be opposed by a Poland more united than at any time since it returned to the map of Europe twenty years ago. If they proceed instead by “cold war,” by the eroding process of alternate threats and crises leading up to negotiation on the Munich model, Polish resistance will be less certain.

And an article in the Baltimore Sun on 16 August 1939 also used cold war to refer to the tensions in pre-war Europe:

The cold war of propaganda, demonstrations, confusion of feeling and attack on nerves is stepped up to a new high as September and the Nürnberg Nazi congress approach, while the promise of relief and settlement is again quietly refurbished.

Image of woman glaring at pro-FDR picketers, 1940

The phrase even appeared in the context of U.S. domestic politics, referring to tensions between Democrats and Republicans. The following appeared as a caption to a photograph in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of 21 October 1940:

“I Beg Your Pardon.” Most pictures of pickets handing out leaflets look alike; only the signs different. This one caught the flavor of the cold war that leaflet distributors face when they preach Roosevelt to Republicans. The picture was made on New York’s Fifth avenue. The photographer didn’t get the name of the woman, but to veteran pickets her expression needed no caption.

But perhaps the use that most closely captures the qualities of the post-war Cold War to come is this the Manchester Guardian of 31 July 1941. It is a response to a speech made by British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden in which he suggested that Germany might wish to come to terms with Britain and the Soviet Union but that accepting a negotiated peace would be a mistake. The Guardian opined:

Mr. Eden did well to describe the position in which the world would find itself after the conclusion of a peace that left Hitler in power. [...] We should have to continue the incessant production of tanks and aircraft, and the needs of war would have the first claim on all our energy, all our wealth, all our plans, all our thoughts. All Europe would suffer the misery of a kind of cold war in which everything but life itself would be sacrificed to fear.

Although the cold war antagonist here is Germany, not the Soviet Union, the statement is eerily prescient.

And toward the end of the war, American journalist Dorothy Thompson wrote the following which was syndicated widely in papers through the United States and Canada:

The coalition has been kept together by one man: Hitler, and by one nation: Germany. If this man and his nation disappear, or cease to be menacing, a catastrophe threatens the coalition. The only sure way we can maintain the coalition is to continue a cold war against Germany, creating by our policies the perpetual fear of a German rebellion and hence the perpetual need of a coalition to keep her down.

Like the Guardian piece from four years before, Thompson envisioned a cold war against Germany, but one that would continue for many years after the actual war ended. Thompson’s piece is akin to the old quip that the purpose of NATO was to “Keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

So, Orwell did not coin the term cold war—the term was well established in foreign policy circles in the decade prior and was used to refer to politico-military competition between great powers—but he seems to have been the first to publicly recognize that one would exist between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Barnes, Joseph. “Poland Offers a United Front.” New York Herald Tribune, 30 July 1939, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“The Everyday Magazine: As Election Day Draws Near.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 21 October 1940, 1D. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Mr. Eden’s Warning.” Manchester Guardian, 31 July 1941, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Orwell, George (Eric Blair). “You and the Atom Bomb.” Tribune, 19 October 1945. The Orwell Foundation.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v., cold, adj.

“The Peace Offensive.” Baltimore Sun, 16 August 1939, 10. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Thompson, Dorothy. “Method in the Germans’ Madness.” Louisville Courier-Journal, 1 January 1945, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Photo credits:

Morris Engel, PM photo appearing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 21 October 1940.

Unknown photographer, unknown date (1983–91), Field Artillery, HQDA PB6-91, February 1991, 32. Public domain image.

cold turkey

July 20, 2020

20 July 2020

Cold turkey, as it is most commonly used today, means to quit something, especially something that is addictive, suddenly. The metaphor underlying the phrase is that a meal of cold turkey is easy to make and needs little to no preparation. The figurative use of cold turkey dates to the 1870s and comes in several discrete senses: an easy task, a abrupt act with no preparation or advance notice, and, in a mixed metaphor with the older phrase to talk turkey, to engage in blunt, plain speech.

While literal use of cold turkey, referring to food, is far older (and not particularly interesting from a linguistic point of view), the earliest figurative use of the phrase that I have found is from the Minneapolis Tribune of 21 August 1878. It appears in a news snippet about the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Bosnia, which at the time was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire:

The Austrian advance into Russia continues to be stubbornly resisted, and Gen. Phillipovich doubtless begins to look upon that little province as about the liveliest piece of cold Turkey with which he ever had any experience. Had the Bosnians developed such staying qualities when the Musselman soldiers of the Porte were ravaging their homes a year or two ago, their situation now might be very different.

The meaning of cold Turkey in this phrase is opaque until one looks at later uses of the phrase, when it becomes apparent the writer is engaging in a play on words, conflating the sense of cold turkey meaning an easy task with the Turkish rulers of Bosnia. The play on words indicates that the figurative sense of the phrase meaning an easy task is older than its appearance in print.

The next citation for cold turkey that I have found is also in the sense of an easy task and comes from the world of boxing. The phrase was particularly popular among sportswriters, especially those writing about the sweet science, and can be found often in the sports writing of the period. It appears in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of 31 January 1892 in an article about boxing great John L. Sullivan:

Johnston has pretty good judgment in matters of this kind, and if he considers Maher “cold turkey” for John L., as he may in case the long Australian gets his quietus, why, it need not surprise anyone if Sullivan and Maher are matched five weeks from now.

The sense of acting abruptly, specifically quitting, appears the same month, but it again is in the context of boxing, not quitting an addictive substance. It’s from the Cincinnati Enquirer of 29 December 1892 about a boxing match cancelled because one of the contenders was unwilling or unable to fight:

Burge and McAuliffe Presented With Real Cold Turkey [sub-headline]
[...]
“McAuliffe, who is in the house,” said Burns, “wishes me to say that it was no fault of his that the match with Burge fell through. McAuliffe is ready, as he always has been, to fight at 133 pounds, and he bars no man living at that weight.”

The first use I have found in the sense of quitting an addiction, in this case alcohol and tobacco, is also in the context of boxing. Again from the Cincinnati Enquirer, this time from 16 January 1896, in which boxer Kid Baldwin tells why he has not been successful of late:

There was never anything the matter with my eyes, except booze and tobacco, and I have scratched them both. Not any more of that for the Kid. I quit cold turkey on New-Year’s, and I am going to stay quit the rest of my life.

But in early use cold turkey was not just about quitting. It can also mean to act in other ways without preparation or advance notice. The Cincinnati Enquirer (that paper’s editors seem to have had a fondness for the phrase) has this from 15 July 1897 about a baseball pinch hitter:

Bug Holliday goes right along hitting the ball. He is one of the few players who can come from the bench “cold turkey” and crack ‘em out on the best of twirlers.

Nor is the phrase limited to sports. Here is the Cincinnati Enquirer from 15 August 1900 in a review of a vaudeville performance:

Considering the fact that Mr. Schwab did his performance “cold turkey” without any chance for rehearsal it was most creditable. Few vaudeville performers are in his class when it comes to tickling a French harp and doing some impromptu “footings” simultaneously.

And the easy-task sense crops up in police slang, as in this from the Detroit Free Press of 21 June 1904:

Yes, it looks like cold turkey for the police. But I am just as confident of being acquitted as I am of standing here. They have been mistaken before and they are mistaken this time.

Or this from the Los Angeles Times of 28 October 1907:

While surrounded by men like that, one of these strange cycles of crime strikes you and the people of the city are afraid to go to bed at night. Hold-ups every night, burglaries and bank robberies! You work your good men to death, but there are not enough to go ‘round. You don’t catch anybody. The “cold-turkey brigade” pour in a lot of poor old street corner bums on you as “suspicious characters.”

Finally, the term is sometimes used in a mixed metaphor with talk turkey, meaning to engage in plain, honest, blunt talk. This particular sense often appears, unsurprisingly, in political contexts. Here’s an example from the Chicago Daily Tribune of 1 July 1911:

This is the last time we can talk cold turkey, because tomorrow you will be in the fix of the postmasters and the other fellows who are protected by civil service.

Or this from the same paper on 4 October 1911:

Tonight they seem to have been mistaken, for the former governor and the subtreasurer at midnight were in the tightest kind of a confab in a remote room and were credited with talking “cold turkey” about the governorship.

It is often thought that the sense of cold turkey meaning to quit an addiction comes from appearance of dead, plucked turkey. The skin of cold poultry meat has what looks like goosebumps, similar to those found on the skin of someone going through narcotics withdrawal. But this hypothesis depends on the quitting-an-addiction sense being the earliest, which is clearly not the case. Instead, the idea of lack of preparation is the underlying metaphor.

Discuss this post

Sources:

“Baseball Gossip.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 July 1897, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Civil Service In; Politicians Out.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 1 July 1911, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Confident of Acquittal.” Detroit Free Press, 21 June 1904, 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. cold turkey n.

“Gunst on Fighters.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 31 January 1892, 22. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Kid Baldwin: Wants Another Chance.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 16 January 1896, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“The Morning’s News.” Minneapolis Tribune, 21 August 1878, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Outmatched.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 29 December 1982, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. turkey, n.2.

“Police Chief Only a Name.” Los Angeles Times, 28 October 1907, I4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Six Now Seeking Governor’s Seat.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 October 1911, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Storm: Prevented Second Game.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 August 1900, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Early Citations

The early citations of cold turkey that I have found are as follows:

1) “The Morning’s News.” Minneapolis Tribune, 21 August 1878, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

The Austrian advance into Russia continues to be stubbornly resisted, and Gen. Phillipovich doubtless begins to look upon that little province as about the liveliest piece of cold Turkey with which he ever had any experience. Had the Bosnians developed such staying qualities when the Musselman soldiers of the Porte were ravaging their homes a year or two ago, their situation now might be very different.

2) “Gunst on Fighters.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 31 January 1892, 22. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Johnston has pretty good judgment in matters of this kind, and if he considers Maher “cold turkey” for John L., as he may in case the long Australian gets his quietus, why, it need not surprise anyone if Sullivan and Maher are matched five weeks from now.

3) “Mitchell Goes to Jail.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 2 December 1892, 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

It is stated upon good authority that the reported quarrel between Mitchell and his father-in-law, George Washington Moore, is of a more serious nature than was at first supposed. Pony had an animated discussion with Charley some days ago, the result of which was a mutual agreement to treat each other as strangers from that time forth. Mitchell’s income from his father-in-law’s music hall was not less than $250 a week, and with this “cold turkey,” as he called it, there is one thing left for him to do—fight. The Police Gazette cable goes to show that Mitchell intends to try with Corbett.

4) “Outmatched.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 29 December 1982, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Burge and McAuliffe Presented With Real Cold Turkey [sub-headline]
[...]
“McAuliffe, who is in the house,” said Burns, “wishes me to say that it was no fault of his that the match with Burge fell through. McAuliffe is ready, as he always has been, to fight at 133 pounds, and he bars no man living at that weight.”

5) “A Good Man.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 22 July 1894, 16. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Say, cull, Patsy Callahan was puttin’ his mit out and going South wit’ me stuff, an’ I ketched him cold turkey, I did, damme.

6) “Corbett in a Fight.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 8 September 1894, 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

It’s a funny thing that on this anniversary such a nice little bit of cold turkey as this $5,000 should fall in. I wonder what will happen at the third anniversary of my fight with John L.

7) “Just Cold Turkey.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 27 November 1895, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Just Cold Turkey
McCoy Didn’t Like the Game and Claimed He Was Sick.
New York, November 26—At a late hour tonight, on Long Island, Dick Collier, the English pugilist, knocked out Jimmy McCoy, the Kansas City middle weight, in the presence of a selected few of Brooklyn and New York sportsmen.

8) “Kid Baldwin: Wants Another Chance.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 16 January 1896, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

There was never anything the matter with my eyes, except booze and tobacco, and I have scratched them both. Not any more of that for the Kid. I quit cold turkey on New-Year’s, and I am going to stay quit the rest of my life.

9) “Corbett Talks About Sharkey.” San Francisco Chronicle, 17 August 1896, 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“It would certainly not be to my interest to decry this fellow’s pugilistic ability,” explained the conqueror of the once great John L. Sullivan, “and it would surely be unfair to say he is anything but a cold turkey proposition. He is an original sort of fellow, knows very little about rules, but seems to have a most extraordinary fondness for getting punished on the jaw.”

10) “Tintypes and Talk for All Alike.” San Francisco Chronicle, 17 February 1897, 9. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

They made a business proposition to me to by the exclusive right to print any signed statements I might issue, and I agreed. It was just like finding the money and was simply cold turkey for me, so I accepted the proposition.

11) “Baseball Gossip.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 July 1897, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Bug Holliday goes right along hitting the ball. He is one of the few players who can come from the bench “cold turkey” and crack ‘em out on the best of twirlers.

12) “Baseball: The Minor Championship.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 4 December 1897, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“We were like the Reds. Our weakness was in the outfield,” was the reply. “Jimmie McAleer quit us like cold turkey and Sockalexis fell from grace.”

13) “Around the Base Lines.” Minneapolis Tribune, 10 July 1898, 19. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Baltimoreans did turn down the Birds’ “cold turkey,” The revival in Chicago and St. Louis, however, has made all the moguls happy.

14) “Told of Poker Players.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 17 December 1899, 19. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. [Here, Cold Turkey is being used as a nickname for a certain card sharp.]

At the time the plot to skin this plucky sport was hatched Ziemer had in his pocket some $30,000, this money having been won mostly at “short cards” in a year. “Cold Turkey” was a great “jollier,” and, sitting with Ziemer in the party game bantered his victim to play single-handed.

15) “Stake a Nickel.” Minneapolis Tribune, 25 June 1900, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

He rushed in that day and put down a V, cold turkey, on the black. She rolled three times black for him. He shoved forty green ones into his clothes and blowed.

16) “Storm: Prevented Second Game.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 August 1900, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Considering the fact that Mr. Schwab did his performance “cold turkey” without any chance for rehearsal it was most creditable. Few vaudeville performers are in his class when it comes to tickling a French harp and doing some impromptu “footings” simultaneously.

17) “Propositions: Received by the Cincinnati Manger from Other Clubs.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 December 1900, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Wot gits me is day don’t charge us outright, and still, Jennings, who washed dishes at Cornell, says he kin read between the lines an’ see that it is a blood raw, cold turkey knock.

18) “‘Old Gold’ Sketches.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 14 April 1901, B1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Practice cuts no ice. Many a fighter can punch the bag and make and awful front[?], but when another scrapper looms up before him he quits cold turkey. [Cold turkey may be in quotation marks here; the scan is not the best.]

19) “BURIED: Reds Deeper in Hole.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 September 1901, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

After he got his pitching arm warmed up a bit he did well, but while it was cold turkey “Bald Archie” thought he was in a shooting gallery.

20) “Boxing Briefs.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 5 November 1901, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Grant is to box Jesse Hudson at the Crown Athletic Club, in Columbus, on Thanksgiving Day. This is a good day for Grant to quit “cold turkey.”

21) “Peter Lang: Was Not Permitted to See His Dead Brother’s Child.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 23 December 1901, 10. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

He claims that Mrs. Yeager refused to permit him to see the child and turned down his Christmas toys cold turkey.

22) “Raiders: After Big League Stars.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 August 1902, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Winnifred narrowly escaped becoming an issue in a midsummer strike of the Ball Players’ Association last season, when the Washington Club bounced him cold turkey and then re-engaged him when the protective association growled a loud protest.

23) “Smoldered: Flame of Rebellion.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 25 November 1902, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

That the Peoria Club threatened to pull up stakes and quit the Western cold turkey during the campaign of 1902 is a border sensation that smoldered through last season, and the earliest revelation of that made at a Fan Club session yesterday.

24) “The Soo Line has the Key.” Minneapolis Tribune, 13 March 1903, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

These terms are, so to speak, “cold turkey.” They do not mince matters. It is a simple out-and-out proposal to hoist rates to Northwestern points.

25) “Real: Wire-Tapper Tells of Jobs.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 15 December 1903, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

We worked the Montreal room with these signals for 11 days, when they refused to take any more bets after first betting. We then decided to stay in one more day and cold-turkey the room—that is, send in wrong results—which we did, breaking the bookmaker, who to-day is under the impression that the scheme was worked by his operator and the bettor, while the operator believes that it was worked between the sending operator in New York and the bettor.

26) “Confident of Acquittal.” Detroit Free Press, 21 June 1904, 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Yes, it looks like cold turkey for the police. But I am just as confident of being acquitted as I am of standing here. They have been mistaken before and they are mistaken this time.

27) “Police Chief Only a Name.” Los Angeles Times, 28 October 1907, I4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

While surrounded by men like that, one of these strange cycles of crime strikes you and the people of the city are afraid to go to bed at night. Hold-ups every night, burglaries and bank robberies! You work your good men to death, but there are not enough to go ‘round. You don’t catch anybody. The “cold-turkey brigade” pour in a lot of poor old street corner bums on you as “suspicious characters.”

28) “Week’s Sporting Review for Enquirer Readers.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 2 January 1910, B3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

He has tried many times to run shows, but there invariably was a slip-up and his show either failed to take place or was a failure. A number of daily papers have come out cold turkey and said they would knock anything he had a hand in, and they have kept their word.

29) “The Sign of the Red Heart.” Washington Post, 23 January 1910, M3. Reprinted from the Kansas City Star, no date for original given. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

He was scared to death and trembin’ and he says, says he to me, “What do you think I’d better do?” “Go back some way,” said I, cold turkey like, “and take a chance with the chair. You’re marked, it looks like to me.

30) “Fear, a Club for I. C. Graft.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 19 September 1910, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

A conference of the car repair company officials was held, and it was decided that they would either have to meet the “graft” requirements or shut up shop. They determined to put the matter up to the Illinois Central people “cold turkey” and a man was sent to see one of the railroad officials.

31) “Civil Service In; Politicians Out.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 1 July 1911, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

This is the last time we can talk cold turkey, because tomorrow you will be in the fix of the postmasters and the other fellows who are protected by civil service.

32) “May Dodge Langford.” Washington Post, 6 August 1911, S3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Although sporting men now are skeptical of Smith’s gameness because of the way he quit cold turkey when booked to meet Langford in the latter part of June, those who have studied the big New York State farmer are of the opinion that once he gets his courage up and is stung a few times by Langford he will give the Boston tar baby a hot argument.

33) “Six Now Seeking Governor’s Seat.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 October 1911, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Tonight they seem to have been mistaken, for the former governor and the subtreasurer at midnight were in the tightest kind of a confab in a remote room and were credited with talking “cold turkey” about the governorship.

34) “Fast Time.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 14 September 1912, 9. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Billy Rees and his protege, Battling Wells, are back from Lima, where they were turned down by Jack McHenry, who all along pretended to be anxious to fight the Battler. He quit cold turkey, and Rees is sure that he does not want the Battler’s game.

35) “Sporting Gossip.” Chicago Defender, 26 October 1912, 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

It looks as though the colored man in football is a thing of the past at Harvard. I learn through reliable sources that Matthews probably will hold the distinction of being the last of our race to wear the coveted Varsity “H” won on either the baseball or football field. They are not turned down “cold turkey,” for one can come out with the call for candidates in the fall, but he never makes the team.

36) “Speaker to Name House Committees; Dunne Plan Loses.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 21 February 1913, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Representative Shanahan, later in a striking speech, in which he talked “cold turkey” to Speaker McKinley, defended the Republican position as necessary at this time.

37) “Jobs to Be Lure to Boost I. and R.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 27 May 1913, 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Gov. Dunne had not been able to talk “cold turkey” with the senator over what is to be done with the Illinois federal jobs, so this knowledge came from O’Connell.

38) “Utilities Action Waits on Mayor.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 14 June 1913, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Gov. Dunne and Mayor Harrison had a conference this morning over the public utilities bill. It is believed the mayor talked “cold turkey” to the governor. No official statement is available as to what happened behind closed doors.

39) “Gunboat Smith Not So Strong Since the Carl Morris Fight.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 19 October 1913, 27. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

It looked to those who sat in the neighborhood of Carl’s corner, where the men were engaged at the time, as if Smith quit “cold turkey.”

40) “Figures on Baseball for Years to Come Given, Cold Turkey” [Sub-Head]. Minneapolis Sunday Tribune, 19 October 1913, 15. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

41) “News of the Courts.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 30 April 1914, 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Charging that he packed his trunk on April 7, 1913, and with the parting shot, “It is cold turkey for you,” he left her and never returned, May Bell Thomas is seeking a divorce from Lawrence S. Thomas. They were married in November 28, 1905. C. S. Sparks, attorney.

42) “Sullivan Courts Fights from Foes.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 14 May 1914, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

In this frame of mind, Mr. Sullivan, pushing his candidacy along in Madison county, the home of National Committeeman Charles Boeschenstein, talked “cold turkey” to the members of the Democratic county committee, assembled in Edwardsville this afternoon.

43) “Give and Take for Sox and Senators.” Boston Daily Globe, 15 September 1914, 7, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Ray Collins, who has beaten the Senators three times in four starts this season, was opposed by young Jack Bentley, who last week made the Athletics and New Yorkers eat cold turkey.

44) “Cleaver: May Descend on Farrell.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 5 November 1914, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Johnson declined to go into further details of the coming events scheduled for this session, and passed over the possibility of there being a peace discussion by stating cold turkey that this mat[t]er was not to be considered now or at any future date.

45) “Minor Leagues: Defeated in Fight to Get Representation on National Commission.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 13 November 1914, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Loud squawks emanated from the ranks of the Class C and D magnates when they assembled in the convention chamber and these magnates came out cold-turkey with the assertion that they would not abide by the recommendation of the Special Committee to reduce salary or playing limits in their circuits.

46) “Holdup Men in Police Guise Rob 3 Men; Get $186.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 21 November 1914, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Oh, we’ve got a cold turkey rap for you,” said the third bogus sleuth, using a police phrase that means “positive identification.”

47) “Jack Johnson is Seeking Another Go with Willard.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8 July 1915, 17. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

And getting down to cold turkey, it must be admitted that Jack Johnson proved himself a better sport after the Havana fight than many of the whites.

48) “Long Chase After Moonshiners.” The Washington Post, 11 July 1915, MS2. Reprinted from the New York Sun, no original date given. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Gard already had the measure of his man. No sooner had he presented himself than he put his business up to the mountaineer, “cold turkey,” as the agents say when they lay all the cards on the table.

49) Friedman, I. K. “The Letters of a Vaudevillian.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 29 August 1915, B6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

I got enough of that kind of dope, Rob! If you thinks I am grafting off the act, come out cold turkey and tell me so and I will quit the act.

50) “Lowden Faces Anti-Chicago Revolt in Ranks.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 16 September 1915, 9. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Mr. Lowden, apparently, is ready to talk “cold turkey” to his friends. He has sent out letters over his signature, addressed at Sinissippi Farm, Ogle county, requesting friendly Republicans to call upon him at his headquarters on the second floor of the Leland.

51) “Wolgast After Freddie Welsh for Title Bout.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 19 November 1915, 10. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

The Cadillac kid put it up to Welsh cold turkey, but Welsh and Pollok came back with another proposition.

52) “Jack Dillon Is Light Heavyweight Champion of the United States.” Cincinnati Enquirer, 12 December 1915, A2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Billy Papke was recognized as champion after the death of Stanley Ketchel, and getting right down to cold turkey, Johnny Thompson would have been champion, for he defeated Papke in a twenty-round contest in Australia.

53) Milliken, Stanley T. “Work of Jamieson Is a Telling Factor.” Washington Post, 28 May 1916, S1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

But to get back to Jamieson. This young gent who has been drawing his salary as a benchwarmer, was out to do things. He drove over the Nationals first three markers in the opener, scattering his blows effectively in a trio of frames. Then he sacrificed in the eighth and later scored, this last named round being the one that made it “cold turkey” for Gallia.

54) Smith, Harry B. “Rather a Let-Down for Darcy to Meet Al McCoy.” San Francisco Chronicle, 28 January 1917, 38. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Talking cold turkey and from the standpoint of the fighter, his move seems altogether a wise one. Start Darcy against the topnotchers, and, no matter what might happen, he would find himself boxed out in no time.

55) “8 Lieutenants Confess Bribe Paid to Healey.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 March 1917, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

When Delaney had put it up to Healey “cold turkey,” he asserts the latter said, “Tell the boys it will cost them $300 each.

56) “Quiet Little Talk.” Boston Daily Globe, 15 April 1917, C5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

About those Yarrowdale prisoners that the Kaiser is holding over there—Wilson tells him, cold turkey, he’s got to come across with them without any more parley—that last note was straight from the shoulder.

57) Pearson, Ray. “Jess Willard, Made to Order Champ, a Mint.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 1 July 1917, A4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Now there seems little doubt, for Willard himself has come out cold turkey and declared that he may never fight again.

58) Pearson, Ray. “Widow of Bob Fitz Objects to a Public Fund for Monument.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 27 October 1917, 13. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Benny Leonard, world’s champion lightweight, and his manager Billy Gibson, have come out “cold turkey” and said there will be no battle, at least at the present, between Leonard and Charley White.

59) Smith, Harry B. “Now Then, Let’s Have a Fulton-Dempsey Battle.” San Francisco Chronicle, 27 February 1918, 10. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

[Headline]Now Then, Let’s Have a Fulton-Dempsey Battle
After Which the Winner Can Put It Up to Jess Willard for Go, Cold Turkey

60) Macbeth, W. J. “Huggins Busy with Pen; Signs Up Three Players.” New York Tribune, 5 March 1918, 14. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Outfielder Elmer Miller mailed his signed contract to the Yankee offices. But here the cunning hand of Huggins was again evidenced, for Miller, the manager, had seen Miller, the hold-out, during his recent pilgrimage and talked cold turkey in no unmistakable terms.

61) “Cold Turkey.” The Globe (Toronto), 28 March 1918, 10. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Cold Turkey”
“Larry” Lajoie
Famous Frenchman, who led the Leafs to a pennant victory, and who now says he will retire unless allowed to manage the Indianapolis club.

62) “Women’s Squad Learning Slang.” Indianapolis Star, 21 July 1918, 13. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Also she has been giving out “cold turkey” but does not know it and neither do the women to home she has been handing this choice bit of dainty realize it. To the policeman “cold turkey” is nothing more than an easy assignment where all that has to be done is to go from police headquarters and make an arrest.

63) Rosenthal, M. “Voice of the People.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 29 July 1918, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

The facts presented by the cold turkey proof in THE TRIBUNE his morning of what is being attempted by the Thompson school board with respect to the school census were intensely attractive to me.

64) “He Wants Jokers on His Ball Club.” Detroit Free Press, 1 December 1918, 20. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Dr. Charles H. Strub, president of the San Francisco baseball club in the Coast league, gives it out, cold turkey, that San Francisco will have baseball next year even if the Coast league is cut to four clubs.

65) “George Porter to Enter Race for Mayoralty.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 30 January 1919, 12. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

A meeting of his boosters was held at the hotel Sherman last night. They put it up to him cold turkey and he said that he was always a good sol[di?]er. Having been drafted by his friends, he said, there was only way out [sic]—to become a candidate.

66) Dempsey, Jack. “Dempsey Advises Willard He Will Force the Fight.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 30 June 1919, 20. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“I am going after Jess cold turkey, right off the reel, and just as soon as the gong clangs I mean to show him the old windmill salvo.

67) “Judicial Slates Await Lundin’s Return to City.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 30 September 1919, 16. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

If Mr. Lundin were in town prepared to talk cold turkey, the preliminary plans for the two conventions could be whipped together in record smashing time.

68) “Sherman Seen as Candidate for Governor,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 21 November 1919, 17. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

This was the tip slipped out yesterday by one of the most astute of the recognized Illinois political leaders. He didn’t say it cold turkey, but he intimated the senator is just about ready to be a candidate for the Republican nomination for governor.

69) “Mayor Declares He Is Neutral on Presidency: Not to Take Part in Fight for Delegates.” Chicago Tribune, 28 December 1919:

Meantime, as the mayor says "cold turkey," the city hall, its political lieutenants, and subalterns are to retrain from "presenting political matters, either local or national."
In practical effect Mayor Thompson's statement is intended, as seems to be conceded, to mean that henceforth it is to be a "hands off" affair, so far as the city hall is concerned, in nominating and electing the national convention delegates and that nothing, necessarily, is to be placed In the way of a solid Lowden delegation from Illinois.

cockpit

July 17, 2020

17 July 2020

Most people know that a cockpit is the location in an aircraft where the pilot sits and controls the plane. But, if you think about it, it’s a strange name for it.

The original cockpits were literally that, cock-fighting arenas. Here is a 1556 example by Miles Huggarde, likening the Protestant practice of stripping churches of their decorations to turning them into cockpits:

And some, because they would hyt it ryght, pulled downe the Rode loftes, makyng such a confusion that neyther was there quyer, nor body of the churche, but makying it lyke Westminster hall. They stalled it aboute in maner of a Cocke pyt, where al the people might see them, and their communion.

And the word was quickly applied to other places where battle, either literal or figurative, took place. Roger Ascham, who had been the Latin tutor to then Princess, later Queen Elizabeth I, used the metaphor of a school being a cockpit in his treatise on teaching Latin, The Scholemaster. The book was published posthumously in 1570:

For euen as a hauke flieth not hie with one wing: euen so a man reacheth not to excellency with one tong.
I haue bene a looker on in the Cokpit of learning thies many yeares: And one Cock onelie haue I knowne, which with one wing, euen at this day, doth passe all other, in myne opinion, that euer I saw in any pitte in England, though they had two winges.

Perhaps the most famous use of cockpit as a metaphor is in the opening lines of Shakespeare’s Henry V, when it is used to refer to a theater where the battle of Agincourt will be staged:

But pardon, Gentles all:
The flat unraysed Spirits, that hath dar’d,
On this unworthy Scaffold, to bring forth
So great an Object. Can this Cock-Pit hold
The vastie fields of France? Or may we cramme
Within this Woodden O, the very Caskes
That did affright the Ayre at Agincourt?

But lofty metaphors like Shakespeare’s weren’t the only ones in circulation in the seventeenth century. Cockpit was also slang for a vagina. From a 1658 poem by John Eliot:

If then the stone, as doctors tell the story,
Be a disease that prove hereditory,
I trust her daughter will have so much wit,
Early to get a cock for her cock-pit;
And rather then be barren; play the whore,
As her great mother hath done heretofore.

On board ship, a cockpit was the portion of the orlop, or lowest, deck that was the home to midshipmen and junior officers, presumably because close quartering of young males would inevitably result in fights. In his 1691 book on the navy, Henry Maydman describes these quarters:

These Alterations are sure to be the enlargement of their own Accommodation, and the Abridgment of others: Notwithstanding all the Accommodations he hath contrived by the Builders, ten to one, but he is to enlarge his Store-Room, and confines the Steward-Room into so small a Room, that it is a miserable place to handle the Ships Provisions in, from which proceeds no small damage; many times to the King in his Provisions, and also the Purser; and the Cock-pit, a Hellish Pit, to transact the most, and constant business of the Ship; and by the thronging it with Cabins for Creatures, Boys, &c. that they are meerly choaked up.

And Maydman records, or makes up, a dialogue among the officers in which the purser says:

Faith, never so Lousie in my life; and we are choaked all in the Cock-pit, the steem of the Hold, for want of passage up the Steeridge way, kills us: I cannot endure my Cabin, for the Men come so thick down, and the Room is so strait, that we cannot turn; for you know, the Captain's Store-Room, is half the Cock-pit.

For the future development of the word’s meaning, it’s important to remember that the cockpit was on the lowest deck of the ship. Because by the mid eighteenth century, the sunken area of a deck of a small boat, which holds the helm, had become known as the cockpit. This ad for a boat ran on 28 November 1754:

To be Sold by AUCTION,
At the Ship-Tavern Ratcliff Cross, on Saturday the 17th
Day of December, at Four in the Afternoon,
A BOAT, with a Deck Cockpit and Long
Hatchway, two standing Cabins, with Masts and Sails almost
new, suitable for a Fisherman or a Luggage Boat.

And when the automobile came on the scene, the use of cockpit to denote the helm of a ship was transferred to the driver’s compartment. From the pages of Automobile on 15 October 1904:

It was a case of too much oil in the cylinders, which caused such a smoke that breathing in the car cockpit was difficult.

At about the same time, the term was applied to aircraft. From a description of a dirigible that appeared in New York Times on 14 February 1909:

Still another radical departure will be the arrangement of the passenger quarters, which will be directly behind the motor, resembling the cockpit of an open launch power boat.

That same year, cockpit is applied to the pilot’s compartment of an airplane. From a description of the Antoinette monoplane that appears in Flight on 20 October 1909:

Further aft the cedar gives place to a covering of rubber-proofed fabric, and this material is also carried over the top side of the frame, thus forming a kind of deck. An open cockpit is provided for the accommodation of the pilot’s seat.

The cockpit of a modern airplane is no longer open and looks very different, but its name comes from the more primitive versions of early aviation, the helms and junior officer accommodations on board ships, and eventually from cockfighting arenas.

Discuss this post

Sources:

“The Antoinette Monoplane.” Flight, 30 October 1909. 682. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Ascham, Roger. The Scholemaster. London: John Daye, 1570, 51v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Classified Ad. Public Advertiser (London), 28 November 1754. Gale News Vault.

Eliot, John. “Upon a Lady That Went to Tunbridge Wells.” Poems. London: Henry Brome, 1658, 58. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. cock n.3.

Huggarde, Miles. The Displaying of the Protestantes and Sondry Their Practises. London, Robert Caly, 1556, fol. 73v.

Maydman, Henry. Naval Speculations. London: William Bonny, 1691, 104–05, 224–25. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2019, s.v. cockpit, n.

Shakespeare, William. Henry V. In Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. London: Isaac Jaggard and Ed Blount, 1623, 69. Folger First Folio no. 68.

“Touring Type of Dirigible Balloon Is Latest Thing in Aeronautics.” New York Times, 14 February 1909, S2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: Alex Beltyukov, 2011, license under Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).