left wing / right wing

Jacques-Louis David’s painting of the June 1789 Oath of the Tennis Court, during which the French National Assembly swore not to dissolve until a new constitution had been enacted. In the foreground, a Catholic monk, a Protestant minister, and a layman clasp hands. In the background, a man stands on a table with one hand raised and the other holding a book, presumably reading the oath, while the hall full of legislators raise their hands in disorganized affirmation; one man in the lower right is seated and dour, refusing to take the oath, while a crowd looks down from the windows and the gallery above, and a revolutionary wind billows the curtains.

6 April 2021

In political discourse, it’s routine to refer to the left and the right, with the left being the liberal/reformist faction of a body politic, and the right being the more conservative. This particular phrasing comes down to us from the French Revolution, when the more radical elements of the National Assembly tended to sit on the left side of the chamber and the more conservative elements to the right.

The left/right political division first appears in English in a translation of Camile Desmoulins The History of the Brissotins, published in 1794 (the French original was published the previous year):

I establish it as a fact, that the right side of the Convention, and principally their leaders, are almost all partizans of royalty, accomplices in the treason of Dumourier and Bournonvillę; that they are directed by the agents of Pitt, Orleans, and Prussia; that they wanted to divide or rather overturn France into twenty or thirty federative republics, that no republic might exist.

And later in the same work:

The greater number of those who composed the constituent. and legislative assemblies, ill disguised the anger they felt at seeing their work destroyed by the republicans of the Convention. Their love of royalty appeared in their imprecations against Paris. La Source, the least corrupted of those who voted with the left, and dined with the right side of the Convention, but whose pride was excited against Robespierre, exclaimed, on the 14th of September, “I fear those vile men not vomited forth by Paris, but by some Brunswick.”

Desmoulins would go to the guillotine in 1794.

In his 1837 history of the French Revolution, Thomas Carlyle described, albeit from a very Anglo-centric and disapproving perspective, how the National Assembly organized itself into left and right factions, which he calls sides:

For the present, if we glance into that Assembly-Hall of theirs, it will be found, as is natural, “most irregular.” As many as “a hundred members are on their feet at once;” no rule in making motions, or only commencements of a rule; Spectators' Gallery allowed to applaud, and even to hiss; President, appointed once a fortnight, raising many times no serene head above the waves. Nevertheless, as in all human Assemblages, like does begin arranging itself to like; the perennial rule, Ubi homines sunt modi sunt [Where men are, rules are], proves valid. Rudiments of Methods disclose themselves; rudiments of Parties. There is a Right Side (Cóté Droit), a Left Side (Côté Gauche); sitting on M. le President's right hand, or on his left: the Coté Droit conservative; the Côté Gauche destructive. Intermediate is Anglomaniac Constitutionalism, or Two-Chamber Royalism; with its Mouniers, its Lallys,—fast verging towards nonentity.

The phrases right wing and left [wing] are first recorded in debate in the British parliament on 26 August 1841, and are used in reference to something other than the revolutionary French National Assembly:

Mr. E. Turner commenced by referring to the violence of language used by some of the Tory party towards the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland, which was calculated to irritate and inflame the people of that country: At a dinner given, at which the hon. Member for Kent was present, a noble Earl referring to the great Reform party to which he belonged, spoke of the right wing of the Infidels and Radicals, and the left of the popish followers of factious demagogues, headed by O'Connell, and supported by “the most infuriated and bigoted priesthood that ever cursed a country”

The use of wing is presumably from the military sense of the word, referring to the divisions on either side of the center of an army.

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Sources:

“Address in Answer to the Speech—Adjourned Debate” (26 August 1841). Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, third series, vol. 59. London: Thomas Curson Hansard, 1841, 296.

Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution (1837), vol. 1 of 2. London: Thomas Nelson, 1928, 202. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Desmoulins, Camille. The History of the Brissotins. London: J. Owen 1794, 5, 40. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2010, s. v. right wing, n. and adj., and right, n.; s. v. June 2016, left wing, n. and adj., left, adj.1, n., and adv.

Image credit: Jacques-Louis David, “Serment du Jeu de Paume” (“Oath of the Tennis Court”), after 1791, oil painting on canvas. Public domain image.

leatherneck

U.S. Civil War soldier wearing a leather neck stock. A photo of a man, Private David A. Sheldon, Company B, 4th Rhode Island Infantry, 1861–64, in civil war uniform and holding a musket with bayonet, staring into the camera.

5 April 2021

Leatherneck is a slang term for a U.S. marine. The name comes from the leather neck stock that was a part of military uniforms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was worn by both U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. marines of that period. And in the nineteenth century, U.S. and British army soldiers as well as U.S. marines were referred to as leathernecks, but the term only survives today as a nickname for the latter.

Leather neck stocks were part of the standard uniform of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps since the American Revolution. Neck stocks offered a degree of protection against sword blows and bayonet thrusts, but their chief attribute seems to have been to keep the soldier’s head erect and help him maintain a soldierly bearing. Joseph Plumb Martin, in his memoir of Revolutionary War service, notes that soldiers were supposed to be issued neck stocks, but these, like all uniform items, were scarce and only intermittently issued. And Augustus Meyers recounts being issued a neck stock when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1854:

The most objectionable part of the whole uniform was the leather stock or “dog collar,” as we called it, intended to serve as a cravat and keep the soldier’s chin elevated. It was a strip of stiff black shoe leather about two and one-half inches high and arranged to fasten at the back of the neck with a leather thong. It was torture to wear it in hot weather, but we found means to modify the annoyance by reducing the height of the stock and shaving down the thickness of the leather until it became soft and pliable.

But the earliest use of leatherneck as a nickname for a soldier or marine that I’m aware of is from 18 January 1871, when the New York Sun printed an interview with John Howard, a quartermaster at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in which Howard refers to marines by that name:

A WONDERFUL APPARITION.

At this moment a magnificent apparition crossed the reporter’s vision. It was in human shape, and had a dark, swarthy complexion, and very coarse features. The figure was dressed in a new brown velvet coat trimmed most elaborately. Pearl-colored breeches of the most stylish cut adorned the nether limbs, and a watch chain resembling the cable of a kedge-anchor dangled gracefully from a brown velvet vest. Upon the head of the figure the glossiest of tiles jauntily sat, and upon the hands appeared straw-colored kids of the softest tint. As the apparition approached, Mr. Howard touched his cap respectfully; but the figure stalked by like a ramrod, without noticing the salute.

“Who is that, Mr. Howard?” asked the reporter, whose indignation was thoroughly aroused.

“Him? Oh, he’s only a leather neck. Nobody ever expects anything from leather-necks, so we don’t mind insults from them.”

THE LEATHER-NECK.

The reporter looked at Mr. Howard inquiringly.

“Don’t suppose you know what leather necks is, do you? Well, them’s poor marines. You see, them fellers ain’t any more use aboard of a ship nor a pump is in a graveyard. They’re the laziest people in the world, marines is, and all their officers thinks about is wearin’ fine clothes and a flirtin round with petticoats. Now that feller there that you got so mad at, he’s a capt’n, and his pay haint over much, but yet you seen how he was rigged out. Now, I wouldn’t be afraid to bet that that feller didn’t have a quarter in his pocket, although he did walk by us like old Astor or old Vanderbilt might have done. It’s all too-hamper with them marines. They don’t draw any water.”

“Why do you call them leather necks?” inquired the reporter.

“Oh, you know they wear them leather stocks to keep their heads up straight. It’s very funny to see a young lieutenant just come down from the country put one o’ them things on. I’ve seen ‘em before now of a hot day nearly faint while on drill. Did you ever live in the country? Well, then, you must have seen ‘em make calves fast in the spring to wean ‘em. They put a great big leather grommet on their necks and reeve a line through it. Then they yank the poor calves up to a bulkhead in the stable, and there they stand with sich a soft beggin’ look out o’ their great big eyes—a look that kind o’ makes you feel sorry that you couldn’t make their owners fast in the same way. Well, that’s the way with these poor marines, ‘cept when they got their leathers on, they ain’t over soft-like; they’re kind o’ harsh in their ways.”

But leatherneck was not restricted to marines. Army soldiers were called that as well. From an account of an incident in the Yavapai War between the United States and the Yavapai and Western Apaches in the Wheeling Daily Register (West Virginia) of 4 September 1872:

Pshaw! that’s nothing. One night at another camp some Indians stole a half dozen mules. The alarm was given before the Apaches got away, and the soldiers were turned out in a h— of a hurry, and weren’t even given time to saddle their horses. They chased the Indians five or six miles, and then a part of the Indians slunk off in the bushes alongside the trail. The others went on with the stolen mules. When the soldiers came up the ambushed Indians fired. What did my leather necks do but cut for the camp like the devil. When they got there they said they’d come back for their saddles.

And in Britain leatherneck was used by sailors to refer to army soldiers. From an article in the Pall Mall Gazette of 24 January 1890 which compares the careers of naval and army officers:

It should also be pointed out that apart from the question of income the daily conditions of a sailor’s life are far from the comparative luxury of the soldier’s. Instead of quarters which as he rises in rank are apportioned with a view to the suitable accommodation of wife and children, he has in early days a hammock, later on the dignity of one cabin; the only horse he rides is the wave; he sleeps hard, eats hard, and none but his calumniators can say drinks hard, for even that possibility, as has been shown, is curtailed. He can know no family life, he can enjoy no home. Gun-room and ward-room, the deck and the bridge, are the varieties of his daily round. Of the foreign countries which he visits he sees only the harbour fringe. His social position is as well defined and as desirable as the soldier’s; otherwise, when he despises his friend the leather-neck for a lazy and luxurious dog it must be confessed that he does so from a high vantage-ground of personal hardship and abnegation of domestic joys.

The U.S. Army ceased issuing neck stocks in 1871, with the U.S. Marine Corps following suit shortly thereafter. But in the case of the marines the nickname stuck, and marines reclaimed the term as their own. Now it is a point of pride for a U.S. marine to be called a leatherneck.

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Sources:

“The Choice of a Profession: V.—The Royal Navy.” The Pall Mall Gazette, 24 January 1890, 2. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

“D. D. Porter’s Fancy Navy.” The Sun (New York), 18 January 1871, 3. Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.

“Diamonds by the Bushel.” Wheeling Daily Register (West Virginia), 4 September 1872, 3. Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.

Gaede, Frederick C. “Leather Neck Stocks, 1851–1865.” Military Images, 38.2, Spring 2020, 77. JSTOR.

Gaede, Frederick C. “Notes on Leather Neck Stocks for the U.S. Army, 1775-1871.” Military Collector and Historian, 69.4, Winter 2017, 291–98.

Martin, Joseph Plumb. Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier. Hallowell, Maine: Glazier, Masters & Co., 1830, 205–06. Gale Primary Sources: Sabin Americana.

Meyers, Augustus. Ten Years in the Ranks U.S. Army. New York: Stirling Press, 1914, 9. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

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

Photo credit: Unknown photographer, c. 1862. Public domain image. Gaede, Frederick C. “Leather Neck Stocks, 1851–1865.” Military Images, 38.2, Spring 2020, 77. JSTOR.

Ku Klux Klan

1872 drawing of three Mississippi Ku Klux Klan members arrested in September 1871 for attempted murder. Drawing of three hooded men posing with pistols in their hands. The caption reads: “Mississippi Ku-Klux in the Disguises in Which They Were Captured. (From a Photograph.)”

2 April 2021

The Ku Klux Klan is a white supremacist, terrorist organization in the United States. Originally founded in 1866, it has gone through three distinct periods of existence. The first Klan, formed to overthrow Republican governments that included Black legislators and officials in the southern states lasted into the early 1870s, when it was suppressed by the U.S. Army. The Klan was renewed in 1915, during the establishment of Jim Crow laws and the cementing of the “lost cause” myth of Confederate defeat in the Civil War. This second incarnation of the Klan was immensely popular, growing to some 4–5 million members in 1925—about 15% of the white, male population of the United States. It rapidly declined in the late 1920s but re-emerged in the 1950s as a violent response to the Civil Rights movement.

The name Ku Klux Klan comes from the Greek κύκλος (kuklos) meaning circle, with Klan added for alliteration. The imagery of a circle is often employed in conspiratorial enterprises (e.g., ringleader). The naming of the Klan is described in John C. Lester and D. L. Wilson’s 1884 history of the organization. Lester was one of the six founding members of the Klan, and in addition to detailing how the name was chosen, he also opines how the name was a fortuitous choice, adding to the organization’s mystery and appeal. Note also that Lester writes in the third person, distancing himself from his role as a terrorist ringleader:

The committee appointed to select a name reported that they had found the task difficult, and had not made a selection. They explained that they had been trying to discover or invent a name which would be, to some extent, suggestive of the character and objects of the society. They mentioned several which they had been considering. In this number was the name “Kukloi” from the Greek word Kuklos (Kuklos), meaning a band or circle. At mention of this some one cried out: “Call it Ku Klux.” “Klan” at once suggested itself, and was added to complete the alliteration. So instead of adopting a name, as was the first intention, which had a definite meaning, they chose one which to the proposer of it, and to every one else, was absolutely meaningless.

Had they called themselves the “Jolly Jokers” or the “Adelphi,” or by some similar appellation, the organization would doubtless have had no more than the mere local and ephemeral existence, which those who organized it contemplated for it. Hundreds of societies have originated just as this one did, and after a brief existence, have passed away. But in this case there was a wierd [sic] potency in the very name Ku Klux Klan. Let the reader pronounce it aloud. The sound of it is suggestive of bones rattling together! The potency of the name was not wholly in the impression made by it on the general public. It is a singular fact that the members of the Klan were themselves the first to feel its wierd [sic] influence; they had adopted a mysterious name. Thereupon the original plan was modified so as to make everything connected with the order harmonize with the name. Amusement was still the end in view. But now the method by which pose to win it were those of secrecy and mystery.

The organization started in Pulaski, Tennessee in May 1866 in response to the recent race riot in Memphis. Another of the founders was Frank McCord, editor of the Pulaski Citizen, and the author of the first appearances of the name Ku Klux Klan in print. McCord published the following on 29 March 1867 in the Citizen. The bit about the note being found under the door and the inquisitive tone of the piece are fictions:

What Does it Mean?—The following mysterious “Take Notice” was found under our door early yesterday morning, having doubtless been slipped there the night previous. Will any one venture to tell us what it means, if it means anything at all? What is a “Kuklux Klan,” and who is this “Grand Cyclops” that issues his mysterious and imperative orders? Can any one give us a little light on this subject? Here is the order:

“Take Notice.—The Kuklux Klan will assemble at their usual place of rendezvous, “The Den,” on Tuesday night next, exactly at the hour of midnight, in costume and bearing the arms of the Klan.

“By or of the Grand Cyclops

G. T.”

In subsequent articles, McCord described fictional visits by Klan officials to his office, such as this one published in the Pulaski Citizen on 26 April 1867:

Kuklux Klan.

The Grand Turk of the Klu Klux Klan favored us with another visit last Wednesday night, though we don’t think he was the same one who called on us last week. We measured him good with our eye, and don’t think he was over seven and a half feet high, maybe eight. We still hold that the other one was nine, and we won’t fall “narry snake.” This one was dressed entirely different, having on a flashy suit of scarlet velvet—roundabout and knee-breeches, and had the banner of the Klan partially wrapped around him. The banner seemed to be made of crimson silk, with numerous devices, and had “Kuklux Klan” worked or painted upon it in gold. There being several in our sanctum, the Grand Turk, after delivering the order published below, said he desired a private interview, and pointed to the door. We hesitated. What could he want with us? We decided not to go, but he waved his “concern” at us, and we followed. Now, thought we, surely we will be inducted into some of the mysteries of the Klan. He stopped at the door, and bending his majestic form, said in low, deep and measured tones: “The Grand Turk brings a message from the Grand Cyclops. Be silent that you may hear. Be discreet: Nix-cum-a-r-o-u-s-c-h!” We said, “Yaw, got for dam,” but when we looked up to see what effect this intelligent and emphatic reply had upon him, he had disappeared as noiselessly as a graveyard. For the life of us we couldn’t tell which way he went. Don’t much believe he went anywhere, but just disappeared.—But we know he was here by the following order, which he left in our hands:

Rendezvous in the Forest,
April 24th, 1867.

The officers and members of the “Kuklux Klan” will assemble at an earlier hour, Saturday night, as business of more than usual interest will be transacted which will consume some time, and the Grand Cyclops is unwilling to encroach on the Holy Sabbath, by transacting business after 12 o’clock. The members of the “Klan” having become so numerous, our former place of holding meetings will have to be abandoned and a place selected that will afford more accommodation, and, as the weather is becoming more pleasant, the Klan” will assemble at the above named rendezvous until further orders.

The members will be prompt in attending all meetings, at the hour that may be designated by the Grand Turk.

By order of the Grand Cyclops

G. S.

Given McCord’s position as one of the founders of the Klan, these are clearly recruitment and meeting notices. The fictional visitors add a mythic tone and provide McCord with plausible deniability in case the U.S. Army investigated him. Decades later, McCord would admit to these fabrications. From the Pulaski Citizen of 18 December 1892 (again, take note of the resort to the third person):

I will only add that nearly all the BLOOD AND THUNDER proclamations and general orders issued in circular form or printed in the columns of THE CITIZEN when the order was in its incipient form and before it had assumed political significations, originated in the brain and were written by the Faber of the then editor of THE CITIZEN, solely for fun and sensational effect. What editor, pray tell me, imbued with the least journalistic enterprise, would have failed to take advantage of the circumstances and enlivened his cou[rse] with these sensational fulminations? Would you? This is my excuse and defense.

Some histories of the Klan claim that the organization was innocently founded for social purposes and was only later diverted to violent purposes. While it seems that some of the early activities of the Klan were indeed social—those early gatherings in the woods often included music and dancing—the claims of early innocence are based on the testimony of early members given many years later; men who had every reason to lie and deny violent and racist intentions. And the threatening tone of McCord’s early announcements belies any innocent purpose. Certainly by late 1867, only months after the organization was founded, the Klan was identified by the Army as a terrorist organization. From a report by Brigadier General Joseph A. Cooper, commander of the Tennessee State Guards:

Entire tranquillity [sic] has not yet been restored to society in Tennessee. Disorders are reported from time to time which are popularly attributed to the exploits of an organization known as the “Ku-klux Klan,” which exists in this and neighboring States.

It’s often the case that one should not take the claims about the coinage of words at face value, even from those who actually coined the terms. But seldom does one see such blatant attempts to rewrite such a dark chapter in history and place the participants in a better light.

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Sources:

Cooper, Joseph A. (2 October 1867). “T: Circular, No. 10. General Orders, Kb. 11 Special Orders, No. 105 Special Orders, So. 111.”  The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year ... (1861-1873), vol. 7 of 13 for 1967. ProQuest Magazines.

“Kuklux Klan.” Pulaski Citizen, 26 April 1867, 3. Library of Congress: Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers.

Lester, J. C. and D. L. Wilson. Ku Klux Klan. Its Origin, Growth and Disbandment. Nashville: Wheeler, Osborn & Duckworth, 1884, 13–15. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Ku-Klux, n, Klan, n., Kluxer, n.

Parsons, Elaine Frantz. Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan During Reconstruction. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina Press, 2016, 27, 29–30.

Pulaski Citizen (Tennessee), 29 March 1867, 3. Library of Congress: Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers.

Image credit: Harper’s Weekly, 27 January 1872, 1. Public domain image.

April fool

“Les Poissons D’Avril,” by Grandville (a.k.a. Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard), 1868. Image of fish fishing for people, using wine, tobacco, jewelry, etc. for bait. The caption reads:

“Poissons d’avril, poissons de tous les mois, de tous les temps, de tous les âges: on aura beau être trompé aux appâts que vous nous tendez, on s’y laissera reprendre jusqu’à la fin—et trop heureux!”

(April fish, fish for all the months, for all time, for all the ages: one could easily be fooled by the bait you lure us with, but we will let it go on until the end—all too happily!)

1 April 2021

No one knows for sure why April, and in particular the first of April, is associated with the playing of pranks on unsuspecting dupes, but the tradition seems to have evolved from the long association between love and springtime—the initial association was with those who have been made foolish because of love or lust. The practice of playing pranks in April, and specifically on April First, appears to have arisen on the European continent and was imported into Britain in the seventeenth century.

In French, the phrase poisson d’avril means April fool (literally April fish). The earliest known use of the phrase is in a 1508 poem by French poet Eloy d’Amerval titled Le Livre de la Deablerie, lines 325–27:

Houlier, putier, macquereau infame
De maint homme et de mainte fame,
Poisson d’apvril, vien tost a moy!

(Debauched man, base man, infamous pimp
Of many men and many women,
Fish of April, soon to be mine!)

Amerval is punning here. Macquereau is slang for pimp, but it literally means mackerel, hence the April fish. In the sixteenth century the phrase, perhaps because of this poem, came to mean a go-between or procurer. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that poisson d’avril came to mean the butt of a springtime prank.

The German phrase jemanden in den April schicken, meaning to play a trick on someone on April first, dates to 1645.

The earliest use of April fool in English is attested to a bit earlier than the German phrase, though, and appears in Edmund Lechmere’s 1629 A Disputation of the Church, in which he describes how his argument grew from a short treatise to an entire volume:

TO one, of the two papers which you had from me long agoe, you haue shaped, as it seemeth, a kind of answere; yet not an answere neither, for you send him that would haue one, to looke it in other men that are in print. For my part, I was not willing at the sight of yours (which I espied by meere chaunce, and neuer sawe but once) to be made an Aprill foole, and therefore would not be so farre at your commaund. Yet to declare that I was not satisfied, Presumed the chiefe question, out of which the rest are easilie resolued; and disputed it more at large: putting downe the conclusions together with their grounds; and maintaining them against that which your self, or your abettors haue obiected. I endeuoured to do this briefly; but it so fared with me in this intellectuall businesse, as it doth with such as breede: the child in the natiuitie is much bigger then at the conception: the matter I speake of heere, hath an inward inclination to dilate it self, and whilst I was writing, the discourse prooued a booke.

A reference to April Fool’s pranks can be found in Charles Cotton’s 1684 The Scoffer Scoffed. In the following passage, a translation of one of Lucian’s dialogues, Diogenes is sending Pollux to find Menippus, the cynic and satirist, and Pollux questions whether or not he is the butt of an April Fool’s prank, specifically a purposeless errand or wild goose chase or snipe hunt:

Pray sir don't make of me a Tool,
And send me like an April Fool,
But tell me now before I go,
By what mark I the Spark shall know?

The association specifically with April First is in place by 1686 when it appears in antiquarian John Aubrey’s book Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme. The Latin quotations are from Book 2 of Ovid’s Fasti (Almanacs) a poem about the Roman calendar. The lines from Ovid, however, are in reference to 17 February, and are about people making fools of themselves by letting their fire from their burnt offerings to the gods destroy their homes:

Fooles holy day.

We observe it on ye first of April.

Lux quoq’ cur eadem stultorum festa vocetur.....
Farra tamen veteres jaciebant, farra metebant;
     Primitias Cereri farra resecta dabant.

And so it is kept in Germany everywhere.

Nam modo verrebant nigras pro farre favillas;
     Nunc ipsas igni corripuere casas.

The Latin translates as:

(And likewise that is why the day is called the feast-day of fools.....
Yet the ancients sowed grain, reaped grain;
      They surrendered to Ceres the first fruits, the harvested grain.)

And

(Sometimes they swept up blackened ashes instead of grain;
     When their homes themselves caught fire.)

Not only does Aubrey associate the early modern practices of 1 April with Roman practices of a different date, but there is no evidence that the practices of April Fools Day date to ancient times.

William Congreve’s 1693 play The Old Batchelour conflates the earlier ideas of one being made foolish by love and a purposeless errand, a prank. This conversation between the characters Sharper, Bellmour, and Heartwell is about the character Vainlove, who foolishly searches for love but never finds it:

Sharp.  And here comes one who Swears as heartily he hates all the Sex.

Enter Heartwell.

Bell.  Who Heartwell! Ay, but he knows better things——How now George, where hast thou been snarling odious Truths, and entertaining company like a Physician, with discourse of their diseases and infirmities? What fine Lady hast thou been putting out of conceit with her self, and perswading that the Face she had been making all the morning wos none of her own? for I know thou art as unmannerly and as unwelcome to a Woman, as a Looking-glass after the Small-pox.

Heart.  I confess I have not been sneering fulsome Lies and nauseous Flattery, fawning upon a little tawdry Whore, that will fawn upon me again, and entertain any Puppy that comes; like a Tumbler with the same tricks over and over. For such I guess may have been your late employment.

Bell.  Would thou hadst come a little sooner, Vainlove would have wrought thy Conversion and been a Champion for the Cause.

Heart.  What, has he been here? that's one of Loves April-fools, is always upon some errand that's to no purpose, ever embarking in Adventures, yet never comes to harbour.

Joseph Addison gives a fuller description of April Fools in his The Spectator of 24 April 1711, but he doesn’t use the phrase April Fool’s Day:

IN the first Place I must observe, that there is a Set of merry Drolls, whom the common People of all Countries admire, and seem to love so well, that they could eat them, according to the old Proverb: I mean those circumforaneous Wits whom every nation calls by the Name of that Dish of Meat which it loves best. In Holland they are termed Pickled Herrings; in France, Jean Pottages; in Italy, Maccaronies; and in Great Britain, Jack Puddings. These merry Wags, from whatsoever Food they receive their Titles, that they may make their Audiences laugh, always appear in a Fool’s Coat, and commit such Blunders and Mistakes in every Step they take, and every Word they utter, as those who listen to them would be ashamed of.

BUT this little Triumph of the Understanding, under the Disguise of Laughter, is no where more visible than in that Custom which prevails every where among us on the First Day of the present Month, when every Body takes it in his Head to make as many Fools as he can. In proportion as there are more Follies discovered, so there is more laughter raised on this Day than on any other in the whole Year. A Neighbour of mine, who is a Haberdasher, and a very shallow conceited Fellow, makes his Boasts that for these Ten Years successivly he has not made less than an Hundred April Fools. My Landlady, had a falling out with him about a Fortnight ago, for sending every one of her Children upon some Sleeveless Errand, as she terms it. Her eldest Son went to buy an Half-penny worth of Inkle at a Shoemaker’s; the eldest Daughter was dispatched half a Mile to see a Monster; and in short, the whole Family of innocent Children made April fools. Nay, my Landlady her self did not escape him. This empty Fellow has laughed upon these Conceits ever since.

THIS art of Wit is well enough, when confined to one Day in a Twelve-month; But there is an ingenious Tribe of Men sprung up of late Years, who are for making April Fools every Day in the Year. These Gentlemen are commonly distinguished by the Name of Biters; a Race of Men that are perpetually employed in laughing at those Mistakes which are of their own Production.

The phrase April Fool’s Day isn’t attested until April 1748 when it appears in the title of a song published in the British Magazine:

On the first of APRIL, called APRIL-FOOL DAY,

A SONG

To the Tune of A Cobler there was &c.

Approach ye nine Muses, Parnassus descend,
And help out the weak Verse of a destitute friend;
To a poor silly fool prove prevalent tools,
To shew that mankind are all APRIL-FOOLS.
            Derry Down, down, &c.

It is mistakenly thought by some that the origin of the April Fool tradition dates to the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1582 and the moving of the start of the year from March to the first of January. Those who continued to celebrate the new year on 1 April were marked as fools. But under the old Julian calendar the first of January was still the most common day to mark the start of the new year. 25 March was celebrated as the start of the new year in some countries, including Britain, but that would make it a March fool, not an April one. Another myth is that Chaucer makes reference to foolish tricks on April First in his Nun’s Priest’s Tale, but that reading is based on a transcription error.

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Sources:

Addison, Joseph. The Spectator, no. 47, 24 April 1711, 179–80. The Spectator, vol. 1, second edition. London: S. Buckley, 1713. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Amerval Éloy d’. Le Livre de la Deablerie, Paris: Michel Le Noir, 1508, sig. B3r. Bibliothèque Nationale de France: Gallica.

Aubrey, John. Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme (1686). James Britten, ed. Publications of the Folk-lore Society 4. London: W. Satchell, Peyton, and Co., 1881, 10. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Ovid, Fasti, book 2, lines 513, 519–20, and 523–24.

Congreve, William. The Old Batchelour. London: Peter Buck, 1693, 4–5. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Cotton, Charles. The Scoffer Scoffed, the Second Part. London: Edward Goldin, 1684, 7. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Lechmere, Edmund. A Disposition of the Church. Douai: Marck Wyon, 1629, 6r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

“On the First of April, called April-Fool Day.” The British Magazine, April 1748, 172. ProQuest Historical Periodicals.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2020, s. v. April fool, n. and int.

Image Credit: Grandville (Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard), 1868. In Le Diable a Paris. Paris Et Les Parisiens a la Plume Et Au Crayon, Tome 2. Paris: J. Hetzel, 1868, 128. Public domain image.

Thanks to Adleen Crapo for the Middle French translation of Le Livre de la Deablerie.

Nunavut

A bilingual stop sign in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut. In the foreground, a stop sign in both English and Inuktitut; in the background, buildings and vehicles of the town.

1 April 2021

Nunavut is the newest territory of Canada, separated from the Northwest Territories on 1 April 1999. It is the largest of the Canadian provinces and territories in size and the smallest in population. (The population is almost the same as that of the Yukon Territory, so depending on the date of the source you consult, Nunavut may be the second smallest in population. In any case, given its size, it is by far the most sparsely populated.)

Nunavut is an Inuktitut word meaning our land.

While the territory wasn’t officially formed until 1999, discussions about creating a self-governing territory for the Inuit date back to 1975. The proposed name for the territory appears in the pages of the Vancouver Sun on 13 February 1975:

Canada’s Eskimos are considering forming their own government to take charge of the vast area of the country north of the tree line.

They’ve even got a name for it—Nunavut (Our Land).

The proposal was made here at meetings of the land claims negotiating committee of Inuit Tapirasat (Eskimo Brotherhood) of Canada.

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Sources:

“Eskimos Eye Own Gov’t.” Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), 13 February 1975, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.

Rayburn, Alan. Oxford Dictionary of Canadian Place Names. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford UP Canada, 1999.

Photo credit: Angela Scappatura, 2010. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.