pig in a poke

8 April 2021

A poke is a sack or bag, and to buy a pig in a poke is to purchase something sight unseen. The phrase is confusing to some because this sense of poke is now rare and, other than in this phrase, is not part of most people’s vocabulary; in the United States the word is chiefly found in the Midland dialect, especially in Appalachia.

We don’t know the exact etymology of the English word poke meaning a bag or sack. It dates to the early medieval period and appears in a number of European languages about the same time, so who borrowed what from whom is a bit muddled. The possibilities are that it is:

• from the Anglo-Norman poke (modern French poche), which would make it cognate with pouch

• from an unattested Old Dutch word (in Middle Dutch poke meant a bag or measure of wool)

• from the Old English pohha / Northumbrian pocca, from the Old Norse poki

• from some combination of the above.

An example of the Old English pohha can be found in the Macregol or Rushworth Gospels, a Latin copy of the gospels produced before 822 C. E. by Macregol, an Irish bishop and scribe. (In the seventeenth century, John Rushworth donated the manuscript to the Bodleian Library, hence that name.) An Old English, interlinear translation was added in the late tenth century. The text of Luke 9:3 reads:

Portion of an eighth-century, Latin gospel (the Macgregol Gospel) showing Luke 9:3 with a tenth-century Old English interlinear gloss that contains an early use of poke (Old English pohha) on the fourth line

Et ait ad illos nihil tolleretis in uia neque uirgam neque peram neque panem neque peccuniam neque duos tunicas abetis

& cwæð to ðæm noht ginime iow on woege ne in gerde ne in pohha ne hlafas ne feh ne twoege cyrtlas habbas ge.

(& he said to them, “Take nothing with you on the journey, neither staff, nor poke, nor bread, nor money, nor should you have two garments)

The relevant Latin word in the above is peram, the accusative of pera, a satchel or bag.

The form poke appears by the early thirteenth century. Here is an example from a listing of tolls due to the lord of Torksey for goods that were passing on the river Trent, although it’s not clear whether the poke here is English or Anglo-Norman. The text is primarily French, but some words, such as mailede, are Middle English:

i fraiello de vaddo      iiii d.
i poke de alum              i d.
i pak mailede              iiii d.

(1 basket of woad         4 d.
1 poke of alum              1 d.
1 tied bundle               4 d.)

But it appears unambiguously in Middle English in the romance Havelok the Dane. The poem was composed c. 1285, and the primary manuscript was copied sometime 1300–25. The passage is speaking of the fisherman Grim, who saved the life of and then adopted the child Havelok, the rightful king of Denmark:

Thanne he com thenne he were blithe,
For hom he brouthe fele sithe
Wastels, simenels with the horn,
His pokes fulle of mele and korn,
Netes flesh, shepes and swines;
And hemp to maken of gode lines,
And stronge ropes to hise netes,
In the se weren he ofte setes.

(Then he came from there, he was happy
For he brought home many times
Cakes, horn-shaped bread,
His pokes full of meal and grain,
Meat from cattle, sheep, and swine;
And hemp to make good lines,
And strong ropes for his netes
In the sea where he often set them.)

Pokes are associated with pigs by the end of the fourteenth century. Geoffrey Chaucer uses both words in the same line, albeit not in the form of the familiar gnomic utterance. From the Reeve’s Tale, written c. 1390. In this passage, the miller has just discovered one of the students has been sleeping with his daughter and is about to discover that another has been sleeping with his wife:

“A, false traitour! False clerk!" quod he,
"Thow shalt be deed, by Goddes dignitee!
Who dorste be so boold to disparage
My doghter, that is come of swich lynage?"
And by the throte-bolle he caughte Alayn,
And he hente hym despitously agayn,
And on the nose he smoot hym with his fest.
Doun ran the blody streem upon his brest;
And in the floor, with nose and mouth tobroke,
They walwe as doon two pigges in a poke;
And up they goon, and doun agayn anon,
Til that the millere sporned at a stoon,
And doun he fil bakward upon his wyf,
That wiste no thyng of this nyce stryf;
For she was falle aslepe a lite wight
With John the clerk, that waked hadde al nyght,

(“Ah, false traitor! False clerk!,” said he,
“You shall be dead by God’s dignity!
Who dared to be so bold to degrade
My daughter, who has come from such a lineage?”
And by the Adam’s apple he caught Alayn,
And he seized him angrily in turn,
And he hit him on the nose with his fist.
Down ran the bloody stream upon his chest;
And on the floor, with nose and mouth broken,
They wallow as do two pigs in a poke;
And up they go, and down again straight away,
Until the miller stumbled on a stone,
And down he fell backward upon his wife,
Who knew nothing of this foolish strife;
For she had fallen asleep for a short while
With John the clerk, who had been awake all night.)

But the gnomic phrase gets its start even earlier. The earliest instance of something similar is from the Proverbs of Hending. This is a collection of proverbs that exists in several versions. This particular one is from Cambridge, University Library MS Gg.1.1. and was probably composed c. 1250. The manuscript dates to before 1325:

What ich þe ᵹeve. take hit sone,
For ᵹef þou bidist til aftir none,
For tu wost me trewe,
Wiltou, niltou, þar mai rise
Letting in ful mani a wise,
Eft hit wil þe rewe.
“Wan man ᵹevit þe a pig, opin þe powch.”
Quod Hending.

(What I give you, take it right away,
For if you ask until after noon—
For you know me to be true—
Willy nilly, there may arise
Hindrances in very many ways,
Afterward, you will regret it.
“When a man gives you a pig, open the pouch.”
Said Hending.)

Not only does it use pouch instead of poke, but here the context suggests the meaning is somewhat different from the phrase we know today. The mythical Hending is advising that one take delivery and inspect the merchandise immediately upon payment, because if you wait, events may prevent you from taking delivery of the goods.

By the mid fifteenth century, we see both poke and the present-day meaning of the phrase, although it is worded slightly differently. From another collection of gnomic utterances found in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 52:

When me profereth þe pigge, opon þe pogh;
For when he is an olde swyn, thow tyte hym nowᵹht.
Cum tibi porcellum prebet quis, pande saccellum;
Cum fuerit porcus, non erit ipse tuus.

(When me[n] proffer a pig to you, open the poke;
For if it is an old swine, you should not take it.)

Finally, by 1555 we see the proverb in the form we’re most familiar with it today. From a John Heywood’s Two Hundred Epigrammes:

I wyll neuer bye the pyg in the poke:
Thers many a foule pyg in a feyre cloke.

It is often claimed that the phrase about buying a pig in a poke refers to a scam in which a cat or other inedible animal would be substituted for a pig. As we can see from the phrase’s history above, that is not the case. The phrase is simply an admonition to inspect the merchandise before you buy. No elaborate scams or schemes are needed.

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Sources:

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Reeve’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. Lines 1.4269–84. Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website.

Dictionary of American Regional English, 2013, s. v. poke, n.1.

Förster, Max. “Die Mittelenglische Sprichwörtersamlung in Douce 52.” Festschrift zum XII Allgemeinen Deutschen Neuphilologentage in München, Pfingsten, 1906. Erlangen: Junge, 1906, 54. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 52.

Gras, Norman S. B. “An Inquisition Showing the System of Local Customs at Torksey, 1228.” The Early English Customs System. Harvard Economic Studies 18. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1918, 157. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Havelok the Dane. In Four Romances of England: King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Bevis of Hampton, Athelston. Ronald B. Herzman, Graham Drake, and Eve Salisbury, eds. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997, lines 778–85. Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Laud Misc. 108. 

Heywood, John. Two Hundred Epigrammes. London: T. Berthelet, 1555, sig. B.2v. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s. v. poke n.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2021, s. v. pig, n.1; December 2020, poke, n.1.

Skeat, Walter W. The Gospel According to Saint Luke in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1874, 95. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D.2.19, fol. 96r.

Tréguer, Pascal. “The Authentic Origin of ‘to buy a pig in a poke.’” Wordhistories.net, 2 January 2017.

Varnhagen, Hermann. “Zu Mittelenglischen Gedichten.” Anglia, 4, 1881, 188–89. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Cambridge, University Library MS Gg.1.1.

Image credit: The Macregol (Rushworth) Gospel, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Auct. D. 2. 19, Digital Bodleian.

let the cat out of the bag

Erik the cat sitting in an overnight bag

7 April 2021

To let the cat out of the bag is to reveal a secret. But where does this idiom come from? What is the cat doing in the bag and what has this to do with secrets?

The answer is a disappointing, “we don’t know.” The metaphor underlying the phrase has been lost to the ages. There is a similar phrase in French, vider le sac, literally meaning to empty the sack and used to mean to tell the whole story or finish the tale. The English version could be a more colorful variation on that. But there is also a long history using opening something as a metaphor for revelation (and the Latin roots of the word reveal literally mean an uncovering), from the ancient Greek myth of Pandora’s box to the recent open one’s kimono. So, countless speculative candidates are possible (and unevidenced).

The phrase first appears in print in 1760 and likely dates in oral use to the decades immediately preceding—we have a raft of print appearances in the 1760s, indicating that it was a faddish term during that decade. The first appearance is in April 1760 in a brief book review of Willoughby Mynors’s The Life and Adventures of a Cat in the Edinburgh Magazine (a verbatim review appears in the London Magazine of the same date):

The life and adventures of a cat, 2 s. 6d. Mynors.

We could have wished that the strange genius, author of this piece, had not let the cat out of the bag; for it is such a mad, ranting, swearing, caterwauling puss, that we fear no sober family will be troubled with her.

It’s clear from the context that the phrase was already in circulation by this date and that the reviewer is making a play on words, juxtaposing the idiom with the title of the book in question.

Let the cat out of the bag is also recorded in eighteenth-century stockbroker slang. From Thomas Mortimer’s 1761 Every Man His Own Broker: or a Guide to Exchange-Alley:

TERM generally begins a few days before the drawing of the lottery, when those who have contracted to take, or are already possessed of, more tickets than they can possibly hold, (in the language of ’Change Alley, begin to open the budget or to let the cat out of the bag) and these may not improperly be stiled BULLS, PLAINTIFFS;—and the opposite party, who have agreed to deliver a quantity of tickets without being possessed of them, the BEARS, DEFENDANTS.

To open the budget is an obsolete idiom meaning to speak one’s mind. In the idiom budget is used in the now obsolete sense of a purse or wallet, so that idiom is yet another revelatory metaphor.

Let the cat out of the bag also appears in a 1762 English translation of Molière’s play The Gentleman Cit (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme):

Mad. JORDAN.
And pray what does this same nobleman do for you?

Mons. JORDAN.
Why, things that would surprize you, if you knew them all.

Mad. JORDAN.
And what are they?

Mons. JORDAN.
No, hold there, wife; I shall not let the cat out of the bag neither. It is sufficient that if I have lent him money, he will pay it me all again very soon.

Yet another early appearance is again from the world of the stock market, in the East India Examiner of 5 November 1766 in a passage talking about what we now call insider trading:

Any fixed value given to India stock, however great, cannot suit their views; their business is to keep it at a low uncertain value, as we find it at present, while they behind the curtain, knowing the time when they shall raise the dividend 2 per cent, and consequently the stock 50 per cent. more in value, in the mean time always declaring an increase of dividend premature, will be able by themselves and their friends with money prepared, to purchase gradually, and imperceptibly, the bulk of the Company's stock, and then let the cat out of the bag.

As mentioned above, there are countless possibilities as to the original metaphor underlying the phrase. I will only discuss the two most common, two that are almost certainly false.

The first one, and one that can be found repeated many etymological resources (including old versions of this site) is that it refers to a scam in which a cat would be surreptitiously substituted for a suckling pig that had just been purchased at market. The cat would be placed in the bag in the hopes that the customer would not look into it until they were some distance away. This same alleged scam is often also held to be the origin of the phrase to buy a pig in a poke. But there is no evidence of such a scam existing, or at least being common, and early uses of the phrase are not in contexts that are related to any such scam. This explanation would appear to be a post hoc rationalization for an idiom of unknown origin.

The second common, but almost certainly false, explanation is that let the cat out of the bag refers to the cat o’ nine-tails used on board ships as form of punishment. The whip would be kept in a special bag to protect it from the sea air and to let the cat out of the bag was to confess a crime worthy of flogging. Again, a neat tale, except again there is absolutely no evidence to connect the phrase with a nautical origin. None of the early citations are even remotely connected to life on the sea.

To sum up, we don’t know where let the cat out of the bag comes from or what it originally referred to. All we know is that the phrase probably arose in the early to mid eighteenth century and appears in print by 1760.

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Sources:

The East India Examiner (No. 10. 5 November 1766). London: W. Nicoll, 1766, 88–89. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Mikkelson, Barbara. “What’s the Origin of ‘Letting the Cat Out of the Bag’?” Snopes.com, 8 August 2010.

Molière. “The Gentleman Cit.” The Comic Theater, vol. 5 of 5. Samuel Foote, trans. London: Dryden Leach for J. Coote, 1762, 202. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Mortimer, Thomas. Every Man His Own Broker: or a Guide to Exchange-Alley. London: S. Hooper, 1761, 70–71. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

“New Books, With Remarks and Extracts.” The Edinburgh Magazine, April 1760, 224. Gale Primary Sources: American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society,

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

Photo credit: David Wilton, 2020.

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.