Virginia / West Virginia

1606 map of the Tidewater region of Virginia, showing the colony of Jamestown, among others. In the upper left is an image of the Powhatan, the chief of the Tsenacommacah. In the upper right is an indigenous hunter/warrior, carrying a bow, a club, and the body of an animal he has killed.

25 June 2021

Tsenacommacah is the Powhatan term for the Tidewater region and surrounding lands in what is now commonly called Virginia. The word was also used to refer to a socio-political grouping of Algonquian peoples living there, the Powhatan Confederacy. The meaning of Tsenacommacah is somewhat uncertain, but it is often translated as “densely inhabited land,” a compound of tsen (close together) + ahkamikwi (land dwelt upon, dwelling house).

But when English settler-colonists founded their first colonies there, they dubbed the land Virginia, after Elizabeth I, the so-called virgin queen. Originally, Virginia referred to all English claims to North America, not just the area we now know by that name. But since the first successful English colony was in the Tidewater at Jamestown, the name eventually came to mean that and immediately surrounding areas and not other colonies elsewhere on the Eastern seaboard.

The earliest use of Virginia that I have found is from Walter Bigges’s account of Francis Drake’s 1585–86 expedition to raid the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Bigges was one of Drake’s ship captains. The passage refers to Drake’s June 1586 resupply of the Roanoke colony, which was in what is now North Carolina, but in the sixteenth century that was all Virginia. The reference to St. Helena is to St. Helena Island in what is now South Carolina and not to the island in the South Atlantic where Napoleon was exiled:

Here it was resolued in full assemblie of Captaines, to vndertake the enterprise of S. HELENA, and from thence to seeke out the inhabitation of our English countrey men in VIRGINIA, distant from thence some sixe degrees Northward.

When we came thwart of S. HELENA, the shols appearing daungerous, and we hauing no Pilot to vndertake the entrie, it was thought meetest to go hence alongst. For the Admirall had bene the same night in foure fadome and halfe three leagues from the shore: and yet we vnderstood, that by the helpe of a knowen Pilot, there may and doth go in ships of greater burthen and draught then anie we had in our Fleete.

We passed thus alongest the coast hard abord the shore, which is shallow for a league or two from the shore, and the same is lowe and broken land for the most part.

The ninth of Iune vpon sight of one speciall great fire (which are verie ordinarie all alongst this coast, euen from the Cape FLORIDA hither) the Generall sent his Skiffe to the shore, where they found some of our English countrey men (that had bene sent thither the yeare before by Sir Walter Raleigh) & brought one aboord, by whose direction we proceeded along to the place, which they make their Port. But some of our ships being of great draught vnable to enter, we ankered all without the harbour in a wild road at sea, about two miles from shore.

From whence the General wrote letters to Maister Rafe Lane, being Gouernour of those English in VIRGINIA, and then at his fort about six leagues from the rode in an Island, which they call ROANOAC, wherein specially he shewed how readie he was to supply his necessities and wants, which he vnderstood of, by those he had first talked withall.

The morrowe after Maister Lane him selfe and some of his companie comming vnto him, with the consent of his Captaines, he gaue them the choise of two offers, that is to say: Either he would leaue a ship, a Pinnace, and certaine boates with sufficient Maisters and mariners, together furnished with a moneths victuall to stay and make farther discouerie of the country and coastes, and so much victuall likewise that might be sufficient for the bringing of them all (being an hundred and three persons) into England if they thought good after such time, with anie other thing they would desire, & that he might be able to spare.

Or else if they thought they had made sufficient discouerie alreadie, and did desire to returne into England, he would giue them passage. But they as it seemed, being desirous to stay, accepted verie thankefully, and with great gladnesse that which was offred first.

Drake and his crew would be the last white men to see the ill-fated colonists of Roanoke.

Subsequently, Jamestown would become the first successful English colony in North America, and Virginia would be among the thirteen colonies that rebelled against Britain in 1775. On 25 June 1788, it became the tenth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The western region of the state, which had relatively few slaves and little political or commercial interest in breaking with the Union during the Civil War, split from the eastern portion of the state, becoming the state of West Virginia on 20 June 1863.

I also chanced upon 1609 use of Virginia that, while far from the first use of that name, is fascinating in its own right. It’s from the dedicatory epistle to a published version of a sermon delivered by William Symonds on 25 April 1609 in Southwark, London to an audience of prospective planters in Virginia:

This land, was of old time, offered to our Kings. Our late Soueraigne Q. Elizabeth (whose storie hath no peere among Princes of her sexe) being a pure Virgin, found it, set foot in it, and called it Virginia. Our most sacred Soueraigne, in whom is the spirit of his great Ancestor, Constantin t[h]e pacifier of the world, and planter of the Gospell in places most remote, desireth to present this land a pure Virgine to Christ. Such as doe mannage the expedition, are carefull to carry thither no Traitors, nor Papists that depend on the Great Whore. Lord finish this good worke thou hast begun; and marry this land, a pure Virgine to thy kingly sonne Christ Iesus; so shall thy name bee magnified: and we shall haue a Virgin or Maiden Britaine, a comfortable addition to our Great Britaine.

Of course, Elizabeth herself never “set foot” in North America, but the passage is representing the dual nature of the monarch’s body—the physical human body and the body of the nation she rules. It is this latter body that set foot in and established colonies in North America. The passage also invokes the Roman Emperor Constantine, who was campaigning in Britain when he became Emperor. By so doing it compares the current king, James I, who by establishing the Virginia colonies brought Christianity to the region, to the emperor who established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. And Symonds refers to America as “a Virgin or Maiden Britaine,” a place that, since it is untouched by sin, can be perfected as a Christian nation—a sentiment that was shared by the later Puritan colonists of New England, but not by the Virginia colonists, who were in it solely for the profit. The idea of “virgin” land also necessitates the erasure of the indigenous people already living there and is why today we call it Virginia and not Tsenacommacah.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Bigges, Walter. A Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Francis Drakes West Indian Voyage. London: Richard Field, 1589, 47–49. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

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

Gleach, Frederic W. Powhatan’s World and Colonial Virginia: A Conflict of Cultures. Lincoln: U of Nebraska Press, 1997, 25, 207.

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

Symonds, William. “Dedicatorie Epistle.” A Sermon Preached at White-Chappel, in the Presence of Many, Honourable and Worshipfull, the Aduenturers and Planters for Virginia, 25 April 1609. London: I. Windet, 1609, unpaginated front matter. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Whitt, Laurelyn and Alan W. Clarke. “The Powhatan Tsenacommacah (1607–1677).” North American Genocides: Indigenous Nations, Settler Colonialism, and International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2019, 117.

Image credit: John Smith and William Hole, 1606 (published 1624). Library of Congress. Public domain image.

shrew / shrewd

24 June 2021

1791 cartoon by James Gillray titled, The Taming of the Shrew: Katherine & Petruchio; — The Modern Quixotte, or, What You Will. The cartoon critiques the British attempt, with Prussian and Dutch support, to negotiate a truce in the Russia-Turkish War (1787–92). It depicts Catherine the Great of Russia fainting into the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and a figure representing France, while English Prime Minister William Pitt, as Don Quixote, points accusingly at Catherine, while he sits astride Rocinante, representing King George III of England. Sitting on the horse behind Pitt are the king of Prussia and a Sancho Panza figure representing Holland. Ottoman Sultan Selim III kneels behind the horse and kisses its tail. Russia, supported by France and the Holy Roman Empire, and is winning the war wants nothing to do with a negotiated peace, while Turkey, which is losing badly, desperately wants the war to end. George III, depicted as an emaciated and scarred, horse, simply does what Pitt tells him.

A shrew is a small, insectivorous and carnivorous mammal of the genus Sorex. The common shrew, Sorex araneus, is found across Eurasia, from Mongolia to Britain. They resemble mice but are not rodents, being more closely related to moles and hedgehogs. But shrew also has a misogynist sense of a nagging, scolding, unpleasant woman. This latter sense of shrew is perhaps best known to people today through Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew. And this latter sense gave rise to the adjective shrewd, which now means clever or keen-witted, but originally meant something more malicious.

These two senses are difficult to reconcile. The general opinion is that the scold sense is a metaphorical development of the animal sense, coming from a folk belief that the creature wielded some malignant influence. Alternatively, the scold sense could have an independent origin, a borrowing of the Middle High German word schröuwel, meaning devil. Adding to the word’s strangeness is that it, or the animal sense at least, has no cognates in other Germanic languages, and its root meaning is unclear.

The name of the animal comes to us from the Old English screwa, a word that is attested in a number of Latin-Old English glossaries. Strangely, this sense isn’t attested in Middle English, reappearing in print in the sixteenth century. (There are many gaps in the early medieval corpus, but the Middle English corpus is quite large and filled with animal terms, so the word’s absence is odd.) One of the early reappearances of the animal sense is in Thomas Elyot’s 1542 Latin-English dictionary, in which Elyot gives a hint of the folkloric malign nature of the small creature:

Mus Arancus, a kynde of myse called a shrew, whyche yf it goo ouer a beastes backe, he shall be lame in the chyne, yf he doo byte any thynge, it swelleth vp to the hart, and the beaste dyeth.

(Mus Arancus, a kind of mouse called a shrew, which if it goes over a beast’s back, the beast shall be lame in the spine, if he does bite anything, the beast bitten swells up, and the beast bitten dies.)

While the animal sense isn’t attested in Middle English, the other sense of the word is. The earliest uses of the word shreue are in the sense of a rascal, an undisciplined child, an evil-doer,  but it is not specifically associated with women. An early appearance is in the debate-poem The Owl and the Nightingale from c. 1275:

Vor nere ich neuer no þe betere,
Yif ich mid chauling & mid chatere,
Home schende, & mid fule worde,
So herdes doþ, oþer mid schitworde.
Ne lust me with þe screwen chide:
Forþi ich wende from hom wide.
Hit is a wise monne dome,
& hi hit segget wel ilome,
Þat “me ne chide wit þe gidie”
Ne “wit þan ofne me ne ʒonie.”

(For I would not be better off if I abused them with idle talk and chatter and with foul words, as shepherds do, or with shit-words. I don’t want to quarrel with the shrews, therefore I give them a wide berth. It’s the judgment of wise men, & they say it often, that “there is no point in arguing with an idiot” than there is “yawning wider than an oven.”)

Shreue could also refer to a devil or a sinner, as in the life of St. James found in the South English Legendary, written c.1300. In this passage, a sinner kills himself and the devil claims his soul:

A-ʒein þe deuel he cam a-doun : and bad þane schrewe a-bide,
And seid, “þou berst more þane þin owe. : þat i schal kuyþe þe.
Ʒwi hast þou mine pilegrim be-traid? : gret schame þou dest me.”
“Ʒe. al for nauʒt,” quath þe schrewe : “thou art hidere i-come[”] :
[“]In his sunne him-sulf he a-slouʒ : and þare-with ich him habbe i-nome.
Ne may no man in dedlich sunne : in-to heuene wende.
Ase wel þou miʒht gon hom a-ʒein : he is min with-outen enden.”

(Again, the devil he came down and bid that the shrew wait, and said “you carry more than your own [sin], that I shall let you know. Why have you betrayed my pilgrim? You do me great shame.” “Yes, all for nothing,” said the shrew, “you have come here.” “In his sin he killed himself, and therefore I have taken him. No one in mortal sin can go to heaven, any more easily as he can go home again. He is mine without end.”

It’s about this time that the adjective shrewd appears with the meaning of wicked or malicious. In a passage about Pilate’s judgment of Christ, shrewd is used as an antisemitic slur from the Southern Passion, a poem that is part of the South English Legendary, written c.1280:

And Pilatus nas no gyw; Iustise þey he were,
Ak was of Paynyme; and þorw þemperour ysend ffram Rome
ffor to entempry þe gywes; and hold hem to riȝte dome.
Out aȝen þe shrewede gywes; pilatus wende anon
To affonge hare acoupementʒ; whanne he nolde yn gon.

(And Pilate was no Jew; ruler though he was,
But rather he was a pagan; and by the emperor sent from Rome
To restrain the Jews; and hold them to honest judgment.
Out again [among] the shrewd Jews, Pilate soon went
To hear their accusations when they would not come in.)

This sense of evil could also be applied to dangerous animals or things, as well as to misbehaving children.

The misogynistic association with women appears by the early fourteenth century, as can be seen in this lyric, “Lord that Lenest Us Lyf.,” found in the manuscript London, British Library, MS Harley 2253:

Nou hath prude the pris
In everuche plawe;
By mony wymmon unwis
Y sugge mi sawe,
For yef a ledy lyne is
Leid after lawe,
Uch a strumpet that ther is
Such drahtes wol drawe
             In prude:
       Uch a screwe wol hire shrude
       Thah he nabbe nout a smoke hire foule ers to hude!

(Today, pride takes the praise in every amusement; by the example of many unwise women I state my opinion, for if a lady’s clothing is fitted after fashion, each strumpet that there is will follow such tricks out of pride, each shrew will adorn herself up, though she hasn’t a smock to hide her foul ass.)

And the sense of a nagging or disagreeable wife can be found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, c.1395. where the host, Harry Bailey, responds to the merchant’s tale with the following:

"Ey! Goddes mercy!" seyde oure Hooste tho,
"Now swich a wyf I pray God kepe me fro!
Lo, whiche sleightes and subtilitees
In wommen been! For ay as bisy as bees
Been they, us sely men for to deceyve,
And from the soothe evere wol they weyve;
By this Marchauntes tale it preveth weel.
But doutelees, as trewe as any steel
I have a wyf, though that she povre be,
But of hir tonge, a labbyng shrewe is she,
And yet she hath an heep of vices mo.

(“Ah, God’s mercy!” said our host then, “Now such a wife I pray God keep me from! Lo, what slights and subtleties are in women! For they are always as busy as bees, to deceive us innocent men, and from the truth they will ever waver; by this merchant’s tale it is well proven. But doubtless, as true as any steel I have a wife, though she is poor, but of her tongue she is a blabbing shrew, and yet she has a heap of other vices.”)

The adjective shrewd was also applied specifically to scolding or nagging women at about this time. From John Trevisa’s c.1387 translation of Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon:

Socrates hadde tweie schrewed wifes þat would alway chide and stryve, and hadde ofte stryf by twene hem for Socrates.

(Socrates had two shrewd wives that would always quarrel and argue, and there was often strife between them over Socrates.)

Higden’s original Latin uses litigiosissimas (most quarresome). Another, anonymous, Middle English translator uses litigious and malicious.

But by the early sixteenth century, shrewd was being used to mean clever or keen-witted, an outgrowth of the idea of a malicious act being sharp and penetrating. This sense appears in a 1525 interlude by John Rastell on the qualities of women, although while the attitude displayed here is sexist, the adjective shrewd is applied to men, not women:

Gyff tokyns of loue by many subtell ways
Semyng to be shepe and serpently shrewd
Craft in them renewyng that neuer decays
Theyre seyenge sightynge prouokynge theyr plays
O what payn is to fulfyll theyre appetyte
And to accomplysh theyre wanton delytis

(Give tokens of love by many subtle ways
Seeming to be sheep and serpently shrewd
Craft in them renewing that never decays
Their saying sighting provoking their plays
O what a pain it is to fulfill their appetite
And to accomplish their wanton delights.)

Over time, the adjective shrewd has lost its misogynistic undertones.

Regardless of whether this misogynistic sense of shrew comes from a slander of an innocent animal or from an old German word for devil, its derogatory and slanderous nature makes it not a good word to use unless, one is referring to the title of the Shakespeare play, and even then, one should avoid it as much as possible.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

(For those interested in reading more about medieval misogyny, I point you to the work of Carissa M. Harris, whose forthcoming book and talks on the topic have influenced my thinking about the word shrew. As of this writing however, I would recommend her Obscene Pedagogies: Transgressive Talk and Sexual Education in Late Medieval Britain (Cornell UP, 2018). That book does not address misogyny or shrew in particular, but it does address medieval attitudes toward and language about women more generally.)

Brown, Beatrice Daw. The Southern Passion. Early English Text Society OS 169. London: Humphrey Milford, 1927, lines 1282–86, 46–47. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Cambridge, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2344.

Cartlidge, Neil, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale. Exeter: U of Exeter Press, 2001, 8–9, lines 283–93. London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A.9.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. “Epilogue to the Merchant’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales, lines 4:2419–29. Harvard’s Geoffrey Chaucer Website. Elyot, Thomas. Bibliotheca Eliotæ Eliotis Librarie. London: Thomas Bertelet, 1542, sig. Y.3

Fein, Susanna Greer, ed. “Lord that Lenest Us Lyf.” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, vol. 2 of 3. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2014, lines 12–22. London, British Library, MS Harley 2253.

Higden, Ranulf. Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, vol. 3 of 8. Joseph Rawson Lumby, ed. Rolls Series (Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores) 41. London: Longman, et al., 1871, 3.285, 284–85. Cambridge, St. John's College, MS H.1 (204). London, British Library, MS Harley 2261.

Horstmann, Carl, ed. The Early South-English Legendary. Early English Text Society, OS 87.. London: N. Trübner, 1887, 44, lines 347–53. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 108, Part 1.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. shreue, n., bishreuen, v., shrewd, adj.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. shrew, n.1, shrew, n.2 and adj., shrewd, adj.

Rastell, John. A New Comodye in Englysh In Maner of an Enterlude Ryght Elygant & Full of Craft of Rethoryk, Wherein Is Shewd & Descrybyd as Well the Bewte & Good Propertes of Women. London, 1525, sig. A.3. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Image credit: James Gillray, 1791, Library of Congress. Public domain image.

old army game

Indochinese soldiers playing chuck-a-luck in France shortly after the World War I armistice. A crowd of Asian men in uniform gathered round a blanket on which are bets and a cup and saucer, presumably holding dice.

23 June 2021

The old army game is a phrase that has gone through a number of different meanings over the years. It started out as a name for a gambling game—exactly which one varies with the telling—shifted to refer to a sucker’s game—like three-card-monte—and then came to mean any kind of confidence game or deception. Meanwhile, in baseball it developed three distinct and contradictory senses.

The earliest use I have found of army game is as another name for the game commonly called chuck-a-luck. It apparently got that name because of chuck-a-luck’s popularity among soldiers during the 1861–65 U.S. Civil War. The particular use, however, is from a chapter subtitle in William Rideing’s 1879 travelogue, A-Saddle in the Wild West, and the army game is great, not old:

The Great Army Game of “Chuck-a-Luck”

For those unfamiliar with the game, John Philip Quinn’s 1890 book on gambling, Fools of Fortune, gives a description of chuck-a-luck and explains that while the game can be played on the level, a skilled player can easily rig it to take money from the unsuspecting:

CHUCK-A-LUCK

This is a simple little game of dice, yet one of the most fascinating of all games of chance. It is sometimes designated as “the old army “game,” [sic] for the reason that soldiers at the front were often wont to beguile the tedium of a bivouac by seeking relief from monotony in its charms.

The outfit requisite to play the game is simple and inexpensive, consisting of three small dice, a dice-box, and a cloth on which are inscribed the numbers one to six, corresponding to the dots, or "pips," on the six faces of the cubes. Bets are made by placing the money wagered on the numbers on the cloth. The dice, having been placed in the box, are shaken and thrown upon the table. Bets made upon either of the three numbers which come uppermost are won by the players. Money staked on either of the remaining numbers are won by the bank.

On its face, this game appears to be one of pure chance. As played upon fair and circus-grounds, however, there is very little chance about it. The “banker” does not throw the dice fairly. Through long practice, he is able to retain two of them between the fingers of the hand which he holds over the inverted dice-box. The other die he allows to remain in the box, and rattles it against the sides, occasionally knocking the box itself against the button of his coat in order to simulate the sound produced by the shaking of three dice. When he removes his hand from the mouth of the dice cup, he drops upon the table the two dice which he held in his hand and permits the third die to fall by chance. The reader will perceive, that he thus makes himself absolutely certain as to two of the faces which will be exposed when the cup is lifted. When it is remembered, that the box is not agitated until all the bets have been made, it will be readily perceived how great is the unfair advantage thus obtained

Other early appearances of old army game use it to describe other or unspecified games of chance. From the Augusta, Georgia Daily Chronicle & Constitutionalist of 23 February 1882:

A large number of gentlemen were at the Fair Grounds yesterday.

“The old army game”—three win and three lose—was popular.

And there is this account from the Cleveland Plain Dealer of 15 May 1887 which is vague on exactly what the game was:

A faro bank was seldom lacking in one of these places, but was never extensively patronized, probably because it was the “squarest” game of them all.

Then there was what they called “the old army game,” of which I remember very little except that those who played always lost.

And there is this from the Omaha Daily World-Herald of 11 August 1890:

Every skin game known to the world was run openly and above board. Under every good shade tree a roulette outfit, chuckaluck, three-card monte, the old army game, faro and numerous other gambling devices were in full operation. The shekels rolled in profusely. Suckers appeared at every turn.

And given this association with rigged games of chance, it should be no surprise that old army game generalized to refer to any deception or confidence game. There is this article from the 24 May 1910 Jersey Journal that uses old army game to refer to what can only be described as a predecessor to the “Nigerian prince” email scam so familiar to us today. Hollywood likes to portray con men as imaginative and brilliant, but in reality, they aren’t; they use the same old tricks their great-grandfathers did:

“THE OLD ARMY GAME”

A letter believed to have been sent in the interests of an old confidence game was received by C. Caborrelli, of 3863[?] Hudson Boulevard, yesterday. The epistle is written in Spanish and bears a Madrid postmark. The is no signature to it beyond the initial, “D. Del O.” The writer is, according to the letter, confined in a Spanish prison for debt. He asks that Caborelli help him by getting his trunk out of the hands of railway authorities who are holding it at a station in France. The writer says there are 1,300,000 francs in the trunk which he will gladly give to Caborrelli for releasing the attachment on the trunk and other baggage. In conclusion the writer asks that a reply be sent to his valet, Sabastian Romero, in Madrid. The letter was turned over to the police of the Sixth Precinct, and later to Police Headquarters.

But we also see the old army game used in baseball, and in ways that are difficult to reconcile with both the gambling senses and with each other. At first, the phrase in baseball parlance referred to a style or tactic of defensive play, perhaps one involving some kind of deception, but exactly what is unclear. Here is an early use from the 6 September 1903 issue of the Pittsburg [sic] Press about a game between the Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds, in which Pittsburgh’s hitting dominated the game:

The Reds tried to work the old army game in the fourth inning, but Sebring lined one out between Beckley and Daly, and Bransfield tallied.

And there is this decades-later description of a local baseball game in the Miami Herald of 5 May 1930:

Davis led off with a hit to left and Vegue laid down a bunt. Marks threw to second, but Davis beat the throw to the bag and two men were on with none down. Then Gahan pulled the old army game on Vegue and tagged him out at first.

The second baseball sense is that of an aggressive style of play, involving bunts, base stealing, hit-and-run plays, and the like. While one might compare this style of play with the patter and movements of a three-card-monte dealer or shell-game operator, there is nothing illegal or illicit about this style of play. Here is an example of an unsuccessful attempt to work the offensive old army game from the Indianapolis Star of 10 June 1909:

The Brewers tried bravely to work the old army game, but it didn’t get them anything when Hostetter singled and Collins sacrificed in the fifth and Barry and Randall repeated the operation in the sixth and Hostetter and Collins came back with the same old stunt in the seventh.

But old army game could also mean exactly the opposite, a strategy that relies on slugging and long balls. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of 3 May 1908:

The “old army game” as we call it, the style adopted by a team of sluggers that go up to the bat relying upon their batting strength to win out, will never win a pennant nowadays.

So, in the case of baseball, the old army game is what we call a Janus phrase, one that has meanings that are diametrically opposed to one another.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

“Baseball Notes.” Pittsburg [sic] Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 6 September 1903, 20. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Brevities.” Daily Chronicle & Constitutionalist (Augusta, Georgia), 23 February 1882, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Copeland, H.G. “Champs Crawl Up on Losing Brewers.” Indianapolis Star, 10 June 1909, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Dickson, Paul. The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, third edition. Skip McAfee, ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009, 594, s.v. old army game.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. army, n.2.

Lighter, J.E., ed. Random House Dictionary of Historical Slang: A–G, vol. 1 of 2. New York: Random House, 1994, 35, s.v. army game, n.

“No Post-Mortems in Buses for Manager Hughey Jennings.” Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio), 3 May 1908, 2–C. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“The Old Army Game.” The Jersey Journal (Jersey City, New Jersey), 24 May 1910, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Pressmen at Their Picnic.” Omaha Daily World-Herald (Nebraska), 11 August 1890, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Quinn, John Philip. Fools of Fortune: Or Gambling and Gamblers. Chicago: G.L. Howe, 1890, 275–76. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Rideing, William H. A-Saddle in the Wild West. New York: D. Appleton, 1879, 139. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Shoe Store Defeats Turner’s in Twelfth.” Miami Herald (Florida), 5 May 1930, 7. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“A Tramp Trip Across the Lava Beds of Idaho and Back Again.” Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio), 15 May 1887, 11. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: Frank Chircosta, 21 November 1918, Nievre, France. U.S. Army Signal Corps photo. U.S. National Archives. Public domain image.

OK / okay / A-OK

A Matthew Brady photograph of U.S. President Martin Van Buren, c.1856. While not the word’s origin, Van Buren’s nickname of Old Kinderhook played a significant role in popularizing OK.

22 June 2021

OK or Okay is the most successful of all Americanisms. It has invaded hundreds of other languages and been adopted by them as a word. It was even one of the first words spoken from the surface of the moon. Despite the term’s success, however, for years no one was really sure where the word came from. The origin of OK became the Holy Grail of etymology. Finally, in 1963 the Percival (or Galahad) of our story, Dr. Allen Walker Read of Columbia University uncovered the origin.

Read solved the mystery in a series of articles in the journal American Speech in 1963-64. OK was the result of two editorial fads common in newspapers of the era: a penchant for fanciful initialisms and deliberate misspellings in order to take on the persona of a country bumpkin. Read discovered that OK is a facetious misspelling for all correct (oll korrect) that appeared in Boston newspapers starting in 1839, part of a fad for such initialisms that had started the previous year. One of the most prolific users of these initialisms, and the first to use OK, was Charles Gordon Greene, founder and editor of the Boston Morning Post.

The nineteenth-century penchant for initialisms can be seen in this passage from the Boston Morning Post of 12 June 1838:

Melancholy.—We understand that J. Eliot Brown, Esq., Secretary of the Boston Young Men’s Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Indians, F.A.H. (fell at Hoboken, N.Y.) on Saturday last at 4 o’clock, P.M. in a duel W.O.O.O.F.C. (with one of our first citizens.) What measures will be taken by the Society in consequence of this heart rending event, R.T.B.S. (remains to be seen.)

The second fad, deliberate misspellings, was not limited to newspapers. For example, the writings of Artemus Ward (pseudonym of Charles Farrar Browne) and Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw) were enormously popular pieces produced in the style of a country bumpkin who could not spell correctly. The confluence of these two fads was recognized by the New York Evening Tattler of 27 July 1839:

THE INITIAL LANGUAGE.—This is a species of spoken short-hand, which is getting into very general use among loafers and gentlemen of the fancy, besides Editors, to whom it saves, by its comprehensive expressiveness, much trouble in writing and many "ems" in printing. The Boston Morning Post made great use of it at one period. It is known that the City of the Pilgrims is an extremely aristocratic place, and that "our first men" are referred to constantly. Charley Green [sic] of the Post always wrote O.F.M. Walter of the Boston Transcript, we believe, used to designate the Young Men's Society for the Amelioration Condition of the Indians—Y.M.S.A.C.I. We heard yesterday of a lady who said to a gentleman, who was about to take leave of her, "O.K.K.B.W.P." The gallant thought and obligingly granted the fair one's request. What could she have meant but Kiss Before We Part?"

It will be observed that in the above, those initials are used which, in the vulgar spelling, begin the words they are intended to signify. But this language is more original, richer and less comprehensible, when those initials are given which might possibly, some how or other, be employed by people who spell "on their own hook." For instance, "K.G." (no go) K.Y. (no use) and K.K.K. (commit no nuisance.) The last would be highly useful at this time to those housekeepers who throw filth into the streets. Apropos to this is the toast given by a country schoolmaster. "The Three Rs-Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic!”

OK was not the first such initialism to carry the sense of everything is correct or right. It was preceded by O.W. (oll wright) in the Boston Morning Post of 7 February 1839:

The N.E. Non-Resistance Society, have published the number of a paper, which is called “The Non-Resistant”—it will be issued semi-monthly. We observe the names of several ladies among its officers. We wonder to what extent they adhere to the principles of the society? Wm. L. Garrison—Miss Martineau’s Moses—is Corresponding Secretary, yet he is a must furious “resistant” to various things. However, we suppose it is O.W. (all right).

And OK made its first appearance in that paper about seven weeks later, on 23 March 1839. A.B.R.S. stands for Anti-Bell-Ringing Society, presumably a fictional organization:

Quite an excitement was caused here yesterday, by an announcement in the Boston Post, that a deputation from the Boston A.B.R.S. would pass through the city, on their way to N. York. Nothing but the short notice prevented the Marine Artillery from turning out to do honor to the occasion. The report proved unfounded, however, and has led to the opinion here that the Post is not the organ of that illustrious body.

The above is from the Providence Journal, the editor of which is a little too quick on the trigger, on this occasion. We said not a word about our deputation passing “through the city” of Providence.—We said our brethren were going to New York in the Richmond, and they did go, as per Post of Thursday. The “Chairman of the Committee on Charity Lecture Bells,” is one of the deputation, and perhaps if he should return to Boston, via Providence, he of the Journal, and his troin-band, would have the “contribution box,” et ceteras, o.k.—all correct—and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.

And there was this on 10 April 1839:

A new tie-up for Bostonians.—Mr Michael Hughes, better known here by his well earned office of “Magnificent Punch Distiller for the A.B.R.S,” has opened a new hotel in New York, 6 Rosevelt [sic] street, near Pearl and Chatham, under the name of the “New England House.” It is hardly necessary to say to those who know Mr Hughes, that his establishment will be found to be “A. No. One”—that is, O.K.—all correct.

And there is this pleonastic use from 18 December 1839, which shows that by this stage Greene was thinking of OK as a single lexical unit, rather than a phrase (like saying ATM machine or PIN number today):

“Confucious [sic] Roundhead’s” communications are all “O.K.,” and will appear in short time. We are always pleased to hear from him.

By the fall of 1839, other Boston newspapers were using OK, and the word had spread to New York. There is this item from the from the Boston Evening Transcript of 11 October 1839 that was reprinted in the New York Commercial Advertiser and the New York Spectator in the days following:

A Good Omen. So little excitement has been created here by the suspension of the U.S. Bank and its dependencies, that our Bank Directors have not thought it worth their while to call a meeting, even for consultation, on the subject. It is O.K. (all correct) in this quarter.

And by early 1840, OK had made its way as far south as Baltimore. From the Sun of 24 February 1840:

On Saturday we received from the “Pratt Street Green House,” a large, fresh looking julep, having all the appearance of one made in July. We have no doubt it is equally as good as it looks, but as we have no tube through which to taste the “beverage,” and not liking to put our nose so close to the ice at this season of the year, we bottled it up and forwarded it to the editor of the New Orleans Sun, who is competent to judge of its merits, and as soon as we hear from him we will advise the landlord of Jim’s opinion. We owed the Sun man a julep, which we lost in a bet about five years ago, and he has been bothering us about it ever since. We hope this will satisfy him, and that he will give us an acknowledgement that it is o.k. (all correct.)

But in the summer and fall of 1840, use of OK exploded. Democratic President Martin Van Buren, who was running for re-election that year had the nickname of Old Kinderhook, as he was from Kinderhook, New York. And the initialism that had started in Boston newspapers collided with the presidential campaign. Van Buren’s party formed the Democratic O.K. Club, and not to be outdone, the competing Whigs also began to use OK, promulgating (and perhaps starting?) the legend that OK was coined by former Democratic President Andrew Jackson because he was illiterate and couldn’t spell all correct properly. As a result, OK achieved national recognition and use. (The Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison, won the election, but died thirty-one days, exactly one month, after his inauguration—the shortest presidency in history—so, really the only winner in the contest was OK.)

OK had crossed the Atlantic by the 1860s. It appears as an entry in Hotten’s 1864 Slang Dictionary, although he might have been referring to American usage. Hotten included some American slang in his dictionary, although he doesn’t label this entry as such:

O.K., a matter to be O.K., (OLL korrect, i.e., all correct,) must be on the “square,” and all things done in order.

But we have a clear instance of a use from Ireland on 28 July 1866 that was reprinted in the journal Notes and Queries:

“VALENTIA, July 27.—The following telegram has been received from Mr. R.A. Glass, Managing Director of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Limited):—‘O.K.,’ (all correct).”—Saunders’s News Letter, July 28th, 1866.

And OK had made it as far as India by 1883. From a piece on how British officials and officers entertained themselves that was printed in the Graphic of 17 March 1883:

But it was extraordinary how people could dance on such heavy, heady stuff, and how they could move at all after the prodigious “sit down” supper of the era. The “sit down” supper, in distinction with the “stand up” supper was once upon a time a grand Indian institution. It was voted O.K. or all correct, whereas the other was pronounced only a one-horse affair. The great object was to have substantial fare for the company, such as mulligatawny soup, spiced rounds of beef, buffalo humps, and things it might be supposed no votary of Terpsichore would care to look at in such a climate. Nevertheless, the solid fare disappeared, with the beer, like winking.

OK not only spread throughout the English-speaking world, it also spread through the parts of speech. Elbridge Gerry Paige, under the pseudonym Dow, Jr., used OK as a noun in a patent sermon he wrote. Paige was a newspaperman who wrote sermons for sale as a side business. This one appears in his Short Patent Sermons of 1841:

[Fortitude] brings refreshing draughts to the lips of the weary wanderer over the burning sands of Africa—infuses new life into his soul, while Hope adds an O.K. to his condition.

And it is recorded as a verb in testimony from 19 April 1881 that was presented to the U.S. Congress in hearings about a contested election:

Q. How many cards were handed to you?—A. Well, I couldn't tell you. I never kept track of them.

Q. Do you know how many hundred?—A. I couldn't say.

Q. You found a great many O.K.?—A. Yes, sir; I found a good many O.K., and O.K’d a great many myself.

Q. That had been testified to as being correct by your brother canvassers when they were on the stand?—A. I don't understand that at all. We went to a house, we found the parties were living there, and O.K.'d the cards.

Q. Although people who came on the stand before you testified in regard to those names that the people had never lived there?—A. I never knew anything about that at all.

Because it is so ubiquitous and the true origin was unknown for so long, OK attracted a large number of folkloric explanations, a few plausible on their face, but none with any real evidence to support them. The closest to having evidence is the aforementioned legend that it was coined by Andrew Jackson. There is a 1790 record from Sumner County Tennessee that reads:

Andrew Jackson, Esq., proved a Bill of Sale from Hugh McGary to Gaspar Mansker, for a negro man, which was O.R.”

The O.R. was often read as O.K. over the years, and it was assumed Jackson couldn’t spell and wrote it to stand for oll korrect. But the initialism stands for order recorded, a standard scribal notation in such records.

Another alleged explanation, this one also connected to Andrew Jackson, is that OK is from the Choctaw oke or okeh, used to conclude expressions where an affirmation or denial is expected, essentially meaning “is it so?” or “right?” This explanation was first suggested by English professor W.S. Wyman in 1885:

General Jackson, as everybody knows, was prone to the use of downright and energetic methods of assertion. Hearing this emphatic oke so frequently uttered by the Choctaw people, he learned the meaning conveyed by it to the Choctaw mind, and appropriated it, out of hand, to his own purposes. From him it passed over to the multitude. This account of the origin of O.K. has been current in the South for many years. If not true, it is to so say the least, ben trovato.

The Choctaw explanation was enormously popular in its day, and it sounds plausible, but the evidence clearly shows that it is not correct.

Other folkloric explanations say that it was:

• coined by John Jacob Astor, an immigrant from Germany and fur mogul. It seems likely that Astor used OK in the years following 1839, but he did not originate it.

• a telegraphic abbreviation for open key

• from a brand of rum from Aux Cayes, Haiti

• from Orrin Kendall, a supplier to the Union army in the U.S. Civil War who allegedly stamped the initials on biscuits

• from various people named O’Kelly or Obediah Kelly

• from the Greek ὂλα καλά (ola kala, all good)

• from the German Ober Kommando, allegedly used by von Steuben during the American Revolution or by other Prussian generals in other periods

• from the French aux quais (to the wharves), used by French sailors in America during American Revolution when scheduling trysts with American women

• from the Finnish oikea (correct).

None of these have a shred of evidence to support them.

The variant A-OK comes out of the U.S. space program. It entered into common parlance and was first recorded immediately following Alan Shepard’s sub-orbital space flight on 5 May 1961. Shepard was widely reported as saying A-OK throughout the fifteen-minute flight, although the official NASA transcript only records him using the ordinary okay. It’s possible the official transcript is not completely accurate. Alternatively, a NASA public affairs officer may have credited Shepard with using the word when speaking to reporters. Or, A-OK may have been said by fellow astronaut Deke Slayton, who was the capsule communicator or capcom for the mission with reporters mistakenly crediting it to Shepard. (Slayton’s half of the communication is not preserved in the official transcript.) In any case, it is abundantly clear that someone, and probably many people, at NASA were saying A-OK in May 1961.

An Associated Press report printed in the Dallas Morning News on 6 May 1961 has this:

Moments later Shepard reported he was at 30,000 feet on the way down.

“First chute was deployed,” he said. “Another ... all systems A-OK.”

These were the parachutes that dropped the capsule gently into the water.

By “A-OK,” Shepard meant that everything was “double OK”—or perfect.

Seconds later the historic flight was over.

Why the astronauts added the < A > to OK is not known. It has been suggested they did so because initial phonemes were sometimes lost in radio communications, but they did not do this with other words, so that explanation seems improbable. More likely, it is a blend of A-1, the long-established word meaning first rate or excellent, and OK.

And eight years later NASA would take OK to another world when the crew of Apollo 11 said it several times just before and after touching down on the Moon on 20 July 1969:

Capcom (CC): 30 seconds

Armstrong:      Forward drift?

Aldrin:             Yes ... Okay ... CONTACT LIGHT ... Okay. ENGINE STOP.

[Eagle touches down]

Aldrin: ACA—out of DETENT.

Armstrong:      Out of DETENT.

Aldrin:             MODE CONTROL—both AUTO. DESCENT ENGINE COMMAND OVERRIDE—OFF. ENGINE ARM—OFF ... 413 is in.

CC:      We copy you down, Eagle.

Armstrong:      THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.

CC:      Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.

Armstrong:      Thank you.

CC:      You’re looking good here.

Armstrong:      Okay. We’re going to be busy for a minute.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Boston Morning Post, 12 June 1838, 2. NewspaperArchive.com.

———, 7 February 1839, 1. NewspaperArchive.com.

———, 23 March 1839, 2. NewspaperArchive.com.

———, 10 April 1839, 2. NewspaperArchive.com.

———, 18 December 1839, 2. NewspaperArchive.com.

Dighton, Ralph. “Shepard Cracks Space for U.S.” Associated Press. Dallas Morning News (Texas), 6 May, 1961, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Dow, Jr. (pseudonym of Elbridge Gerry Paige). “Number XLII: On Fortitude.” Short Patent Sermons. New York: Lawrence Labree, 1841, 106. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Hotten, John Camden. The Slang Dictionary. London: Hotten, 1864, 191. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Indian Hospitality.” Graphic (London), 17 March 1883, 287. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). Apollo 11 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription. July 1969. 316–17.

———. NASA Project Mercury Working Paper No. 192: Postlaunch Report for Mercury-Redstone No. 3 (MR-3). 16 June 1961.

“O.K.” Notes and Queries, 3rd series, 10, 18 August 1866, 128.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2021, s.v. OK, adj., int.1, n.2, and adv.; December 2020, s.v. OK, v.

Read, Allen Walker. “Could Andrew Jackson Spell?” American Speech, 38.3, October 1963, 188–95. JSTOR.

———. “The Evidence on ‘O.K.’” Saturday Review of Literature, 24.13, 19 July 1941, 3–4, 10–11. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

———. “The First Stage in the History of ‘O.K.’” American Speech, 38.1, February 1963, 5–27. JSTOR.

———. “The Folklore of ‘O.K.’” American Speech, 39.1, February 1964, 5–25. JSTOR.

———. “Later Stages in the History of ‘O.K.’” American Speech, 39.2, May 1964, 83–101. JSTOR.

———. “The Second Stage in the History of ‘O.K.’” American Speech, 38.2, May 1963, 83–102. JSTOR.

———. “Successive Revisions in the Explanation of ‘O.K.’” American Speech, 39.4, December 1964, 243–267. JSTOR.

“A Singular Present.” Baltimore Sun, 24 February 1840, 2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Testimony and Papers in the Contested-Election Case of Sessinghaus vs. Frost, from the Third Congressional District of Missouri. U.S. House of Representatives, 47th Congress, 1st Session, Mis. Doc 27, Part 3. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1882, 2705. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Wyman, W.S. Letter (5 July 1885). Magazine of American History, 14, 212–213. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Photo credit: Matthew Brady, c.1856, salted paper print from a glass negative. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain image.

Hampshire / New Hampshire

21 June 2021

Entry for 860 C.E. in the Peterborough Chronicle that mentions Hamtunescire (Hampshire)

The Europeans who settled New Hampshire were not the first inhabitants of the land. Most of the indigenous people who lived in what is now New Hampshire were speakers of Abenaki, an Algonquian language, and they had their own names for land and places therein. Some of these toponyms survive in a modified form in their English names. For instance, the name of the Merrimack River is from the Abenaki molô (deep) + demak (water). Other indigenous names in the state have been erased and replaced by English ones. For instance, the White Mountains, which dominate the state, have the Abenaki name ôgawakwajoak (shady mountains), and Mount Washington, the highest point on the U.S. eastern seaboard, is known as gôdagwajo (hidden mountain).

New Hampshire is, unsurprisingly, named after the English county of Hampshire. That name, which dates to the ninth century, comes from the Old English Hamtunscir, hamm (estate, home) + tun (enclosure, town) + scir (shire, administrative district. The English name appears in the Peterborough Chronicle for the year 860 C.E.:

AN.dccclx.Her Æðelbald cining forðferde, & his lic lið æt Scireburnan, & feng Æðelbriht to eallum þam rice his broðor. & on his dæge com mycel sciphere up & abræcon Wintanceastre, & wið þone here fuhton Osrice aldorman mid Hamtunescire & Æðelwulf ealdorman mid Barrucscire, & þone here geflymdon & wælstowe geweald ahton. & se Æðelbriht rixade .v. gear, & his lic liðæt Scirburnan.

(Year 860. In this year King Æðelbald died & his body lies at Sherborne & and Æðelbriht received all that kingdom of his brother & in his day a great fleet came up and razed Winchester & against that army fought Alderman Osric with [the men of] Hampshire & Alderman Æðelwulf with [the men of] Berkshire, and put that army to flight and held sway over the battlefield & Æðelbriht ruled for five years and his body lies at Sherborne.)

John Mason, the first proprietor of the English colony and later U.S. state, gave it the name New Hampshire, after the English county. On 7 November 1629, Mason was granted a patent for the land that constitutes what is now southern New Hampshire by the joint-stock company the Council for New England:

Now this Indenture witnesseth that the said President and Council, of their free and mutual consent, as well to the end, that all their lands, woods, lakes, rivers, waters, islands and fishings, with all the traffic, profits and commodities whatsoever, to them or any of them belonging, and hereafter in these presents mentioned, may be wholly and entirely invested, appropriated, served and settled in and upon the said Captain John Mason, his heirs and assigns for ever, as for divers special services for the advancement of the said plantation, and other good and sufficient causes and considerations, them especially, thereunto moving, have given, granted, bargained, sold, assigned, aliened, set over, enfeoffed and confirmed, and by those presents do give, grant, bargain, sell, assign, aliene, set over, enfeoff and confirm unto the said Captain John Mason, his heirs and assigns, all that part of the mainland in New-England lying upon the seacoast, beginning from the middle part of Merrimack river, and from thence to proceed northwards along the sea-coast to Pascataqua river [...] and by the said letters patents, the same are amongst other things granted to the said President and Council aforesaid; except two fifths of the ore of gold and silver in these presents hereafter expressed, which said portions of lands, with the appurtenances, the said Capt. John Mason, with the consent of the President and Council, intends to name NEW-HAMPSHIRE.

(The elided portion of this passage contains a lengthy description of the metes and bounds of the territory.)

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Bright, William. Native American Placenames of the United States. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press, 2004, 279, s.v. Merrimac.

Day, Gordon M. Western Abenaki Dictionary, vol. 1 of 2. Mercury Series Canadian Ethnology Service Paper 128. Hull, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1994, 218, 420. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Dictionary of Old English: A to I, 2018, s.v. ham, n.

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

“Grant of New-Hampshire to John Mason, by the Council of Plymouth” (7 November 1629). Provincial and State Papers: Documents and Records Relating to the Province of New-Hampshire, vol. 1 of 10. State Papers Series. Concord, New Hampshire: George E. Jenks, 1867, 22–24.

Irvine, Susan, ed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition 7 MS E, vol. 7 of 7. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004, 71, 115. JSTOR. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 636.

Mills, A. D. A Dictionary of British Place Names, revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. Oxfordreference.com.

Image credit: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 636, fol. 29v. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.