Manitoba

July 14, 2021

14 July 2021

Like many other North American place names derived from Indigenous names, the exact origin of Manitoba and its original meaning are uncertain. The early European explorers, fur trappers, and settler-colonists were generally not very good at recording Indigenous languages. But the name most likely comes from an Algonquian language, either the Ojibwa Manito-Bah or Cree Manito-Wapow, both meaning “strait of the spirit,” a reference to the sound of the water on the shores along the narrows of what is now called Lake Manitoba. A less likely possibility is that it is from the Assiniboine (Western Siouan) Mini-Tobow, meaning “lake of the prairie.”

The name was first applied to Lake Manitoba, and only later to the surrounding territory. The earliest English-language reference to the name I have found is from Alexander MacKenzie’s 1801 A General History of Fur Trade from Canada to the North-West:

The next river of magnitude is the river Dauphin, which empties itself at the head of St. Martin's Bay, on the West side of the Lake Winipic, latitude nearly 52. 15. North, taking its source in the same mountains as the last-mentioned river, as well as the Swan and Red-Deer River, the latter passing through the lake of the same name, as well as the former, and both continuing their course through the Manitoba Lake, which, from thence, runs parallel with Lake Winipic, to within nine miles of the Red River, and by what is called the river Dauphin, disembogues its waters, as already described, into that Lake.

From the English perspective, the territory that makes up present-day Manitoba was administered by the Hudson’s Bay Company starting in the seventeenth-century. The French started trading in the area in the 1730s, and in 1779 the Montreal-based North-West Company was formed, which competed with Hudson’s Bay, sometimes violently. The two companies would merge in 1821, but the following account of events from 1816, published in 1819, describes the origin of one such violent incident between the competing companies. The account is written by Frederick Damien Heurter, an employee of the North-West Company. The use of half-breed is a derogatory reference to the Métis people of the region. (The Métis are one of the three major Indigenous groups in Canada, originating from the intermarriage of European and Indigenous people, but maintaining a distinct culture. The other two groups are the First Nations and the Inuit.) Heurter wrote:

Alexander McDonell, partner of the North-West Company, arrived at Fort Douglas the 3rd of September, when he was received with discharges of artillery, and treated the half-breeds with a ball and plenty to drink, the same evening. Next day news arrived, that Peter Fidler, a trader in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company had arrived, with an assortment of goods at Lake Manitoba, having sent word to the freemen to go and receive some payments due to them; when this was reported to Alexander McDonell, he said “Que Diable qu'est-ce qu'il a à faire là, il faut aller le piller" [What the Devil is he doing here? We have to go and loot him]. The sarne day he told me to hold myself in readiness to go next morning with a party of half-breeds to pillage the said Petet Fidler, to which I made no answer.

The Hudson’s Bay Company ceded its land to Canada in 1869, and the province of Manitoba was formed in 1870. But this original “postage-stamp” province was only one-eighteenth of the province’s current size. The province gradually grew, taking land from the Northwest Territories, until 1912, when it reached its current size.

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Sources:

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

Heurter, Frederick Damien. “Narrative of Frederick Damien Heurter, late Acting Serjeant-Major, and Clerk in the Regiment of De Meuron.” Narratives of John Pritchard, Pierre Chrysologue Pambrun, and Frederick Damien Heurter, Respecting the Aggressions of the North-West Company, Against the Earl of Selkirk’s Settlement Upon Red River. London: John Murray, 1819, 76. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

MacKenzie, Alexander. A General History of Fur Trade from Canada to the North-West. 1801, 80. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

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

Image Credit: Historical Hand-Atlas. Chicago: H.H. Hardesty, 1882, 40–41. Library of Congress.

unmentionables

July 13, 2021

13 June 2021

Euphemisms can pose a problem for etymologists because it’s not always clear to exactly what the euphemism refers. Such is the case with the word unmentionables. That word can refer to various articles of clothing or to various body parts. Unmentionables is most often thought today to be a Victorian euphemism for underwear, but that’s not strictly accurate. While the word was used in the Victorian era and while it could refer to underwear, the euphemism predates Victoria and more often than not, referred to something other than underwear.

The earliest use of the term that I know of appears in the London newspaper The Argus for 11 April 1791. Exactly what article of clothing is unmentionable here is a bit ambiguous. The use of “leather stocking fashion” makes on think it refers to stockings, made of leather, that are gartered above the knee, made famous in the next century in James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. But the headline’s use of “breeches” indicates what is being referred to are knee-breeches or knickerbockers (cf. knickerbockers). Since leatherstockings were typically worn by those working outdoors, the use here may indicate the fashion is considered crude and rustic rather than referring to a specific type of clothing. The objection to knee-breeches here is not because they expose what should be private, but rather because they are considered a horrid new fashion:

Mrs. MONTAGUE and the BREECHES.
In a conversation held the other day at Mrs. MONTAGUE’S, in Portman Square, among a party of blue stocking Ladies, the topic ran on the present leather stocking fashion—and strange as it may appear, in a whole hour’s discussion, the fair debaters never once uttered the name this odious part of a man’s dress; upon which Mrs. MONTAGUE declared they were truly and properly to be called unmentionables, as the prudes of the age had titled them.

While it doesn’t use the word unmentionables, this 1792 song, “The Golden Days We Now Possess,” uses the synonym inexpressibles to refer to underwear, the first use of the concept to refer to those articles of clothing. Again, there is some ambiguity as small clothes in the 1790s could refer to knee-breeches as well as underwear, but the context of this specific poem (i.e., the “promontories” are the buttocks and the discussion is of women’s fashion) tells us what is meant:

Such promontories, sure, may be styl’d inaccessibles,
As our small-cloaths, by prudes, are pronounc’d inexpressibles;
And the taste of our beaus won’t admit of dispute, Sir,
When they ride in their slippers, and walk about in boots, Sir.

But as mentioned, because it’s a euphemism, sometimes it’s difficult to parse exactly what is meant by unmentionables. For example, the following from Wright’s Leeds Intelligencer of 13 November 1815 might be thought to refer to women’s underwear, but it actually refers to women wearing trousers on stage. The key to unlocking the meaning is the Latin phrase, which translates as “what is characteristic for men”:

An eminent schoolmaster being asked why he disliked to see an actress in unmentionables, said, it was contrary to propria quae maribus.

The use of unmentionables, as opposed to the above inexpressibles, to refer to underwear is documented by 1833, still prior to the Victorian era. It appears in the New York paper Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard of 14 September 1833. Ironically, the writer acknowledges the euphemism’s ambiguity by mentioning what is unmentionable:

P.S. A few pair of red flannel unmentionables are wanted. [signed] red flannel drawers

And as late as the 1880s unmentionables could still be used unironically to refer to trousers, as this advertisement in the 5 December 1883 St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat indicates. Although, while not exactly ironic, the discussion of vocabulary does display a dislike for the term, preferring plain speech:

“Nothing in a name.”
So Shakspeare [sic] says, but we can’t altogether agree with the eminent bard. We don’t think a rose would smell half as sweet if it should be reclassified among the flowers as a “cabbage.” The plebeian title would detract from its beauty and we wouldn’t be satisfied with the change. Among our customers some gents insist that pantaloons are “INEXPRESSIBLES,” some say “UNMENTIONABLES,” some “TROUSERS,” others “PANTS.” But the fact remains unaltered that they are PANTALOONS, and the FAMOUS is now displaying the largest stock in all-wool fabrics from $3 50 up to $7 ever seen in this city of mud and dust. If you need a pair come to
FIFTH AND MORGAN
Largest Clothing, Shoe, Hat, Furnishing Goods and Cloak Dealers in the West.

But unmentionables referred not just to clothing. It could also refer to body parts. But again, which anatomical part varied with the context. Here is an early use of the sense from the 1 August 1824 issue of Bell’s Life in London in an article discussing a carriage accident. Exactly where the good gentleman was injured is left purposefully vague:

We forgot to mention a very awkward compound fracture in Sir Edmund Nagle’s unmentionables—a fracture which was the more distressing to the gallant Admiral, inasmuch as it made it impossible for him to render any material assistance to the Ladies. However, he was on horseback next day as well as if nothing had happened.

But this description of a boxing match in the London Morning Chronicle of 6 July 1825 makes it clear through context that unmentionables refers to the buttocks:

Round 1. Stockman, on coming to the scratch, could not fail to see that Sam stood well over him; but still he seemed determined on mischief, and measuring his length, he opened his battery with a left-handed hit. Sam was awake, stopped the blow, and returned in earnest. The men fought to a rally, when Sam, after the manner of Dick Curtis, drew back, and as Stockman followed, he jobbed [sic] him with his left on the nose repeatedly. At length Stockman fell on his unmentionables [cheers for Sam].

And it seems that referring to any part of the body, even one as innocent as the foot, could be labeled as unmentionable. Here is one from the Boston Spectator and Ladies’ Album of 23 December 1826 that uses the word to refer to a corn other sore spot on the foot:

In the banquet scene, when Macbeth shrunk from the appalling Banquo, it had such a sympathetic effect upon a gentleman who sat by my aunt, that he unluckily brought the heel of his boot in contact with an unmentionable on her toe, which set her just in sorts for harmonizing the rest of the evening.

And, of course, unmentionables could refer to the genitals. Here is one such use from the gossip column “Peeping Tom of Coventry,” which appeared in the underground London newspaper the Crim-Con Gazette of 18 May 1839. Crim-Con is short for criminal conversation, a legal euphemism for adultery, and the “peeping Tom” refers not to any voyeuristic activities of the people discussed in the column, but rather to the columnist themself, the conceit of the column being that they have spotted the illicit activity being described:

I SAW Enock Radman, the Omnibus Conductor, showing his unmentionables to little girls in Dulwich. Thinks I to myself, thinks I, You [sic] are a pretty fellow for a Conductor, and can’t conduct yourself in a better manner than that. You ought to be flogged at the cart’s tail.

So, unmentionables, while it certainly was used to refer to underwear, was widely used to refer to anything that was too distasteful, but not necessarily obscene, to be mentioned by name in polite society. And its use predated the Victorian era by nearly half a century. We often blame the Victorian era for prudery, and not without some justification, but prudery did not originate with Victoria, and it’s unfair to give a blanket assignment of all such attitudes to that era alone.

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Sources:

“Fifth and Morgan” (advertisement). St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat (Missouri), 5 December 1883, 12. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.

“A Grand Field-Day for the Fancy.” Morning Chronicle (London), 6 July 1825, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. unmentionables, n.

“Life in Windsor Park.” Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, 1 August 1824, 5. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.

“The Luddites.” Wright’s Leeds Intelligencer, 13 November 1815, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

“Miseries of a Bachelor.” The Boston Spectator and Ladies’ Album (Massachusetts), 23 December 1826, 405. Gale Primary Sources: American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society.

“Mrs. Montague and the Breeches.” The Argus, 11 April 1791, 3. Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2019, s.v. unmentionable, adj. and n.

“Peeping Tom of Coventry.” The Crim-Con Gazette, 39.2, 18 May 1839, 1. London Low Life: Street Culture, Social Reform, and the Victorian Underworld. Londonlowlife.amdigital.co.uk.

Sime, David, ed. “Song XC. The Golden Days We Now Possess.” The Edinburgh Musical Miscellany. Edinburgh: W. Gordon, et al. 1792, 210. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)

Image credit: Ralph Earl, 1789. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain image.

rabbit

July 12, 2021

12 July 2021

Usually, the names for common things have well-established etymologies, but surprisingly, the origin of the word rabbit is not known for certain. We have a reasonably good guess as to where rabbit comes from, but gaps in the extant corpora of medieval manuscripts prevent us from being certain.

Rabbit appears in English in the late fourteenth-century, probably a borrowing of the unattested French word *rabotte. The word rabotte appears in present-day regional French and as robete in Walloon (the dialect of French spoken in Belgium), but we don’t have any early record of the French word. So, it appears that rabbit is yet another of the words that the Normans brought across the Channel, but that can’t be proven. (Cf. coney)

The French word, in turn, may come from an unattested Middle Dutch word *robbe. Again, robbe appears in Early Modern Dutch, but there is no earlier record of it. Robbe also means seal (the marine mammal) in Middle Dutch, although how that’s related, if at all, is not clear.

Rabbit is also probably related to the Frisian verb rubben, meaning to rub or scratch, and hence to the English verb to rub. So, a rabbit is a creature that scratches in the dirt.

The earliest recorded use of rabbit in English that I know of is from John Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomæus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum (On the Properties of Things), written in the closing years of the fourteenth century:

Plinius spekeþ of hares and seiþ pat many kyndes ben of hares. For some ben more in quantite wiþ more gret here and rowȝ and more swifte of cours and of rennyng pan þilke þat ben ycalled cunuculi. And so heere þis name lepus is þe name of hares and of conynges. For conynges ben ycleped parui lepores “smale hares” and feble and diggen þe erþe wiþ here clawes; and maken hem dowers and dennes vnder erþe and wonen perinne; and bringen forþ many rabettes and multiplien ful swipe. And in some woodes of Spayne ben so many conynges pat somtyme þey wasten and destroyen corn in þe felde þat þey bryngen hungre into pe contray and londe. Here rabettes ben so yloued in þe ylondes Balearitis þat þese rabettes wipoute modres ben ytake and y‑ete of men of þe contrey þough þe guttes ben vnneþe clensed.
(Pliny speaks of hares and says that there are many kinds of hares. For some are more numerous with longer and shaggier hair and are swifter of course and of running than those that are called cunuculi. And therefore the name lepus is the name of hares and of coneys. For coneys are called parvi lepores “small hares” and [are] weak and dig the earth with their claws; and make themselves burrows and dens under the earth and dwell within and bring forth many rabbits and multiply very quickly. And in some woods of Spain there are so many coneys that sometimes they lay waste to and destroy corn in the field so that bring hunger into the country and land. Here rabbits are so prized in the Balearic Islands that these rabbits without mothers are taken and eaten by men of the country though the guts are not easily cleaned.)

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Sources:

American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020, s.v. rabbit, n.

Liberman, Anatoly. Word Origins...and How We Know Them. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005, 115, 153, 183.

Merriam-Webster, 2021, s.v. rabbit, noun.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. rabet, n.(1).

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2021, s.v. rabbit, n.1., rub, v.1.

Trevisa, John. On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s Translation of Bartholomæus Anglicus De proprietatibus rerum, vol. 2 of 3. M.C. Seymour, et al., eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975, Book 18, 1221. London, British Library, Additional 27944, fol. 291v.

Photo credit: Anonymous, 2004. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

Wyoming

July 9, 2021

9 July 2021

Detail of a German map, c.1748, that depicts a native village of Wiöming on the banks of the Susquehanna River in eastern Pennsylvania — Detail of a German map, c.1748, that depicts a native village of *Wiöming* on the banks of the Susquehanna River in eastern Pennsylvania

Wyoming is known as the “Cowboy State,” and its automobile license plates depict a rodeo rider atop a bucking bronco. And for many, Wyoming is the quintessential western state. Its name, however, is anything but. The name Wyoming is a transplant from the east, an Indigenous place name that has nothing to do with the state that bears the name.

Wyoming is an anglicized version of the Munsee (Delaware) chwewamink, pronounced / xwé:wamənk /, and meaning “at the big river flat,” / xw / (big) + e:wam (river flat) + ənk (place). And the original Wyoming is a valley along the Susquehanna River in what is now Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

The earliest reference to Wyoming in a European language that I have found is on a German map from c.1748. The map depicts a native village, labeled Wiöming, along the banks of the Susquehanna, where the current town of Wyoming, Pennsylvania is located.

The name appears in English in the records of an April 1756 diplomatic conference between the British and Indigenous nations meeting to find a way to prevent Delaware raids on land claimed by settler-colonists. The conference decided to send three representatives to Wyoming to carry a message to the Delaware people:

But we assure you what you propose to us is what we like best, and we will assist you in it, and shall send these three Indians [pointing to Newcastle, Jaggrea, and William Lacquees] to Wyoming, with the Message to let our Cousins know, there are a People risen in Philadelphia, wo desire to have Peace restored; and that they must cease from doing any more Mischief, and not be afraid to be willing to treat with you.

Then later on:

Then, with mutual, friendly Salutations, by the good old Custom of shaking Hands, the Conference ended.
Scarroyada, and most of the Indians set out on the 25th fourth Mo. for New York, and thence to Onondago, and the three Ambassadors, under the Conduct of A. and I. Spangenberg, and others, by way of Bethohem [sic] to Wyoming.

Wyoming was also the site of a July 1778 battle between Patriot militia on one side and Loyalist militia and Indigenous (primarily Seneca) forces on the other. Some 300 Patriot militiamen died in the battle with little loss to the Tory and Indigenous forces. Following the fighting, the American militia who had surrendered were executed, and there were reports that they had been tortured to death. Although the Tory and Indigenous forces spared non-combatants during the campaign, killing only those who had been carrying arms.

The battle was memorialized in an 1809 poem by Thomas Campbell, Gertrude of Wyoming, which became quite popular. The opening lines of the poem read:

On Susquehana's side, fair Wyoming,
Although the wild-flower on thy ruin'd wall
And roofless homes a sad remembrance bring
Of what thy gentle people did befall,
Yet thou wert once the loveliest land of all
That see the Atlantic wave their morn restore.
Sweet land! may I thy lost delights recall,
And paint thy Gertrude in her bowers of yore,
Whose beauty was the love of Pensylvania's [sic] shore!

As a result of the fame (or infamy) of the battle, the name was proposed for a new territory that was created in 1865. The Daily National Republican of 5 January 1865 reported:

Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, Chairman of the Committee on Territories, to-day introduced in the House a bill for the erection of the Territory of Wyoming, chiefly to be carved out of Utah and Washington Territories.

The Wyoming Territory was officially organized in 1868. It became the forty-fourth state in 1890. So, the state is named for a minor, albeit bloody, skirmish during the American Revolution which took place on the site of what had been a Munsee village in what is now Pennsylvania.

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Sources:

“Another New Territory.” Daily National Republican (Washington, DC), 5 January 1865, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

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

Campbell, Thomas. Gertrude of Wyoming; a Pensylvanian Tale. And Other Poems. London: T. Bensley, 1809, 5. HathiTrust Digital Library.

Grumet, Robert S. Manhattan to Minisink: American Indian Place Names in Greater New York and Vicinity. Norman: U of Oklahoma Press, 2013. 188.

Several Conferences Between Some of the Principal People Amongst the Quakers in Pennsylvania and the Deputies from the Six Indian Nations in Alliance with Britain. Newcastle: I Thompson, 1756, 25, 28. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Image credit: Tobias Conrad Lotter. Pensylvania, Nova Jersey et Nova York cum Regionibus ad Fluvium Delaware in America Sitis (map), c.1748. Library of Congress. Public domain image.

over a barrel

July 8, 2021

8 July 2021

To be over a barrel is to be in someone’s power or otherwise in some dire predicament. The phrase is an Americanism that dates to at least 6 June 1890 when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on the conviction of a man for forgery:

A Post-Intelligencer reporeer [sic] called upon McCoombs in the county jail after he had heard the verdict. He appeared in his usual good spirits, and the conviction of forgery seemed to rest lightly upon his mind. He was not disposed to talk about the case. All he would say was: “They tried pretty hard to get me over a barrel up in court today, and I guess they half succeeded, but we will fool ’em yet.”

Another early use from Washington state is from 24 February 1893, when it appears in a Tacoma, Washington news story about a certain “Jumbo” Cantwell attempting to swear out an arrest warrant for a police detective named Flanigan:

Flanigan is alleged to have then told “Jumbo” that he had him “over a barrel and would do him up,” to which “Jumbo” says he replied: “No you won’t.” Then, according to Cantwell, Flanigan grabbed him by the throat, when “Jumbo” struck him in the neck and knocked him down and into a little room off the hallway. Ben Everett then interfered and pulled “Jumbo” off Flanigan.
The detective tells a different story, to the effect that he had told “Jumbo” that he hadn’t talked about him, when the latter called him a liar and assaulted him.

And there is this from 19 February 1900 in a news story about a certain Dr. Tracey (or Treacey, different papers spell the name differently) attempting to bribe a Montana supreme court justice to induce him to dismiss a case. This account was widely syndicated in newspapers across the United States:

Dr. Tracey said he had never had authority from any one to make a proposition of bribery to Mr. Hunt, but he had not told the judge of this circumstance until he was notified that Judge Hunt was to be summoned to Washington. He had then told the judge that he had no $50,000 or $100,000 to offer him and no authority from any one to make such an offer.
Referring to his interviews with Attorney General Nolan, the witness said that when he spoke to that gentleman about the Wellcome case, the latter replied:
“I’ve got them over a barrel.”
“I told him,” said the witness, “that he’d better get $100,000 out of the business, destroy his stenographic notes and get out of the business. He seemed to feel pretty good over it,” continued the witness[, “]and I took it that he thought it was a good idea. It was all pure ‘josh,’ and he knew it was.”

The metaphor underlying over a barrel is not known for certain, but it most likely is an allusion to strapping or holding a person over a barrel in order to flog them. We can see just such a literal use of the phrase in an 1869 bit of doggerel by journalist Marcus M. “Brick” Pomeroy about schoolteachers disciplining children. This is by no means the first such literal use, just an example:

I’d like to be a school-marm,
And with the school-marms stand,
With a bad boy over a barrel
And a spanker in my hand.

It is commonly asserted that over a barrel is nautical in origin and refers to sailors being flogged for various breaches of discipline. But there is no association with the phrase and the navy in the literature, and the practice of the Royal and U.S. Navies was to use a grating, not a barrel, for such punishment.

The Oxford English Dictionary, in an older, unrevised entry, says the metaphor is “apparently in allusion to the state of a person placed over a barrel to clear his lungs of water after being rescued from drowning.” While one can indeed find literal uses of over a barrel in reference to post-drowning resuscitation, this explanation doesn’t accord with the sense of being in someone’s power. The idea of flogging or discipline is more likely the origin.

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Sources:

“Dr. Tracey Declares It Was All ‘a Josh.’” Atlanta Journal, 19 February 1900, 5. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“‘Jumbo’ and Flanigan.” Tacoma Daily News (Washington), 24 February 1893, 7. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“M’Coombs Convicted.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Washington), 6 June 1890, 14. Library of Congress: Historical American Newspapers.

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

Pomeroy, Marcus M. “Brick.” Nonsense, or the Hits and Criticisms on the Follies of the Day.” New York: G.W. Carleton, 1869. 225. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Tréguer, Pascal. “‘Over a Barrel’” Meaning, Early Instances and Probable Origin.” Wordhistories.net, 5 May 2021.

Image credit: M.L. Bracker, 1912. From Julian Leavitt. “The Man in the Cage.” The American Magazine, 73.5, March 1912, 537 . Google Books. Public domain image.