upset

August 9, 2021

9 August 2021

In sports, an upset is a race or match in which the favorite is defeated by an underdog, and the verb to upset is often used when an underdog defeats the favorite. The verb dates to at least 1857, when it appears in the context of horseracing in the turf and sports journal Spirit of the Times on 5 September 1857:

At the York August meeting, there were only four runners for the Chesterfield Handicap of 208 sovs., one mile, and the favorite, Ellermire, 5 yrs., 7st. 121b., was upset by the Dipthong colt, 3 yrs. 6st. 2lb.

The noun dates to a couple of decades later, when it appears in the pages of the New York Herald on 29 May 1877, again in the context of horseracing:

Again, on the only occasion he has had to show his quality this year he wins with so much in hand that his jockey could trust him within a length of his nearest follower, Brown Prince. A quarter of a mile from home every horse was under the whip except Chamant, and he was being held in; so it will indeed be a marvellous [sic] upset if any of the Two Thousand runners finish in front of him at Epsom.

And a few months later, this appeared in the New York Times on 17 July 1877:

The programme for to-day at Monmouth Park indicates a victory for the favorite in each of the four events, but racing is so uncertain that there may be a startling upset.

From this horseracing use, upset spread to other sports.

There’s a false etymology for this use of upset that involves the defeat of a racehorse that many consider to be the greatest of all time: Man o’ War. During his career, Man o’ War lost only one race, the 13 August 1919 Sanford Memorial Stakes at Saratoga, New York. Man o’ War was heavily favored to win but lost to a horse named Upset. This, so the legend goes, is where the sports term upset comes from. Man o’ War would face Upset in five other races, winning every one, but this one loss early in his career, according to the tale, would be the one to make lexicographic history.

The basic facts about the race are true; Upset did defeat Man o’ War, but as we have seen from the earlier uses of the word, this is not the origin of the sporting term upset. For years, while many suspected the story to be too good to be true, it was accepted as fact. But those suspicions were borne out in 2002 when researcher George Thompson discovered the above New York Times citation. The horse’s name is what we call an aptronym, a coincidentally apt moniker—to give another example of an aptronym, when I was an undergraduate, the head of the Religion department at my school was Professor Pope. Upset beating Man o’ War is a neat coincidence, but not the origin of upset’s use in sports writing.

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Sources:

“The Derby Day. Chamant Said to Have Gone Amiss.” New York Herald, 29 May 1877, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“The Long Branch Races.” New York Times, 17 July 1877, 8. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“Our Horses in England.” Spirit of the Times, 5 September 1857, 355. ProQuest Magazines.

Thompson, George. “‘Upset’ in Horseracing.” ADS-L, 13 November 2002.

Zimmer, Ben. “Debunking the Legend of ‘Upset.’” Word Routes (blog), 12 July 2013.

Zimmer, Ben. “‘Upset’ and Its Old Hoof-Prints.” Wall Street Journal, 5 July 2013, C4. ProQuest Newspapers.

Zimmer, Ben. “‘Upset’ Redux.” ADS-L, 6 July 2013.

Photo Credit: Charles Christian Cook, 1919. Public Domain Image.

up to snuff

August 6, 2021

An 1827 engraving, titled The Contrast, depicting two women, one young and one old, snorting snuff — An 1827 engraving, titled *The Contrast*, depicting two women, one young and one old, snorting snuff

6 August 2021

[9 August 2021: added third current definition of being in good health]

The phrase up to snuff has three meanings. It can mean that something meets the expected or required standard, being in good health, or it can refer to someone who is knowing, not easily deceived. The phrase dates to the turn of the nineteenth century. The snuff is a reference to tobacco, taken by snorting through the nose. Snuff, here, is a metaphor for either having a good nose, i.e., not easily deceived, or mature enough to use tobacco, i.e., meeting the expected standard. (In Present-Day American dialect, dipping tobacco—ground tobacco placed between one’s cheek and gum—is often called snuff, but that’s not what the metaphor underlying the phrase refers to.)

Its first appearance in print that we know of is in the London Morning Post of 29 October 1807 in the sense of not easily deceived, but which also makes a play on words because it involves literal snuff. Unfortunately, the digital scan of the paper that is available is barely legible. The portions in square brackets are my interpretations of difficult-to-read or missing letters that can be guessed at from context; the ellipses represent completely illegible text. What can be made out from the legible portions is that a man offers a woman some false snuff; she refuses; and he comments that she is up to snuff, i.e., is not easily deceived:

[So]m[e] tim[e] since a Gentleman having a false snuff [...] in which there was a Friar, asked a youn[g lad]y if she would have a pinch of snuff, and on [?]he […]ing in the negative, he facetiously observed [I s]uppose you are up to snuff.

The sense of meeting the expected standard is in place a few years later, when it appears in what is essentially a gossip column, again in the Morning Post, this time on 28 December 1809:

By the late establishment of Mr. Foot, it must appear pretty evident that he is up to snuff.

And yet another appearance in the Morning Post several months later, on 10 August 1810, uses the phrase in jest. The article is about a political meeting that is written in the style of a theater review, in particular a review of an alleged farcical play titled The Reformers, and the article makes mention of Francis Burdett, a reformist politician of the era. In the relevant passage, a tobacco vender is speaking, praising certain politicians, and the crowd shouts, “he’s up to snuff,” a double entendre simultaneously expressing support and warning that he is trying to make a profit by selling tobacco:

This scene being closed, the Tabacco-vending President (a character very whimsically sustained by W-sh-rt), in a tone and manner most extrava-ly ridiculous that can be conceived, expressed his happiness, which he declared to be inexpressible, at meeting so respectable a company on so glorious an occasion. There were many instances, he observed, both in sacred and prophane history, of persons who offered themselves as advocates for people being assailed and ill-treated by the friends of corruption. Than these nothing could be more common. The case of Sir F. Burdett, therefore, though perfectly unprecedented, was not entirely new—(Applause.) It was well known (by those who had had the story read to them as he had), that the craft of the men of Ephesus, by craft, he begged to be understood not to mean the gentle craft. Nothing was farther from his intention than to make any reflection on his friends the Long Cobler, and Mr. Gooseberry-eye, from Fetter-lane, or on the shoemaking fraternity in general. He meant merely to say that the cunning of the men of Ephesus was, when they found themselves in danger to shout aloud “Great is Diana, the Goddess of the Ephesians!” [Partial applause, mingled with cries of “He’s up to snuff!—What the devil has that to do with the Meeting?” &c.] Silence being obtained, the Snuffman proceeded to apply this piece of information, by saying, that in like manner at the present day, when the friends of corruption were assailed, they shouted against the worthy Baronet (Sir F. B-rd-tt), to uphold their system.

Also in 1810, the phrase appears in John Poole’s play Hamlet Travestie, a parody of the Shakespeare play. Act 2, Scene 1, Guildenstern remarks that Hamlet is up to snuff, that is will not be deceived by their ploy. But in the print edition of the play, Poole includes commentary, allegedly written by noted and deceased literary critics, such as Samuel Johnson and William Warburton. The relevant lines:

Rosen.
He does confess himself non compos mentis, But won't tell what the cause or the intent is.
Guilden.
He'll not be sounded; he knows well enough
The game we're after: Zooks, he's up to snuff (a).

Poole includes a note to “explain” the phrase:

(a) he's up to snuff.
This is highly figurative. To snuff up is to scent. Guildenstern says,
“————he knows well enough
The game we're after: Zooks, he's up to snuff.”
that is, he has got scent of the game we are in pursuit of. The metaphor, which is striking and apposite, is borrowed from the Chase.
WARBURTON.
Without having recourse to a far-fetched explanation, I choose to understand the passage in it's [sic] common acceptation: The game we're after means. nothing more than the trick by which we are endeavouring to worm from him his secret; but which, as he is up to snuff, i.e, as he is a knowing one, he will, assuredly, render inefficacious.
JOHNSON.

The explanation given in the commentary is specious, but it is clear that Poole did not expect his readers to know the slang, indicating that the phrase had been recently minted.

Another early use appears in an April 1811 letter printed in the Reflector about a very competent lawyer:

Mr. Garrow never fails to talk to his witnesses in their own way, to meet them upon their own ground, to give them slang for slang. This at once frightens those who come prepared with a false story; the truth drops out involuntarily; and the witness goes away with the conviction how impossible it is to deceive that Garrow, for he's up to snuff.

And it appears in James Kenney’s 1812 play Turn Out! in a conversation between two characters, Gregory and Forage:

Greg. But you'll excuse me; I'm a going into Doctor Truckle's room to look for a pen, and ink, and paper, to write to her. She'll think it unhandsome if I don't let her know I'm safely arrived in good health, you know, and so forth.
For. Certainly—and all this gentility and attention to Polly Smallfry will get you into high favour with your old master, I've no doubt.
Greg, Why if he's up to snuff, I shouldn't at all wonder.

By this point, the phrase had become well established. So, that’s it. The snuff in the phrase refers to snortable tobacco, and the phrase dates to the early nineteenth century when snorting snuff was very much in fashion.

Discuss this post

Sources:

“Art. XI.—The Law Student. Letter II.” (April 1811). The Reflector, vol. 1. London: John Hunt, 1811, 377. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Fashionable Arrivals.” Morning Post (London), 29 October 1807, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

“The Katterfelto Dinner.” Morning Post (London), 10 August 1810, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

Kenney, James. Turn Out! A Musical Farce in Two Acts. London: Whittingham and Rowland for Sharpe and Hailes, 1812, 6. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. snuff, n.3.

Poole, John. Hamlet Travestie: In Three Acts. With Annotations by Dr. Johnson and Geo. Steevens, Esq. and Other Commentators. London: J.M. Richardson, 1810, 21, 79–80. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Theatres.” Morning Post (London), 28 December 1809, 3. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.

“This History of ‘Up to Snuff’ is Up to Snuff.” Merriam-Webster. Accessed 15 July 2021.

Image credit: 1827, stipple engraving with watercolor in the style of Louis Boilly. Wellcome Library. Public domain image.

United Nations

August 5, 2021

5 August 2021

The name of the international organization arose out of World War II, although there were precursor uses of the phrase united nations to refer to various real and proposed collective security arrangements before that. And there are many earlier simple co-locations of the two words referring to various informal groupings of countries.

Earlier precursor uses probably exist, but I stopped my searching when I found this use of united nations in the San Francisco Chronicle of 19 September 1935. It’s not clear if the writer is using the phrase to refer to the then-existing League of Nations or to another, proposed organization:

The policeman’s club is a weapon of peace, to quell the breakers of the peace. So, if their will to peace is “ferocious” enough, will the club of the united nations against the maker of separate national war.

But a month later we get this in an article in the Springfield Republican with a dateline of 26 October 1935 that uses united nations as a clear reference to the League of Nations:

The United States definitely refused today to join the League of Nation’s economic sanctions boycott on Italy, but expressed sympathy for any decision or action the 60 united nations of the world may take peacefully to settle the Italo-Ethiopian conflict.

A 5 February 1936 letter to the Richmond Times-Dispatch uses the capitalized United Nations to refer to the League of Nations, indicating that the term had become semi-official:

If Al Smith can bring this nation back to the Constitution with hoop skirts, bustles, birds of paradise, nature’s fertility of the soil, horse-and-buggy stability, demijohns, and laugh off our obligations like the foreign nations have done by us, he will have accomplished the seven wonders of the world, and should be sent to Geneva as co-ordinator of the United Nations.

And in 1935 John Francis Goldsmith penned a speculative fiction novel, President Randolph, As I Knew Him, about a world government called the United Nations. In the novel, set in 1957, the newly inaugurated U.S. President Randolph says:

What I plan, gentlemen, and what I shall propose next month, will be a federal, international government, called the United Nations of the World, with a World parliament, President, and Supreme Court, and with a Constitution, simple and classic like our own, that will preserve inviolate the rights of every nation and citizen of that union.

But back to the real world, with the world plunged into its second world war in as many decades the need for a collective security arrangement superior to that of the League of Nations was recognized. On 14 August 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter, which stated, among other things:

Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential.

Although it does not use the term, with this, preliminary work on the formation of what would become the present-day United Nations was begun.

After the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the Allied nations began using the formal appellation of United Nations. The name was suggested by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote of his 31 December 1941 meeting with Roosevelt and the coining of the name:

On my return to the White House all was ready for the signature of the United Nations Pact [....] The title of “United Nations” was substituted by the President for that of “Associated Powers.” I thought this a great improvement. I showed my friend the lines from Byron's Childe Harold:
Here, where the sword United Nations drew,
Our countrymen were warring on that day!
And this is much — and all — which will not pass away.

And on 3 January 1942, Churchill cabled his War Cabinet back in London:

President has chosen the title “United Nations” for all the Powers now working together. This is much better than “Alliance,” which places him in constitutional difficulties, or “Associated Powers,” which is flat.

From August to October 1944, the Big Four powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of China) convened the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization, better known as the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, after the Dumbarton Oaks mansion in Washington, DC where it was held. The Big Four, joined by delegates from other Allied nations, hammered out the purpose and structure of the United Nations. The conference’s proposals were finalized on 7 October 1944, and the preamble to the proposals officially named the new organization:

There should be established an international organization under the title of The United Nations, the Charter of which should contain provisions necessary to give effect to the proposals which follow.

From April to June 1945, the United Nations Conference was held in San Francisco, and the United Nations officially came into existence.

To sum up, in the 1930s the phrase united nations began to be used to refer to the League of Nations or to similar proposed or fictional organizations. After the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the Allies took to calling themselves the United Nations, and that name for the victors in that war transferred over to the international organization that we know today.

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Sources:

Churchill, Winston. The Grand Alliance. The Second World War, vol. 3 of 6. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950, 682–83, 685. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Goldsmith, John Francis. President Randolph as I Knew Him. Philadelphia: Dorrance, 1935, 184.

Jeffery, W.H. “Another Critic of Smith” (letter). Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia), 5 February 1936, 8. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2015, modified September 2019, s.v. United Nations, n.

Roosevelt, Franklin and Winston Churchill. The Atlantic Charter, 14 August 1941.

Rowell, Chester H. “Peace Worth Fighting For.” San Francisco Chronicle, 19 September 1935, 14. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Separate Move for Peace Given as American Way” (26 October 1935). Springfield Republican (Illinois), 27 October 1935, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“The United Nations. Dumbarton Oaks Proposals for a General International Organization.” 7 October 1944. U.S. Department of State Publication 2297, Conference Series 66, Washington, DC, 1945.

“A Wellsian Fantasy.” New York Times Book Review, 22 December 1935, 7. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: Basil D. Soufi, 2011. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

under the weather

August 4, 2021

4 August 2021

To be under the weather is to be ill or otherwise indisposed. The phrase originated as an Americanism, but it has its roots in an older, British nautical term. To be under the sea or under the weather is to ride out a storm in some protected anchorage. The later American sense is a metaphor for resting quietly until conditions improve.

Under the sea appears by the early seventeenth century. It can be found in a nautical handbook written by John Smith, of Virginia settler-colonist fame. His An Accidence or The Path-Way to Experience Necessary for All Young Sea-Men was published in 1627 and has this:

a storme, hull, lash sure the helme a ley, lye to try our drift, how capes the ship, cun the ship, spoune before the winde, she lusts, she lyes vnder the Sea, trie her with a crose-jacke, bowse it vp with the out looker, she will founder in the Sea

That passage makes little sense to a landlubber (and perhaps even to a sailor). But the following year, in his Sea Grammar, Smith makes it more clear:

When that will not serue then Try the mizen, if that split, or the storme grow so great she cannot beare it; then hull, which is to beare no saile, but to strike a hull is when they would lie obscurely in the Sea, or stay for some consort, lash sure the helme a lee, and so a good ship will lie at ease vnder the Sea as wee terme it.

The phrase under the weather appears by 1786 in an article about a shipwreck in the English Channel that appeared in the New York Daily Advertiser of 17 April 1786:

Had they been fortunate enough to drove clear of that Head Land, they would have got into Swanage or Strickland Bay, where they might have had safe anchorage under the weather.

Metaphorical use of under the weather appears by 1803, but not in the sense of illness as we use it today; rather it is in the sense of being out of touch, not being the middle of the storm. It appears in the context of a rhetorical war between two rival Philadelphia newspapers, the Daily Gazette and the Aurora. Philadelphia was suffering through a yellow fever outbreak, and the editor of the Aurora accused the editor of the Daily Gazette of promulgating false medical information. The Daily Gazette fired back in defense, using a few nautical terms. And in return the Aurora’s editor penned this reply on 17 June 1803, filled to the brim with nautical phrases, including under the weather:

In the Philadelphia Gazette of last evening, the Board of Health have found a champion who enters into their quarrel with great spirit [...] And as to this salt water Quixotte, if instead of playing off his Billingsgate artillery, he had slack’d sail a bit, and taken a correct observation before he run out all his canvas, he might have discovered that he was going out of his course—That in running foul of the Aurora’s hawser, he must bring himself up, in such a lubber-like fashion, as to expose him to a raking fore and aft. But as he may have been half sea over, when he made sail, or mayhap been under the weather for some time, he may without any great sin for a sailor, be excused for being so kind hearted as to suppose that his sea lingo was the least return he ought to make for his release from quarantine.

The sense of being ill is in place by 1815. This passage from an article in Kentucky’s Western Monitor of 31 March of that year uses it in reference to the economy of New England, which had stagnated under the British blockade during the War of 1812, but which was recovering now the war was over:

The whole machinery of commerce is ere this in that country repaired, and in no long time the rust it had contracted will be worn off, and its usefulness and beauty be totally restored. On such a restoration the liberal spirit of Kentucky would dwell with pleasure even if she herself were not to be benefitted. To this pleasure may be added the satisfaction such as a brother feels when by a sudden turn of things, a brother, who had been under the weather, rises into usefulness and independence, able to stand of himself, and to impart as well as receive assistance.

It's often the case that claimed nautical origins for English words and idioms turn out to be false, but this is one case where those who claim a nautical origin are correct.

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Sources:

“Communicated.” Western Monitor (Lexington, Kentucky), 31 March 1815, 3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“London, Jan. 10.” The Daily Advertiser (New York), 27 April 1786, 3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Lubbers Ahoi!” Aurora (Philadelphia), 17 June 1803, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. weather, n, under, prep.

Smith, John. An Accidence or The Path-Way to Experience Necessary for All Young Sea-Men. London: Jonas Man and Benjamin Fisher, 1627, 28–29. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

———. A Sea Grammar. London: John Haviland, 1627, 40. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Image credit: Nicolas Cammillieri, early nineteenth century. Public domain image.

white / that's white of you

August 3, 2021

3 August 2021

The color white has long been associated with purity and goodness, and in the latter half of the nineteenth century a slang use of white began to be used to mean honest and gentlemanly. To be treated white was to be treated well and fairly. And by 1900, the phrase that’s white of you was in place to acknowledge such treatment. But along the way, these senses, especially the slang ones, acquired a racial connotation. Fair, honest, and gentlemanly treatment was white, as opposed the assumed behavior of people of color.

The use of white as a metaphor for purity and sinlessness in English dates to the Old English period. For example, there is this from one of Ælfric’s homilies, written in the closing years of the tenth century:

þæt gedafenað toforan eallum oþrum þingum þæt ælces mannes heorte beo wið ealle leahtras hwit & clæne, swaswa ge gewilnigeað þæt ge to ciercean becumen mid hwitum reafum & mid clænum
(That it is fitting above all other things that the heart of each man be white and clean of all sins, so that it both strives for it and comes to the church with white and clean garments.)

Of course, such early uses had no racial connotation. That would come later, but exactly when is debatable. But by the later Middle Ages, skin color began to be used as a metaphor for purity and goodness. For example, the romance The King of Tars (c.1330) has a Muslim sultan converting to Christianity and having his skin color change from black to white as a result. And the modern conception of race, based on skin color, came with the Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a justification for the enslavement of Africans. It’s often difficult to determine if any particular usage was and is deliberately intended to be racist, or if it just reflected the racism that has been endemic throughout European and American society. But there is no doubt that by the nineteenth century, if not earlier, the association of the word white with racist ideas was widespread and deeply and inextricably embedded.

There is this from London’s Bell’s Weekly Messenger of 11 December 1836, which echoes Ælfric’s duality of white heart and white clothing:

Your conduct must vite there, my fine fellows—no blackguards admitted there; and not only must your conduct be vite, but your neck-handkerchief must vite too, on ball nights.

And in the United States, there is account from Timothy Cooley’s 1837 Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes:

There is a man of my acquaintance who feels that he owes much, under God, to the preaching of Mr. Haynes while at Torrington. He was disaffected that the church should employ him, and neglected meeting for a time. At length curiosity conquered prejudice so far that he went to the house of God. He took his seat in the crowded assembly, and, from designed disrespect, sat with his hat on. Mr. Haynes gave out his text, and began with his usual impassioned earnestness, as if unconscious of any thing amiss in the congregation. 'The preacher had not proceeded far in his sermon,' said the man, “before I thought him the whitest man I ever saw. My hat was instantly taken off and thrown under the seat, and I found myself listening with the most profound attention.”

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the verb phrases to be white and to treat white in reference to persons started to appear. These formulations clearly express a racially stratified society where white people are socially superior to people of color. One of their earliest appearances is in a glossary of West Point cadet slang that accompanied the 1878 autobiography of Henry Ossian Flipper. Born into slavery, Flipper was the first Black graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Flipper gave no indication that the terms were overtly racist, but the fact that he included them in his autobiography is telling:

“To be white,” “To treat white.”—To be polite, courteous, and gentlemanly.

The verb phrases were not limited to West Point, as can be seen in an article in the National Police Gazette of 3 May 1890:

When the home had been turned inside out, the two robbers held a whispered conversation, and then turning to Bradrick asked: “Say, are you certain you have no more cash?” An affirmative response was received and one of the wretches said: “Lookey here pardner, we’re goin’ now, and if you squeal we’ll come back and do you up. We’ve treated you d—d white I think.” This opinion was too much even for the solemn occasion, and Bradrick could not repress a smile as he responded: “I am under many obligations for this courteous treatment. I should like to meet both of you again, but next time I would prefer you call at some more appropriate hour.”

And we seen a clearly racial use of the word white in the obituary of Peter Jackson, the Black championship boxer from Australia in the Sydney Sportsman of 17 July 1901:

He was black in skin, but a whiter man than Peter Jackson never lived.

And there is this passage form Chauncey M’Govern’s 1907 account of serving as an American soldier in the Philippines that expresses surprise that Filipinos could treat someone white:

Well, sir, they treated us white did them gu-gus in that pueblo. They didn't spare neither the rice or the fish and the cocoanut oil. They even boiled up half a dozen manuks for me and Clarke, and laid out the bottles of red beno as if it was as common as mud on the back of a carabao.

The phrase that’s white of you is recorded by 1900, although it is undoubtedly older. From David Dwight Wells’s 1900 His Lordship’s Leopard:

“I tell you what it is, Marchmont, that subeditorship is still vacant, and if you put this through, the place is yours.”
The reporter grasped his chiefs hand.
“That's white of you, boss,” he said, “and I'll do it no matter what it costs or who gets hurt in the process.”

And the next year, from Hamlin Garland’s Her Mountain Lover:

Hastings himself developed much admiration for the mountaineer. “You must let me see you in London,” he said several times. “I’ll put you down at my Club; and then, the governor will want to see you in the country.”
Jim had no idea of what was involved in being put down at a Club, but he consented. “That s mighty white of you, old man, but I don t know where I shall make down.”

Of course, there are many non-racist uses of white. But that cannot be said for phrases like to treat white or that’s white of you. Even if the speaker has no deliberate racist intent, such phrasings arise out of a racist context. Any use of white as metaphor for purity and goodness must be interrogated, and in many cases a better metaphor should be sought and used.

Discuss this post

Sources:

Brotanek, Rudolf, ed. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Altenenglischen Literatur und Kirchengeschichte. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1913, 19. HathiTrust Digital Archive. Paris, Bibliothèque National MS lat 943, fol.165v–166r.

Cooley, Timothy Mather. Sketches of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lemuel Haynes. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1837, 73. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Flipper, Henry Ossian. The Colored Cadet at West Point. New York: Homer Lee, 1878. Johnson Reprint, 1968, 54. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Footpads on Deck.” National Police Gazette, 3 May 1890, 6. ProQuest Magazines.

Garland, Hamlin. Her Mountain Lover. London: William Heinemann, 1901, 38. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. white, adv., white, adj.

M’Govern, Chauncey. By Bolo and Krag. Manila: Escolta Press, c.1907, 50. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2015, modified June 2021, s.v. white, adj. (and adv.) and n., white man, n.

“Peter Jackson ‘Outed.’” Sydney Sportsman, 17 July 1901, 1. Trove.

Wells, David Dwight. His Lordship’s Leopard. New York: Henry Holt, 1900, 15. HathiTrust Digital Archive.