Soho

2009 street map of London’s Soho district

19 November 2021

Soho is the name of neighborhoods in two major cities, London and New York. The names, however, have very different etymologies, although the name of New York’s Soho was undoubtedly influenced and popularized by the name of the London district.

Surprising as it may seem, London’s Soho takes its name from an Anglo-Norman hunting cry, given when releasing the hounds to alert the dogs to the presence of the rabbit or hare (cf. tallyho) The district, now very urbanized, was once a hunting ground for nobility living in London.

The cry first appears on a Scottish seal from 1307 that bears an image of a hare with the motto Sohou Sohou. And a manuscript on hunting from c.1420 by William Twiti, chief huntsman for King Edward II, and later amplified and extended, probably by John Giffard, has this to say about the cry:

And if ye hounte at the hare, ye shalle sey atte vncouplyng, hors de couple, avaunt!, and after, iij tymes, So-how, so-how, so-how! And ye shalle seye, Sa, sa, cy avaunt, so-how!

(And if you hunt the hare, you must say when uncoupling the hounds, uncouple forward!, and after three times, Soho, soho, soho! And you must say, Here, here, come on, soho!)

By the late seventeenth century, Soho had become the name for the district, a legacy from its former use as a hunting ground. A 1675 broadsheet advertisement for a riding academy, interestingly one that used mechanical horses, gives the academy’s location as:

In the MILITARY GROUND between LEICESTER-HOUSE and the SOHOE.

And in 1677, a biography of the thief Thomas Sadler, who gained infamy and was hanged for stealing the ceremonial mace from the Lord High Chancellor’s home while that eminence was asleep, refers to the district as Soe-hoe:

This is certain, That when he became Capable of Working, he was put forth to the Honest Laborious Trade of Brickmaking; which he followed for two or three years after the Dreadful Fire in Sixty Six, both at Knights-bridge, Soe-hoe, and other places neer the Town, and had gain'd the Creditable Repute of a Civil Industrious Youngman; till happening into the unhappy Acquaintance of a Lewd Woman in St. Gileses, she seduc'd him to the Expence of his Money, and neglect of his business; and brought him acquainted with a Gang of thieves.

2013 street map of New York City’s Soho district

New York’s Soho, on the other hand, has a much more prosaic origin. It’s an acronym for South of Houston Street. (Which, by the way, is pronounced /haʊ stən/, unlike like the city in Texas, which is /hju stən/. The street is named for William Houstoun, who spelled his name in various ways and represented Georgia in the Continental Congress and at the 1787 Constitutional Convention. The Texas city, in contrast, is named for General Sam Houston, the first president of an independent Texas.) The district, the South Houston Industrial/Study Area was defined in the early 1960s when it was proposed as a neighborhood ripe for demolition, to be replaced by expressways and middle-income housing, despite it being a thriving neighborhood of businesses and Black and Puerto Rican housing. The New York Times of 2 June 1963, describes the district, but does not yet use the acronym Soho:

The City Planning Commission, in its report to the Mayor, asserts the section—known as the South Houston Study Area—should be preserved for the 651 business establishments it says are flourishing there.

[...]

However, the Middle Income Cooperators of Greenwich Village, a citizens’ housing group that claims 5,000 members, is putting heavy pressure on the city to demolish the 12-block area and put up middle-income housing.

[...]

The Planning Commission’s staff found 60 per cent of the workers in the area to be Negro and Puerto Rican. These groups have a high unemployment rate in the city.

The report asserts that between 1954 and 1958 about 62,000 production jobs were eliminated in Manhattan and 12,000 more in other boroughs through attrition of industrial space. It cites the consequent increased unemployment and welfare expenses.

The South Houston Industrial Area extends from Houston Street south to Broome Street between Broadway and West Broadway. The commission says it is a thriving business community. Major rehabilitation, it adds, would result in rent increases that the businesses could not afford.

The proposed demolition never happened, but the gentrification did, with the industrial spaces turned into artist lofts before the artists were driven out by rising rents. The acronym Soho is in place by 1970. From the New York Post of 1 April 1970:

With the recent influx of galleries in the south of Houston St. area (now dubbed “Soho”), general interest in lofts is up again. And non-artists, charmed by the relative low rents and generous spaces, are now competing for the little space that’s left. This added to the area’s new-found glamor has started to raise the rents to uptown levels.

While the name of the New York City neighborhood does not directly come from the name of its London counterpart, its coinage and continued use was undoubtedly influenced by London’s Soho.

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Sources:

Academy. By the Kings Priviledge. London: John Wells, 1675. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Bain, Joseph, ed. “Seals Connected with Scotland, Unattached to Documents or Only to Fragments.” Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, vol. 2 of 5. Edinburgh: H.M. General Register House, 1884, 539. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Burnham, Alexander. “Housing Dispute Put up to Mayor.” New York Times, 2 June 1963, 46. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. so-hou, int.

Mills, A. D. A Dictionary of London Place-Names, second ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010, Oxfordreference.com.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Soho, n.2, soho, int. and n.1.

Sadler’s Memoirs: or, the History of the Life and Death of that Famous Thief Thomas Sadler. London: P. Brooksby, 1677, 3–5 (pages misnumbered, there is no page 4). Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Scott-McNabb, David. The Middle English Text of The Art of Hunting by William Twiti. Heidelberg: Winter, 2009, 17, 64. London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian B.xii.

Solochek, Beverly. “The Lofty Approach to Living.” New York Post, 1 April 1970, 50 (Magazine page 6). Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Wright, Thomas and James Orchard Halliwell. “Le Venery de Twety.” Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. 1. London: John Russell Smith, 1845, 152. HathiTrust Digital Archive. London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian B.xii.

Image credit: Peter Fitzgerald, 2009, OpenStreetMap. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

soccer

A game of soccer played in Bloomington, Indiana, 1996. The offensive player (in red) has sprinted past two defenders (in white) and is about to either attempt to score or pass it across the field to a teammate (not pictured) in front of the goal. In the background, a goalie stands ready to try and intercept any scoring attempt.

18 November 2021

The sport known as football throughout most of the world is dubbed soccer in North America, where the word is used to differentiate the game from American-style football. In Britain and elsewhere, soccer is also occasionally used, but its use is rarer.

Soccer is a variation on Association football. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, two styles of football dominated, rugby football and Association football, the latter played professionally under the aegis of the Football Association, which codified the game’s rules. To differentiate the two styles, first university students then the population at large began to call them rugby or rugger and soccer. Eventually, as Association football achieved dominance, it became simply football in the UK, except when a term was needed to differentiate from rugby, in which case soccer would be used.

Varieties of football have been played since antiquity, but the modern game of Association football can be traced to 1863 and the founding of the Football Association in London. The term Association football appears by 1866, when it is used a name for the type of ball used in the game. From a 17 November 1866 advertisement in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle:

FOOTBALLS and the LAWS.—JOHN LILLYWHITE has now ON VIEW a very large STOCK of the Rugby and Association FOOTBALLS, which are warranted to be of the best manufacture. The Association Laws (published by authority) price 6d, per post 7d; on cardboard for the use in the pavillion 1s, per post is 2d.

I have found a use of Association football referring to the game itself from 1871, although I’m sure antedatings can be found. It’s in a version of the rules of the game published in the United States that year. The rulebook, edited by Charles Alcock, the head of the Football Association, was intended to proselytize the game to American universities:

I will merely therefore remark that to play with the feet is the main object of Association Football. Hands should not and must not be used. Difficult at first it may seem, but the abolition of handling and patting the ball will be found in every sense conducive to a better and more scientific game.

Soccer, spelled socker, appears by 1885, at first in school slang. From a letter published in the Oldhallian, the journal of the Old Hall School, Wellington, Shropshire from December 1885 about the game as it is played at Oxford University:

The ’Varsity played Aston Villa and were beaten after a very exciting game; this was pre-eminently the most important “Socker” game played in Oxford this term.

Another early use of socker is from the Boys’ Own Paper of 6 April 1889:

In ’Varsity patois Rugby is yclept “Rugger,” while Association has for its synonym “Socker.”

The soccer spelling is in place by 1891.

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Sources:

Advertisement. Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London), 17 November 1866, 2. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.

Alcock, Charles W., ed. The Book of Rules of the Game of Foot Ball, as Adopted and Played by the English Football Associations. New York: Peck and Snyder, 1871, 13. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Letter. The Oldhallian, 5.6, December 1885, 171. Google Books.

“Our Open Column. Football at Oxford.” The Boys’ Own Paper (London), 6 April 1889, 431. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century UK Periodicals.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2016, modified March 2021, s.v. soccer, n.; second edition, 1989, s.v. association, n.

Photo credit: Rick Dikeman, 1996. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

smoking gun

Undated photograph of US President Richard Nixon and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman conversing in the Oval Office. Nixon, seated behind his desk, is talking with Haldeman, who is standing nearby. On 23 June 1972 in a conversation with Haldeman like this one, Nixon ordered the cover-up of the break-in to the Democratic national headquarters at the Watergate office complex.

17 November 2021

The phrases smoking gun or smoking pistol refer to incontrovertible evidence of guilt. Smoking gun gained notoriety during the 1974 investigation into the Watergate affair, when one of the White House tapes showed that President Richard Nixon had ordered the cover-up of the break-in to the Democratic national headquarters, but the phrase is much older.

Literal use of smoking pistol dates to at least 9 November 1832, when it appears in a news story in the Baltimore Gazette about a suicide:

The porter at the hotel heard the explosion, and upon bursting open the door, the unfortunate youth was found extended on the bed, one arm resting on the ground, and the yet smoking pistol at some paces from him.

And use of the phrase to refer to incontrovertible evidence, in this case still literally a pistol, dates to at least 1850 and reporting on an attempt to assassinate the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV:

The constables and bystanders rushed upon the culprit, felled him to the ground, and tore from his hand the still smoking pistol.

The form smoking gun, also appears around this time, but the early uses are all references to military weaponry, usually artillery. But a humorous story about a wife peppering her husband with birdshot that uses the phrase, still literal but in the sense of criminal evidence, appears in the 20 November 1879 Reno Evening Gazette:

The two explosions were almost simultaneous, and Lou bounded in the air like a roebuck. When he came down the silent woods resounded with a blasphemy boom which frightened the game for miles around. Mrs. W. handed the reporter the gun, and when her husband came fuming back to the crowd, assured him that
SHE HADN’T FIRED THE SHOT.
The circumstantial evidence against the reporter, with a smoking gun in his hand, was so strong that he was obliged to run for his life.

Metaphorical use of smoking gun dates to at least 5 November 1886, when it appears in an extended metaphor, comparing a political battle to a military one, in the Kansas City Times. Again, the metaphorical gun is an artillery piece, not a small arm:

The survivors of Tuesday’s political battle have scarcely recovered from their bewilderment, but they are surveying the battlefield with dazed interest and trying to make up a list of the killed, wounded and missing. The victor sits on the carriage of his smoking gun rubbing his head and wondering whether he or the enemy lost the more men and what the three cornered scrimmage meant after all.

But what cemented smoking gun into the public consciousness was its use in the Watergate affair nearly a century later. Nixon’s supporters began using the phrase as metaphor for the evidence needed to impeach the president. From the New York Times of 14 July 1974:

The big question asked over the last few weeks in and around the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing room by committee members who are uncertain about how they felt about impeachment was, “Where’s the smoking gun?” In large measure, that question was a tribute to the defense strategy of James D. St. Clair, President Nixon’s lawyer. He has argued that the President can be impeached only if it is found that he committed a serious crime.

In a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court ordered Nixon to hand over the White House tapes on 24 July 1974. Nixon complied on 5 August, and one of the tapes proved damning, showing that Nixon had ordered the cover-up of the break-in to the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate office complex. Republican Representative Barber Conable, who had been a supporter of the president, described the tape as a smoking gun. From the Boston Globe of 6 August 1974:

Rep. Barber B. Conable Jr. (R–N.Y.), chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee said, “I guess we have found the smoking gun, haven’t we?” in reference to statements months ago by GOP stalwarts that they would not turn against the President until they found him holding a “smoking gun” in his hand.

The so-called smoking-gun tape, recorded on 23 June 1972, records a conversation between Nixon and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman. The transcript reads, in part:

HALDEMAN: That the way to handle this now is for us to have [Deputy CIA Director] Walters call [FBI Director] Pat Gray and just say, “Stay the hell out of this...this is ah, business here we don’t want you to go any further on it.” That’s not an unusual development,...

PRESIDENT: Um huh.

HALDEMAN: ...and, uh, that would take care of it.

[…]

NIXON:  Well, not sure of their analysis, I’m not going to get that involved. I’m (unintelligible).

HALDEMAN:  No, sir. We don’t want you to.

NIXON:  You call them in. Good. Good deal! Play it tough. That’s the way they play it and that’s the way we are going to play it.

Nixon resigned on 8 August 1974, just three days after the tape was made public.

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Sources:

“The First Debt.” Baltimore Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 9 November 1832, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Lou Walker’s Ranch. He Shoots a Rabbit While His Wife Shoots Him.” Reno Evening Gazette (Nevada), 20 November 1879, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. smoking, adj.

“Prussia. Attempt to Assassinate the King.” The Scotsman (Edinburgh), 29 May 1850. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“The Smoking Gun Tape,” 23 June 1972. Watergate.info.

“Was Blaine Behind It?” Kansas City Times (Missouri), 5 November 1886, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Wermiel, Stephen. “President’s Support Eroding.” Boston Globe, 6 August 1974, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Wilkins, Roger. “The Evidence for Impeachment.” New York Times, 14 July 1974, Section 4, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: unknown photographer, White House photo. Public domain image.

southpaw

16 November 2021

1848 pro-Democratic political cartoon in which Democratic candidate Lewis Cass is boxing Whig candidate Zachary Taylor. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Samuel Butler looks on, while defeated candidates lie about: a Black character representing abolition, Martin Van Buren, and Millard Fillmore. The latter is saying “Curse the Old hoss wot a south paw he has given me!”

A southpaw is a left-handed person. The term is most often heard in baseball, in reference to left-handed pitchers. The paw is obviously a reference to the hand, but south poses a bit of mystery. It clearly is a reference to the fact that, for most people, the left is the less useful or dexterous hand. The choice of south is probably not due to any literal spatial direction but is rather probably a metaphor. South and north are opposites and in our culture we tend to orient things spatially in reference to the north; something that is the opposite of the norm is south.

The earliest known use of southpaw is from a 30 June 1813 article in Philadelphia’s the Tickler newspaper. The Tickler was a one-page broadsheet consisting mostly of advertisements and satirical “news” stories. Southpaw’s appearance is in a letter to the paper:

Being in a room the other night where HONEST BOB happened to come in contact with a late number of your useful paper, his Irish eye in the general glance over it chanced to rest on “Bow, Vow, Vow,” when the Pat-riot in the fulness of his HONEST heart, exclaimed, “Arrah, by my shoal, these Yaunkees are the divils boys at spaking V for W, so much that by the hill o’hoath their very dogs have pecked it up, for instead of barking, Bow, Wow, Wow, as they ought it’s——it’s——(growing impatient)—arrah luk here mon and convince yourself,” said he, holding up the Tickler, in the right paw, between the ceiling and the floor, and with the south paw pointing to the “bow, vow, vow.”

Picture a man holding up the 2 June paper in his right hand and pointing to an article that uses “Bow vow, vow!” with his left hand, or southpaw. The context is confusing, but it is in reference to this piece that appeared in the Tickler on 2 June 1813:

Bow vow, vow!

Any CURIOUS Lady, either at the helm of VIRTUE or of VICE, who, in seeking the gratification of her Curiosity by a peep into another person’s window,---especially while some of the children are undergoing discipline,-----should chance to be ‘kratz’d,’ by a favourite Dog, that may be too uncourteous to relish peeping, she may hear of a person well skilled in the art of murdering Dogs, by applying to Mr. Kratz!——More anon!

The bit about Mr. Kratz murdering dogs seems to have been a running, anti-Semitic joke, the context of which has been lost to the ages.

Southpaw doesn’t seem to appear in print again until 1848, when it appears in a political cartoon by Edwin Durang. The cartoon features Democratic presidential candidate Lewis Cass boxing Whig candidate Zachary Taylor. Whig vice-presidential candidate Millard Fillmore lies on the ground with a black eye, saying:

Curse the Old hoss wot a south paw he has given me!

There is an 1851 instance of a person being nicknamed South Paw. It appears in a story in the sporting newspaper the Spirit of the Times on 5 April 1851. The context is hunting in Texas. Presumably, the person so nicknamed is left-handed, but that’s not made explicit in the text:

“Come on, ‘South Paw’ I’ve got him.”

“Now,” thought I to myself, “somebody has got it into his head to call me by that name.” I did not get angry, however, but went up to him.

“Well, South,” said he, “dad burn my skin if it ain’t the poorest deer that ever this child killed.”

[...]

“Now, C——,” said I. “you have got into a way, lately, of calling me ‘South Paw,’ and as being as you have killed such a poor deer, I will call you ‘Poor Doe.’”

“’Greed!” said he, “I’d just as leave be called that as anything else.”

Finally, we get a baseball use of the southpaw in the New York Atlas of 12 September 1858. This is also the first known use of the term clearly being used to refer to a left-handed person, as opposed to one’s left hand itself or a blow from a left hand:

Hallock, a “south paw,” let fly a good ball into the right field, which was well stopped by Harrold, but not in time to put the striker out before reaching the first base.

And we get this use in the context of a boxing match, as opposed to a political street fight, in the New York Herald of 27 June 1860:

Ninth round—Davy was the first one on hand, and Mike came slowly up. The first named made several feints, and, evidently pitying his opponent, dealt rather mildly with him. After some sparring he planted his “south paw” under Mike’s chin, laying him out as flat as a pancake.

The earliest use of northpaw that I have found is from the Chicago Press and Tribune of 27 July 1859, in an article about US President James Buchanan shaking hands with citizens:

Men, women, and children crowded about the venerable Chief Magistrate, and the continual wagging of his north paw, together with the excessive heat, almost exhausted him.

It’s not surprising that northpaw comes later and is far less frequent than southpaw. It’s common for exceptional things to be marked linguistically, while the norm goes unmarked. Left-handed people are less common, so a term is coined to refer to them.

There is a tale that circulates in baseball circles that southpaw arose because of the “fact” that nineteenth-century baseball diamonds were often arranged so the batters would face east, to avoid looking into the afternoon sun. The pitcher’s left hand, or paw, would therefore be on the southern side. But as we’ve seen, southpaw did not originate in baseball, so that cannot be the origin.

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Sources:

“Adventures in Texas.” Spirit of the Times, 5 April 1851, 81. ProQuest.

“Base Ball Match Between the Manhattan and Independent Clubs.” New York Atlas, 12 September 1858, 5. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Bow vow, vow!” The Tickler (Philadelphia), 2 June 1813, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Durang, Edwin Forrest. “Who Says Gas? Or the Democratic B-Hoy” (political cartoon). Abel and Durang, 1848. Library of Congress.

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

Letter. The Tickler (Philadelphia), 30 June 1813, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2011, modified September 2019, s.v. southpaw, n. and adj.; December 2003, modified June 2021, s.v. north, adv., adj., and n.

“The President Shaking Hands in the Whisky District. Chicago Press and Tribune, 27 July 1859, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“The Ring. Prize Fight at Hunter’s Point for Fifty Dollars a Side.” New York Herald, 27 June 1860, 8. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Image credit: Edwin Durang, 1848. Public domain image.

crocodile tears

1882 cartoon depicting former US President Ulysses S. Grant weeping over the persecution of Jews in Russia in a ploy to garner Jewish votes for his party in the 1884 presidential election. Grant is depicted dressed in a crocodile’s skin and holding a notice for a meeting in support of Russian Jews, while in the background is a reminder of his 1862 order excluding Jews from service in the U.S. Army.

12 November 2021

[13 November 2021: added reference to the French text of Mandeville. 15 November 2021: added reference to Latini.]

Crocodile tears are an insincere display of sadness or compassion. The phrase comes from the false belief that crocodiles either shed tears in mourning for their victims or that they use tears to lure prey to them. This belief appears in the medieval period but probably dates back into antiquity, although the phrase crocodile tears is more recent. While by no means restricted to women, over the centuries the idea of crocodile tears has often been used misogynistically to brand women as using feigned emotions to deceive men.

The notion of a creature shedding tears for its prey dates to at least the turn of the eleventh century when it appears in De rebus in Oriente miribilibus (The Wonders of the East). The anecdote appears in two manuscripts. One, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B.v., contains the story in both Anglo-Latin and Old English. The second is the Beowulf manuscript, British Library, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv., where a slightly older Old English version appears. From Tiberius B.v.:

Itaque insula est in rubro mari in qua hominum genus est quod apud nos appellatur donestre, quasi divine a capite usque: ad umbilicum, quasi homines reliquo corpore similitudine humana, nationum omnium linguis loquentes cum alieni generis hominem uiderint, ipsius lingua appellabunt eum & parentum eius & cognatorum nomina, blandientes sermone ut decipiant eos & perdant. Cumque conprehenerint eos perdunt eos & comedunt, & postea conprehendunt caput ipsius hominis quem commederunt [sic] & super ipsum plorant.

Ðonne is sum ealand on þære readan sæ, þær is mon cynn þæt is mid us donestre genemned, þa syndon geweaxene swa frihteras fram þam heafde oð ðone nafelan, & se oðer dæl bið mannerlice ge lic & hi cunnon eall mennisc gereord. Þonne hi fremdes kynnes mann geseoð [þo]nne nemnað hi hine & his magas cuþra manna naman & mid leaslicum wordum hine beswicað & hine onfoð & þænne æfter þan hi hine fretað ealne buton his heafde & þonne sittað & wepað ofer ðam heafde.

(There is a an island in the Red Sea in which a type of human which is called by us Donestre, as if divine from the head to the navel, as if humans in the rest of the body in the likeness of humans, they speak in the languages of all nations; when they see a person of a foreign race, they will call upon them in their and language and the names of their parents and kin, flattering with language so that they are deceived and killed; and when they seize them, they kill and eat them, and afterward they take the head of the person whom they have eaten and cry over it.)

Illustration from De rebus in Oriente miribilibus depicting the Donestre. The three-part image shows a Donestre conversing with a man, then attacking and devouring him, and then weeping over the man’s head.

But the Donestre were not crocodiles. The legend attaches to the reptiles by c.1265 when it is mentioned in Brunetto Latini’s Li Livres dou Treasure. About a hundred years later it appears in Mandeville’s Travels. Sir John Mandeville was a fictitious English knight who supposedly traveled the world recording the wondrous things and people he saw. In actuality, the author, whoever that was, probably never traveled, assembling the text from various traveler’s tales and legends and from their own imagination. Appearing in the late fourteenth century, first in French and then English, the text was enormously popular, appearing in over 250 extant manuscripts in various languages:

En ceo pays et par toute Ynde y ad grant foisoun des cocodrilles, c’est une manere des longes serpentz si qe jeo vous ay dit cea en ariere, et par nuyt elles habitent en l’eawe, et par jour sur terre en roches et en caves, et ne mangent point par tout l’yver, ancis gisent en agone si come font les serpentz. Ceste serpent occist les gentz et les mangent en plorant.

In þat contre & be all ynde ben gret plentee of COKODRILLES, þat is in a maner of a long serpent as I have seyd before. And in the nyght þei dwellen in the water & on the day vpon the lond in roches & in Caues. And þei ete no mete in all the wynter, but þei lyȝn as in a drem, as don the serpentes. Þeise serpentes slen men & þei eten hem wepynge.

(In that country & and in all India is a great plenty of crocodiles, that are like the long serpent that I have mentioned before. And in the night they dwell in the water & in the day upon the land in rocks and in caves. And they eat no food in all the winter, but they lie as if in a dream, as do the serpents. These serpents slay men & they eat them weeping.)

The version where the crocodile lures its prey to it by feigning sadness and pity is recorded in Richard Hakluyt’s 1589 Principall Navigations. The anecdote appears in the account of John Hawkins’s 1564 expedition to the Americas:

In this riuer we saw many crocodils of sundry bignesses, but some as big as a boat, with 4. feet, a long broad mouth, & a long taile, whose skin is so hard, that a sword wil not pierce it. His nature is to liue out of the water as a frog doth, but he is a great deuouer, & spareth neither fish, which is his common food, nor beasts, nor men, if he take them, as the proofe thereof was knowen by a Negroe, who as he was filling water in the riuer was by one of them caried cleane away, and neuer seene after. His nature is euer when he would haue his praie, to crie, and sobbe like a christian bodie, to prouoke them to come come to him, and then hee snatcheth at them, and thereupon came this prouerbe that is applied unto women when they weep Lachrymaæ Crocodili, the meaning whereof is, that as the Crocadile when he crieth, goeth then about most to deceiue, so doth a woman most commonly when she weepeth.

And Henry Cockeram’s 1623 English dictionary includes a description of the crocodile that sounds an awful lot like the early medieval description of the Donestre:

Crocodile, a beast hatched of an egge, yet some of them grow to a great bignesse, as 10. 20. or 30. foot in length: it hath cruell teeth and scaly back, with very sharpe clawes on his feete: if it see a man afraid of him, it will eagerly pursue him, but on the contrary, if he be assaulted he wil shun him. Hauing eate[n] the body of a man, it will weepe ouer the head, but in fine eate the head also: thence came the Prouerb, he shed. Crocodile teares, viz. fayned teares.

The phrase crocodile tears itself appears by 1563, when it is used by Edmund Grindal, bishop of London, in reference to a man who had been excommunicated:

And yet I assure your Lordship, I doubt much of his Zeal. For now after so long Trial, and good Observation of his Proceedings herein, I begin to fear, lest his Humility in Words be a counterfeit Humility, and his Tears, Crocodile Tears, altho’ I my self was much moved with them at the first.

And while he never used the phrase itself, Shakespeare made reference to the notion of crocodile tears in several of his plays, perhaps most notably in his 1603 Othello, Act 4, Scene 1, where Othello dismisses Desdemona’s weeping as false:

Oh diuell, diuell:
If that the Earth could teeme with womans teares,
Each drop she falls, would proue a Crocodile.

Shakespeare’s references to crocodile tears have undoubtedly helped keep the idea and phrase in the popular imagination.

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Sources:

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Image credits: Bernard Gillam, 1882, Puck magazine. Public domain image.

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