lend-lease

An M3A1 Stuart tank and part of an A-20 bomber on the deck of a ship bound for the Soviet Union, c.1942.

18 May 2022

[Edit 20 May: corrected the speculation as to why the shift from lease-lend to lend-lease occurred.]

The following appeared in the New York Times on 9 May 2022:

President Biden on Monday signed an updated version of the Lend-Lease Act that supplied Britain and eventually other allies during World War II, summoning the spirit of the last century’s epic battle for democracy as he paved the way for further arms shipments to Ukrainians fighting to repel Russian invaders.

This present-day use of lend-lease to refer to U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine is an excellent example of how the framing of a news story influences its reception and audience. The use of lend-lease to refer to the present conflict frames it as akin to the fight against the Nazis, placing the Ukrainians, and the United States, on the side of the angels in the current conflict. Such articles, while having the pretense of objectivity, are biased as a result of this framing. One can agree with the bias and say that U.S. aid to Ukraine is the right policy, but it is bias, nevertheless. And it is, perhaps, more important to recognize bias when it comes from one’s own side. It’s easier to spot to the biases of one’s opponent’s propaganda than it is one’s own.

Lend-Lease was a World War II-era program under which the United States supplied arms and munitions to allied countries at essentially no cost, allowing the U.S. to become what President Franklin Roosevelt called “the arsenal of democracy” in a 29 December 1940 fireside chat radio broadcast. The pretext behind the policy was that those countries would return the equipment and munitions, or their equivalent, after the war. The total military aid supplied to other nations during the course of the war totaled over $50 billion (approximately $600 billion in today’s dollars), with the bulk of it going to Britain and the Commonwealth countries and to the Soviet Union.

But the phrase lend-lease was initially reversed, lease-lend. This reversed phrase starts appearing in U.S. newspapers in December 1940, in the lead-up to Roosevelt’s fireside chat. One Associated Press report printed in the Atlanta Journal on 18 December reads:

In Congress the first to endorse the “lease-lend” idea were Senator Minton (Indiana), the Democratic whip, and Chairman Bloom (Democrat, New York) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Minton announced he favored “anything to help Great Britain short of sending an army over there,” and Bloom asserted that “any way the administration can help Britain is all right with me.”

Another AP report appeared the same day in Jersey City’s Jersey Journal and outlines the program more fully:

Before giving an informal exposition of the tentative lease-and-lend plan, the Chief Executive declared that in the present world situation there was absolutely no doubt in the minds of a very overwhelming number of Americans that the best immediate defense of the United States was the success of Great Britain in defending herself.

The President used an illustration to describe the principle behind his plan.

Suppose, he said, that a neighbor’s house caught fire and the Roosevelts owned a long garden hose, which could be used to fight the fire. He would not ask the neighbor to pay him $15 because the hose cost that much, but would be satisfied to get it back after the fire was out. If the hose happened to be damaged, he would remind the neighbor to replace it.

Mr. Roosevelt then said that if this country should lend munitions to Britain, it would get either the munitions back or replacements for them, in the event they were damaged.

This statement made it appear that Mr. Roosevelt was talking in terms of ultimate repayment by Britain in military equipment. Some official sources, however, held that interpretation too narrow, point out that “in kind” repayment might be made just as acceptable in rubber, tin or other raw materials from parts of the British Empire.

But within a few days, the phrase had been reversed to the now familiar lend-lease. Why this shift happened is unknown; the transition from /s/ to /l/ in lease-lend is not a difficult one. Perhaps there was some bureaucratic standardization at play, but that’s speculation. Here is an example of lend-lease from the Albany, New York Times-Union of 22 December 1940:

Therein, these quarters predicted, the Executive will reaffirm his thesis that all aid to Britain is America’s best defense and ask the Congress to implement the policy by swift endorsement of the “lend-lease” method of help.

Lend-lease also became a verb, referring, often humorously, to the program. On 14 March 1941 the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a headline over a photo that read “Navy ‘Lend-Leases’ a New Fleet.” The photo was in reference to a collection of accurate, scale-model ships that had been given to the U.S. Navy by a model-maker. And New York’s Socialist Call was critical of the program in a 26 July 1941 article with the headline “U.S. Lend-Leases But British Sell.”

A serious, non-headline use of the verb appeared in the Seattle Daily Times on 28 August 1941 in an article that claimed the U.S. Army’s training programs were antiquated and inadequate:

Since the bulk of our new equipment is being lend-leased to the British, with probable extensions in favor of the Russians and Chinese, it makes no sense whatever to have followed this desultory and immature policy of “Squads Right!” and kitchen-police duty.

There is ample excuse for not supplying our new Army with tanks, etc., needed to defend Suez, but there is no excuse for failure to give the new Army training in other appropriate fields of modern war.

How about anti-tank tactics?

Finally, there is this piece using the verb lend-leased that appeared in the British Columbia’s Vancouver Sun on 6 May 1941, another example of bias in framing. Although, I am not sure on which side it is biased. It could be an anti-feminist screed, or it could be poking fun at the patriarchy. From the distance of eighty-odd years, it is hard to tell:

The department for defending the rights of man has another case to protest, and it is in honor bound to keep on protesting until man is set back in his rightful position of authority in this feminist state of society. I recognize that such an ideal is like putting your shirt on a mud horse to win the Calcutta Derby, nevertheless cases of feminine injustice shall not pass while this column has breath left in its body.

The latest comes from Los Angeles, where the healthy old practice of trading your wife to your best friend for a consideration has been reversed. In this case (Brummel vs. Brummel) one Mrs. Lillian Brummel agreed to rent her husband on a year’s lease to one Norma in return for the sum of $10,000. Mrs. Brummel to obtain a Mexican divorce, Mr. Brummel to collect half the proceeds. The whole thing was put up to Mr. Brummel in a spirit of deceptive simplicity.”

“Remember, dear,” said Mrs. Brummel archly, “I am only loaning you for a year!”

Mr. Brummel was a gentleman and he believed her. He lend-leased himself without security, he did not even ask to be allowed to take an option on himself; he walked into the trap blindfold. Now Norma has turned round and divorced him on the hair-splitting pretext that Lillian’s Rio Grande divorce was not legal and Lillian refuses to come through with the 50 per cent.

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Sources:

Associated Press. “Roosevelt’s Aid Plan to Get Early Action.” Atlanta Journal, 18 December 1940, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

———. “U.S. Would ‘Lend’ Aid to Britain.” Jersey Journal (Jersey City, New Jersey), 18 December 1940. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Baird, Irene. “What Really Matters.” Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), 6 May 1941, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Baker, Peter. “Biden Signs Bill to Allow Lending Arms to Ukraine.” New York Times, 9 May 2022.

Franklin, Jay. “Give the Army Boys Modern Equipment and There Will Be No Talk of Law Morale.” Seattle Daily Times, 28 August 1941, 6. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“More Aid to Britain, U.S. Answer to Nazi Threats.” Times-Union (Albany, New York), 22 December 1940, 8-A. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Navy ‘Lend-Leases’ a New Fleet.” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 14 March 1941, 7. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. lend-lease, n., lease-lend, n.

“U.S. Lend-Leases but British Sell.” Socialist Call (New York), 26 July 1941, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Photo credit: Unknown photographer, U.S. government photo, National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives Identifier 197299. Public domain imag

go for broke

Goichi Suehiro of Co. F, 2nd Battalion, 442nd RCT in the Vosges region of France, 1944. A Japanese-American soldier standing in a foxhole, holding an M-1 carbine.

16 May 2022

To go for broke is a verb phrase meaning to risk everything on a venture, to give one’s all. And go for broke is also an adjectival phrase describing such efforts. The underlying metaphor is that of risking bankruptcy. The phrase arose in Hawaiian Pidgin in the early twentieth century and entered into widespread American usage in the 1940s.

Hawaiian Pidgin is creole language, a combination of Hawaiian and English, spoken in Hawai’i by about a million people. According to Ethnologue, it has about 600,000 first-language speakers and another 400,000 second-language speakers, with “vigorous use” by some 100,000–200,000. Its use is not restricted to any specific ethnicity; rather it’s spoken by generally by those raised in Hawai’i. Despite its name, Hawaiian Pidgin is a creole, not technically a pidgin. A pidgin is a contact language with simplified grammar and limited vocabulary, often used to conduct business and trade. A creole, on the other hand, is a full-fledged language, a blending of two or more other languages, with a full grammar and vocabulary and the ability to express an infinite number of ideas. Hawaiian Pidgin is distinct from Hawaiian, which is a Polynesian language spoken in Hawai’i.

The first recorded use of let’s go broke is in a 1935 song title listed in a catalog of copyrighted works. The song is from Hawai’i:

Let’s go for broke; song; with ukulele arr. © July 9 1935; E pub. 49251; Harry Owens, Honolulu. 15930.

A 1937 travelogue of an extended tour of Hawai’i by travel-writer Harry Franck gives a number of snippets of Hawaiian Pidgin, including this one:

A well-known nursery story ends in some circles with, “The gingerbread man he run like hell; he go for broke.”

It appears again the next year in Me Spik English, a 1938 book of examples of Hawaiian Pidgin. In Hawaiian, kane means man and wahine woman:

Kane: “You like go for one walk, huh?”
Wahine: “Too much trobble. I like see one peecture.”
Kane: “We go for broke. We go Hawaii T’eater, see ‘Spoiled Goods.’”
Wahine: “Who de hero?”
Kane: “I tink is no hero. Is maybe educational peecture.”
Wahine: “Educational? Waste time!”

During World War II, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team adopted go for broke as its unit motto, and this is the point at which the phrase starts entering into general American speech. The unit, which served in Europe, was the most highly decorated regiment of the war, including twenty-one Medals of Honor awarded to its soldiers. The 442nd RCT was activated in February 1943 and consisted almost entirely of Japanese-American (Nisei) soldiers. Roughly two-thirds of the soldiers in the unit came from Hawai’i, with the other third coming from the mainland, mainly the west coast. And many of families of those soldiers from the mainland had been interned in relocation camps. (Ironically, Japanese Americans in Hawai’i, those closest to the combat areas, were not interned; because of their numbers, doing so would have been ruinous to the Hawaiian economy.) Go for broke was, therefore, a fitting motto for soldiers who had to go all out to prove their loyalty to their fellow citizens, most of whom viewed them as the enemy.

The adoption of the motto was memorialized in a 14 April 1943 Associated Press article:

As the first trainload unloaded after a 4,000-mile journey via boat and rail, the motto “Go for Broke,” was adopted by those loyal Americans of Japanese ancestry who are taking advantage of an opportunity offered by the War Department for military service against enemies of the United States.

Adjectival use of the phrase appears in print shortly after the war, again in a description of the Nisei valor on the battlefield. From A.W. Lind’s 1946 Hawaii’s Japanese:

The “go for broke” spirit was probably reflected in the bold daring observed among the Islanders on the battle field. Some of the Caucasian officers attributed the apparent unconcern for death among the “Hawaiians” to a Japanese fatalism rather than to an American quality of character. Doubtless there was a certain survival of shikata-ga-nai and of the Japanese sense of obligation (giri). It would be strange if these significant cultural traits of their parents had not retained some influence upon the second generation sons. Preeminent, however, in the gallantry of these sons of Hawaii was the thoroughly American hope that their rights as citizens of the land might be finally established.

So, go for broke is both an etymologically and historically apt term, reflecting both its linguistic and ethnic origins as well as the valor of those who used it.

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Sources:

“442nd Regimental Combat Team.” Go For Broke National Education Center.

Associated Press. “Loyal Japs from Hawaii Reach Dixie to Train.” Atlanta Journal (Georgia), 14 April 1943, 9. (Page number printed on the page is 8 because there are two page 6s.)

Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 3 Musical Compositions. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1936, no. 15930. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Ethnologue, 2022.

Franck, Harry A. Roaming in Hawaii. New York: Frederick A Stokes, 1937, 146.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2022, s.v. go for broke, v., go-for-broke, adj.

“Hawaiian Pidgin for Beginners.” Languagehat.com, 4 January 2022.

“Hawaii Pidgin.” Ethnologue.com, 2022.

Lind, Andrew W. Hawaii’s Japanese: An Experiment in Democracy. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1946, 167.

Mobley, Milly Lou. Me Spik English: To Help You Remember—Stories of Pidgins in Paradise Heard in Hawaii. Honolulu: Honolulu Star Bulletin, 1938, 17. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2015, s.v. go-for-broke, adj.; second edition, 1989, s.v. broke, adj.

Photo credit: U.S Army, 1944. Public domain image.

state of the art

13 May 2022

A colored etching satirizing the technological advances of the early 19th century. A conglomeration of scenes, such as a steam-powered horse, a suspension bridge between Cape Town and Bengal, and cat food labeled “delicate viands for quadrupeds.”

The phrase state of the art refers to something that incorporates the latest and most sophisticated technology or practice. The phrase as it is commonly used today dates to at least 1815, but there are precursor phrases, and state of the art is a good example of how a collocation of words can become a stock idiom.

We see the collocation of the four words as early as 1692 in Stanford Wolferstan’s An Enquiry into the Causes of Diseases:

The present state of the Art of Physick is just like that of War, both have received considerable Improvements, the one to save, and the other to destroy Mankind.

If we parse this sentence, it’s obvious that the phrase here is not the noun phrase state of the art, but rather that there are two phrases: a noun phrase, present state, and a prepositional phrase, of the Art of Physick. But Wolferstan is using the collocation to refer to technological and practical development.

And several decades later we see the noun phrase state of the art appear. A review of an essay on ancient Mycenean shipbuilding and navigation, as seen in the writing of Homer, in the Annual Register for 1775 has this to say about the technology and techniques of the ancient seafaring:

Agreeably to this account of ancient ships and ship-building, we see, that though Homer’s seamen are expert in their manœuvre, yet they are confined to the precautions of that timid coasting navigation, which is at this day practiced in the Mediterranean, in slight undecked vessels, unfit to resist the open sea. Their first care is, to venture as little as possible out of sight of land, to run along shore, and to be ready to put in, and draw up their ships on the beach, if there is no port, on the first appearance of foul weather.

We find Nestor, Diomedes, and Menelaus, consulting at Lesbos upon a doubt, which this imperfect state of the art alone could suggest. The question was, Whether, in their return to Greece, they should keep the Asiatic coast till they past [sic] Chios, which was the most secure, but the most tedious way home; or venture directly across the open sea, which was the shortest, but the most dangerous?

With the turn of the nineteenth century, we see the collocation of the words appear more often. And these appearances tend to not include references to the continuing development of technology or practices, making the earlier use in reference to Mycenean shipbuilding to be something of an outlier. For example, there is this advertisement for a book in New York’s Evening Post from 17 November 1804:

To this edition Mr. James Barry has added a supplement, containing Anecdotes of the latest and most celebrated Artists, and remarks on the present state of the art of Painting.

Or this advertisement in Philadelphia’s United States Gazette of 7 June 1805:

For the twenty-one large quarto volumes in boards illustrated with five hundred and ninety-five copper-plates, (a number not likely to be soon greatly exceeded in any similar undertaking) which bear honourable testimony to the state of the arts in the United States during the progress of the work: [price list follows].

But the phrase, as opposed to the collocation, remained in use, as can be seen from this account of cloth dying in seventh-century China that appeared in the Washington Expositor of 4 December 1807:

The dying of the Chinese, at an early period, seems to have been confined to Cotton and Silk; the colors, which were extracted from vegetable substances, were generally Red, Blue, Violet, and what is often termed a woad colour: the process being performed by the females in each family. This state of the art seems to have continued until near the end of the seventh Century, when they discarded their own, and borrowed the Indian, and Persian, art of dying, and with it the use of Alum and Coperas.

And in this article on Robert Fulton’s steam engine from Washington, DC’s Daily National Intelligencer of 7 July 1815:

Experiment after experiment had failed, and every additional unsuccessful attempt served to retard rather than to advance to progress of invention. In this state of the art Fulton enlisted in its service, and it was at once carried to the highest degree of perfection.

But the phrase state of the art remained relatively rare until the mid 1950s, when the frequency of its use skyrocketed. This rise corresponds to the technological revolution that followed in the wake of World War II.

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Sources:

“Account of Books for 1775: An Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer.” Annual Register, 1775, 232. ProQuest.

Davies, Mark. Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). Accessed 12 April 2022.

“For the Expositor: A Brief Account of the Origin and Process of Dying.” Washington Expositor and Weekly Register (Washington, DC), 4 December 1807, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers. [Database metadata says 5 December.]

Google Books Ngram Viewer. Accessed 12 April 2022.

“New Books” (advertisement). Evening Post (New York), 17 November 1804, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2012, s.v. state-of-the-art, adj, and n., state, n., status, n. and adj.

“Robert Fulton.” Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), 7 July 1815, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

“Thomas Dobson” (advertisement). United States Gazette (Philadelphia), 7 June 1805, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Wolferstan, Stanford. An Enquiry into the Causes of Diseases. London: Thomas Bassett, 1692, sig. A5v. Early English Books Online.

Image credit: Paul Pry (pseudonym of William Heath), 1829. Wellcome Library. Public domain image.

fan fiction / fanfic / slash / K/S

A “deep fake” digital manipulation by a Star Trek fan of frames from the original television series to show the characters of Kirk (played by actor William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) kissing.

11 May 2022

Fan fiction is a work of literature written by an admirer using the characters and setting of an existing, professionally written work or series of works. Fan fiction is most often found in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. The compound dates to the 1930s.

The earliest known appearance, that I’m aware of, is in an advertisement appearing in the 6 August 1938 issue of the fan magazine Science Fiction Collector:

The second issue of SCIENCE ADVENTURE STORIES out soon! 64 pages of good fan fiction. Only 15¢ a copy, four issues for 60¢. Soon to go bi-monthly.

The clipping fanfic appears some thirty years later. It appears twice in the 2 December 1968 issue of the fan magazine Beabohema. The first is in a review of other recently published fan zines. In this passage, Ned Brooks is the editor of one of those other fan magazines:

Dean Koontz wants to make science fiction respectable...ho hum. Directly after that, Ned Brooks advocates spitting in people’s eyes...violent, isn’t he? Snicker. Fanfic. And he’s got four covers...not hero, tho.

And the second appears in a letter a fan wrote to Beabohema:

"The Minatory Mimosa" hit a sour note with me, perhaps because so many other zines are doing satires, aprodies (parodies in English) and funny pieces on the interesting theory that a short humorous thing is easier to do than a short, serious thing. Corn, maybe, is easy to write, but true humor takes talent, REAL talent.

Of course, so does a short-short serious piece, or any sort of ultra-short writing. This places the editor in position of having to decide whether or not to accept corn, serialize, or maybe drop fanfic altogether. MY worthless opinion is that a magazine that comes out maybe four times a year is no place to put a serial, and most zines have budgets that are too skimpy to allow fifty-odd pages of story, aside from the charges of favoritism that would result if one author got so much space.

One particular sub-genre of fan fiction is that of slash fiction, in which the characters who appear in the canonical stories are depicted as having a sexual, especially homosexual, relationship. The slash comes from the labeling of the two characters’ names, separated by a slash. The prototypical slash fiction is Kirk/Spock, or K/S, fiction referring to the characters in the original Star Trek television series.

The genre dates to at least 1977, when it is referred to the August issue of Obsc’zine:

I am not trying to attack a Kirk/Spock sexual relationship in general.

And the K/S abbreviation appears the next year, in the May 1978 issue of the zine Scuttlebutt:

It’s heavy on the K/S relationship, and will delight K/S fans.

And the use of the word slash to denote this sub-genre more generally appears by 1984, when it is used in the January issue of fanzine Not Tonight, Spock!:

Recommended Book List […] to include gay books, other slash zines, or media zines with good K/S stories.

(And if you haven’t already, be sure check out the wonderful Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, created and edited by Jesse Sheidlower. It’s a treasure trove of words and phrases like these ones.)

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Sources:

Advertisement. Science Fiction Collector, 4.3, August 1938. Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.

Sheidlower, Jesse. Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction, 2022, s.v. fan fiction, n., fanfic, n., slash, n., K/S, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, draft additions September 2004, s.v. fan, n.2; draft additions June 2003, s.v. slash, n.; third edition, September 2003, s.v. K/S, n.

Strang, Patrick. “Cum Bloatus” (Letter). Beabohema, issue 2, December 1968, 48. Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.

“Ten Mags to Doomsday.” Beabohema, issue 2, December 1968, 36. Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.

Image credit: Shadows and Flame, 2015. The original, unmanipulated images are from Star Trek, by Desilu Productions and Paramount Television. Fair use of a copyrighted image to illustrate the topic under discussion.

sawbuck

A US 1861 ten-dollar demand banknote, with pictures of Abraham Lincoln, Lady Liberty, and an eagle on the obverse side and a large “X” on the reverse.

9 May 2022

A sawbuck is a wooden trestle with two X-shaped pairs of legs connected by crossbars, on which a piece of lumber to be cut can be laid. It is also slang for a US ten-dollar bill. The literal sense of word is a borrowing from either the Dutch zaagbok or the German sägebock (saw-goat), and the slang sense comes from the large Roman numeral X (ten) which was printed on early US ten-dollar banknotes, wordplay on both the X and buck meaning a form of currency.

A clipped buck, referring to the trestle, appears as early as 1816 in a letter by James Kirke Paulding:

The poor duke gradually descended into the vale of poverty. His white dimity could not last for ever, and he gradually went to seed, and withered like a stately onion. In fine he was obliged to work, and that ruined him for nature had made him a gentleman.—And a gentleman is the caput mortuum of human nature, out of which you can make nothing under heaven—but a gentleman. He first carried wild game about to sell; but this business not answering, he bought himself a buck and saw, and became a redoubtable sawyer. But he could not get over his old propensity—and whenever a lady passed where he was at work, the little man was always observed to stop his saw, lean his knee on the stick of wood, and gaze at her till she was quite out of sight. Thus, like Antony, he sacrificed the world for a woman—for he soon lost all employment he was always so long about his work. The last time I saw him he was equipped in the genuine livery of poverty, leaning against a tree on the Battery, and admiring the ladies.

A sawbuck; a wooden trestle with two X-shaped pairs of legs connected by crossbars, on which a piece of lumber to be cut can be laid.

And we see it again in this 11 January 1825 piece in the Wilmington, Delaware American Watchman:

That all religions are tolerated by the laws is true; but not exactly by public opinion. Zekiel Stanford, came to complain of Teary [sic] O’Rourke. He was sawing a load of wood in his vocation patiently and honestly on christmas day, because wood is necessary on christmas, which always falls in winter; Terry was coming from church, and swore that no man should work on christmas; by the powers he would not tolerate such things; so he despoiled poor Zekiel of his buck and saw, threw the wood about, and Hays, Junr. interfering and arresting Terry, he was rescued by his companions, but after sundry hustlings he succeeded in securing his man, and lodging him in Bridewell. Terry swore there was no freedom in this country, in locking up a man because he protected religion.—New York Advocate.

And we see the slang sense, referring to the banknote, by 23 August 1834 in the New York Evening Post, in an article about the then-ongoing political fight over the Bank of the United States, which was opposed by President Andrew Jackson:

Resolved, That we cherish a decided preference for Jackson Gold over the bills of the United States Bank—and we look upon a Jackson Eagle with vastly more complacency, than upon a paper (X) “Saw-buck” from the Rag-factory of Biddle, Baring & Co.

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Sources:

“Christmas.” American Watchman and Delaware Advertiser (Wilmington), 11 January 1825, 3. Library of Congress, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2022, s.v. sawbuck, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. sawbuck, n., buck, n.7.

“Ninth Ward.” Evening Post (New York), 23 August 1834, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.

Paulding, James Kirke. “Letter 17.” Letters from the South, Written During an Excursion in the Summer of 1816, vol. 1 of 2. New York: James Eastburn, 1817, 188–89. HathiTrust Digital Archive. https://www.hathitrust.org/

Photo credits: wooden sawbuck, Kimsaka, 2012, licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license; US banknote, 2013, National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History. Public domain image.