Forgotten English: March 29th - April 3rd
Monday's forgotten word:
Jiggs (pl. noun) - Small dregs or sediment, as of a pot of coffee or a bottle of physic. --Rev. Robert Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia, 1830
Just Say No--to Coffee? - On this date in 1909, Frederick Hackwood's Inns, Ale, and Drinking Customs of Old England was published. In it the author wrote of coffee's colorful history in Britain, remarking: "For a long time, coffee was regarded as a dangerous drug, and those who indulged too freely in the new beverage were looked upon almost as drunkards. It was ridiculed by having such nicknames as ninny-broth and Turkey-gruel bestowed upon it. A petition was presented to Parliament in 1673 praying that coffee, tea, and brandy should be prohibited, as the use of these newer beverages interfered with the consumption of barley malt and wheat, native products of the country. The petitioners boldly asserted that the 'laborious people,' who constituted the majority of the population, required to drink 'good strong beer and ale' which greatly refreshed their bodies after their hard labours, and that the flagon of strong beer, with which they refreshed themselves each morning and every evening, did them no great prejudice, hindered not their work, nor took away their senses. And while it cost them little money, it greatly promoted the consumption of homegrown grain, whereas the drinking of brandy destroyed many of His Majesty's subjects."
Tuesday's:
Redback (noun) - (1) One of the treasury notes issued by the Republic of Texas in 1838 [which in 1862 inspired the still-used term greenback]. --Mitford Mathews' Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, 1951 (2) Called from the color of the paper. --William Craigie's Dictionary of American English, 1940 (3) Yellowboy, a gold coin. A very low word. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
Phoney as a Three-Dollar Bill - From this date in 1865 until 1890, the U.S. Treasury minted a silver-and-nickel three-cent piece, dubbed the "three-cent nickel." This was not the first three-cent coin circulated in America; it was preceded by a silver-and-copper version in the early 1850s. The U.S. government never issued a "three-dollar bill"--which later came to indicate all things spurious--but in 1853, using the abundant proceeds of the California gold rush, it did begin producing three-dollar gold pieces.
Another long-extinct denomination, the twenty-cent piece, was minted in America from 1875 to 1878, but curiously it was considered legal tender only for "any amount not exceeding five dollars in any one payment," according to Statutes at Large (1875). Around 1930, the nation's gold certificates got the nickname "yellowbacks," reflecting their color and contrasting redback and greenback.
Wednesday's:
Chaucer's jest (noun) - An obscene or indelicate act or remark, in allusion to some narratives in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. --Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases, 1922
Making Sense of Censorship - On this date in 1930, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America adopted a code of ethics to govern filmmaking that included the following provisions: "Obscenity in word, gesture, reference, song, joke, or by suggestion, is forbidden. Scenes of passion should not be introduced when not essential to the plot. In general, passion should be so treated that these scenes do not stimulate the lower and baser element. Sex perversion, or any reference to it, is forbidden. White slavery shall not be treated. Miscegenation [racial intermingling] is forbidden. Sex hygiene and venereal diseases are not subjects for motion pictures. Scenes of actual childbirth, in fact or in silhouette, are never to be represented."
Samuel Johnson put the subject of censorship into perspective, writing in Lives of the Poets (1797), "It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted because by our laws we can hang a thief."
Thursday's:
Witcracker (noun) - A joker; one who breaks a jest. "A college of witcrackers cannot flout me out of my humour." Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. --Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
All-Fool's Day - Albert Hyamson's Dictionary of English Phrases (1922) recounted the rise of the "April Gowk," or April fool: "The custom originated in France where in 1564 the beginning of the year was changed from the 25th of March to the 1st of January." At that time, gifts were exchanged in honor of this weeklong holiday's mascot, the "April fish" or "poisson d'avril." This alluded to fools who, like a mackerel, allowed themselves to be "caught."
Henry Reddall's Fact, Fancy, and Fable (1889) reported: "It is curious that the Hindus practice precisely similar tricks on the 31st of March when they hold what is called the Huli Festival. There is a tradition among the Jews that the custom of making fools on the 1st of April arose from the fact that Noah sent out the dove on the first of the month corresponding to our April before the water had abated. To perpetuate the memory of the great deliverance of Noah, it was customary on this anniversary to punish persons who had forgotten [this] remarkable circumstance by sending them on some bootless errand similar to that on which the patriarch sent the luckless bird from the window of the ark."
Friday's:
Gulching (noun) - On the Labrador coast, gulching has a meaning peculiar to that region and to those who frequent it. In summer, men, women, and children from Newfoundland spend some weeks there fishing [and] living in a very promiscuous way. As there is no tree for shelter for hundreds of miles of islands and shores, parties resort to the hollows for secret indulgence. Hence gulching has, among them, become a synonym for living a wanton life. --George Story's Dictionary of Newfoundland English, 1982
Feast Eve of St. Richard of Chichester, a 13th-century Oxford patron of coachmen.
English visitor Frederick Marryat's Diary in America (1839) included mention of an amorous Yankee coachman's exploits, which might not have been tolerated back home: "I was once in a coach when the driver pulled up and entered a small house on the roadside. After he had been there some time, as it was not an inn, I expressed my wonder what he was about. 'I guess I can tell you,' said a man who was standing by the coach and overheard me. 'There's a pretty girl in that house, and he's doing a bit of courting, I expect.' Such was the fact. The passengers laughed and waited for him very patiently. He remained about three-quarters of an hour and then came out. The time was no doubt very short to him, but to us it appeared rather tedious."
Saturday's:
Gye (verb) - To govern. The word "gee" [and "gee-up" in America], used to horses, is probably derived from this. --William Toone's Etymological Dictionary of Obsolete Words, 1832
150th Birthday of the Pony Express - On April 3, 1860, William Russell's legendary Pony Express began its 2,000-mile mail service between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. To recruit riders, Russell advertised: "Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred."
This forerunner of airmail service, overnight parcel delivery, fax, and e-mail whisked a letter along at the unheard-of average speed of eight miles per hour, requiring many changes of horses and ten days of grueling horsemanship. But only eighteen months after its first fired-up riders galloped off at breakneck speeds, this modern marvel was overtaken by the next phase of telecommunications, the telegraph (originally called the tachygraph).
The term "posthaste," meaning with all possible speed, was created in the mid-16th century as a reflection of the English institution known as "traveling post," that is, journeying on horseback via a system of relay horses--a strategy later used by the Pony Express.