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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
'Member that post about how Britspeakers giggle at the name Randy? Well, two of those type persons have lately referred to a car as a saloon. So--it is my turn to giggle, 'cause over on this side of the pond, a saloon is pretty much the equivalent of a pub. So, I get a mental image of y'all drivin' a bar around...  Now: how did a car come to be called a saloon, anyway? I can make a guess at how a sedan came to be called a sedan, but I'd rather hear from somebody who really knows.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
This interested me enough to go a-googling ~ I was recently engaged in heated debate over sedan vs. coupe. My contention is that the primary distinction between a sedan and a coupe is that a sedan has four doors, a coupe has two. The jury's still out on that one.
In variations on my search criteria, I discovered a little something extra from Bartleby: Cad.
A low, vulgar fellow; an omnibus conductor. Either from cadet, or a contraction of cadger (a
packman). The etymology of cad, a cadendo, is only a pun. N.B.—The Scotch cadie or
cawdie (a little servant, or errand-boy, or carrier of a sedan-chair), without the diminutive, offers a plausible suggestion.
“All Edinburgh men and boys know that when sedan-chairs were discontinued, the old
cadies sank into ruinous poverty, and became synonymous with roughs. The word was
brought to London by James Hannay, who frequently used it.”—M. Pringle.
So, in my mind, a golf cart then becomes a direct descendant of the sedan chair. Fascinating! I think I'll retire to the saloon for a pint to ponder on that!
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
my turn to giggle
Not to mention Merkins giggling about Brits casually mentioning knocking someone up.
Guess there's English schoolboys everwhere
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
"Go a-googling"--I like it. Could be made into a song...
Be that as it may--I was surprised to see that a cadger was a packman. Weren't packmen people who went about with a horse or a mule which was laden, with things to be sold, or perhaps simply transported? I suppose there were some who picked things up as they went, but that has not been my understanding of the primary definition of packman.
I'm not sure if I've ever heard the word cadger. As far as I know, the verb cadge generally means to ask to be given something, with the connotation that the recipient should then owe the giver a favor, because at the moment, the recipient cannot reciprocate and both parties know it.
I'm hoping one of our language gurus can either correct my understanding of these two words, or tell me how they came to diverge in meaning.
==========================================================
Interesting--one time before, I accidentally typed a different color word after the /, and the post came out looking like I wanted it to. This time, I had typed /i, and the bolding did not end.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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"Not to mention Merkins giggling about Brits casually mentioning knocking someone up."
Dear Faldage: you may be a pubic wig, but I am not. And I doubt that any other board members care to be referred to by that term.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Where there is honi soit I can always count on Dr. Bill to qui mal y pense.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I caused puzzlement in a Brit chum when I metioned that I wanted to "wash up" after we had been to a local street fair and before we ventured out for the evening ... and learned that in Brit-speak "washing up" is to wash the dishes after a meal.
Oh, the joys of a common language!
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'm not sure if I've ever heard the word cadger. . By recall:
The only fault I find with badgers
Is that they're such appalling cadgers.
If you have one in to dine
He'll ask a dozen of your wine
To take home. If he likes your prints
He'll drop the most unseemly hints:
"I say, who is this picture by?
It's my birthday next July."
Once one asked me for my car.
This was going rather far,
So I answsered, "Wouldn't you rather
Have this ring? It belonged to my father.
It's set in diamonds." Calm and bland,
He thanked me, and held out his hand.
I had an apoplectic fit,
But the badger walked away with it."
--Christopher Isherwood
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
I'm not sure if I've ever heard the word cadger. By recall:
The only fault I find with badgers
Is that they're such appalling cadgers.
If you have one in to dine
He'll ask a dozen of your wine
To take home. If he likes your prints
He'll drop the most unseemly hints:
"I say, who is this picture by?
It's my birthday next July."
Once one asked me for my car.
This was going rather far,
So I answsered, "Wouldn't you rather
Have this ring? It belonged to my father.
It's set in diamonds." Calm and bland,
He thanked me and held out his hand.
I had an apoplectic fit,
But the badger walked away with it.
--Christopher Isherwood
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 10,542 |
cadger - 1. A carrier: esp. a species of itinerant dealer who travels with a horse and cart (or formerly with a pack-horse), collecting butter, eggs, poultry, etc., from remote country farms, for disposal in the town, and at the same time supplying the rural districts with small wares from the shops.
2a. An itinerant dealer, a hawker, a street-seller.
b. One who goes about begging or getting his living by questionable means.
A love of all that is roving and cadgerlike in nature. -Dickens
p.s. - all of the various saloons stem from the same F.
roots as salon; we have had saloon rooms (salons), saloon cars (on railroad trains), and saloon bars.
p.p.s. - saloon as a motor car = sedan
p.p.p.s. - I'd agree that a sedan has four(4) doors and a coupe (or coupé outside the US) has two(2).
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