'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.
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!
my turn to giggle
Not to mention Merkins giggling about Brits casually mentioning knocking someone up.
Guess there's English schoolboys everwhere
"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.
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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.
"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.
Where there is honi soit I can always count on Dr. Bill to qui mal y pense.
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!
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
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
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).
Thanks, tsuwm. Now I have another question for you: why, in all the literature I have read, have I not seen the word cadger, instead of what was usually given, peddler? Sometimes junk man, sometimes tinker, sometimes tradesman, but never cadger. And I have read American lit. and British lit., old and new. My Roget's thesaurus doesn't give cadger as a synonym for peddler, nor does the M-W on-line thesaurus, though it does have two other intriguing words:
higgler and
piepoudre. Anybody got any info. on them?
Oh, I nearly forgot--salons are salons, yes. They are NOT saloons--that's a whole diff'runt thang altogether. And neither one of 'em is a car! [stamping foot e]
Dear Faldage: Pubic wigs are not comical. Since you know that is the dictionary meaning of "merkin", I think it is wretchedly bad taste and a serious abuse of AWADtalk to use it here. And you are a pathetic hypocrite
to criticise my occasional ribaldry.
MY FELLOW MERKINS
An Internet bad joke
The word merkin is one of the perpetual bad puns of the Internet. I first
came across it in the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett (a group devoted
to the works of the British fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, he of the
Discworld fantasies) and it puzzled me. From context, it seemed to be
used as a synonym for inhabitant of the United States of America but it
only slowly dawned on me that those who used it were guying a supposed
half-swallowed pronunciation of "American" by some Americans,
particularly the late Lyndon Johnson.
Then I looked it up and the full force of the pun hit me. The word actually
has a number of senses, all of them sexually-related and, therefore, highly
risible to persons of a certain cast of mind. One of the current standard
ones is pubic wig (such wigs are used, apparently, in the theatrical and film
worlds as modesty devices in nude scenes). It can also be a contrivance
used by male cross-dressers to imitate the female genitals. Another sense
which is even lower slang and which came into the language last century is,
as Eric Partridge delicately puts it in A Dictionary of Historical Slang,
"an artificial vagina for lonely men".
The OED says that its first use in English, in the sixteenth century, was as a
term for the female genitals, but then its sense transferred to the pubic hair,
and from there to artificial pubic hair and then much later to an artificial
vagina. Such is the shifting and inconsistent nature of vocabulary, at least
when the word concerns intimate matters not often spoken of in public nor
written down.
Various people on the alt.usage.english newsgroup (Mark Israel, Paul
Andresen, Mark Brader) have recently been discussing Stanley Kubrick's
1964 film Dr Strangelove, which named the character of the President,
one of the parts played by Peter Sellers, as "Merkin Muffley". This gets
two risqué usages past the censor at once, since "muff" is another slang
term for the female genitals (as in muff-diving for cunnilingus). This name
was presumably the work of Kubrick or his scriptwriters, since the book
on which the film was based (Red Alert by Peter George, pseudonym of
the late Peter Bryant), does not name the presidential character.
No doubt you will understand now why the use of Merkin in Usenet
posts is usually restricted to non-Americans ...
World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996-. All rights reserved.
Page created 2 January 1996; last updated 26 Februar
In reply to:
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!
An example oft-quoted when I was at university of a phrase which could give wildly differing images on opposite sides of the Atlantic was "washing up in vest and pants", which on one side means washing the dishes whilst only wearing one's underwear, while on the other I understand it means washing one's face and hands whilst more formally attired.
Bingley
Bingley, I hereby volunteer to wash up your vest and pants.
why, in all the literature I have read, have I not seen the word cadger, instead of what was usually given, peddler? Sometimes junk man, sometimes tinker, sometimes tradesman, but never cadger. And I have read American lit. and British lit., old and new. My Roget's thesaurus doesn't give cadger as a synonym for peddler, nor does the M-W on-line thesaurus, though it does have two other intriguing words: higgler and piepoudre. Anybody got any info. on them? cadger in this sense is bordering on being considered archaic, I would think. citations go back to the days of Dickens.
A buck hanging on each side o' his horse, like a cadger carrying calves. - Sir Walter Scott,
The Black Dwarfpiepowder (the usual spelling) comes from
med.(Anglo-)L. pede-pulverosus dusty of foot, dusty-footed, also as n., a dusty-footed man, a dustyfoot, a wayfarer, itinerant merchant, etc.; found also in 15th c. English, and in 15–16th c. Scottish versions of the Burgh Laws. ME. had pie-poudres, pie-powders n. pl., wayfarers, esp. in the designation Court of Piepowders = Court of wayfarers or travelling traders, whence through the attrib. use in Piepowder Court came the less correct Court of Piepowder, a court formerly held at fairs and markets to administer justice among itinerant dealers.
a higgler is just a dusty-footed haggler!
He was a foot-higgler now, having been obliged to sell his... horse, and he travelled with a basket on his arm.- Thomas Hardy,
Tess
Wow! Thank you, tsuwm! Muchly!
Court of Piepowder, a court formerly held at fairs and markets to administer justice among itinerant dealers.Wow again, these people had courts of justice?? Fascinating! Were they with real judges (magistrates), you reckon? Or did they perhaps elect one of their own to serve unofficially in this capacity? Golly, I wonder what kinds of cases they heard? CK, Rhuby--any ideas?
And, pie powder can only be flour. Though the term's origin had nothing to do with pies, wouldn't it have been interesting if they had had flour courts? Which doubtless would have evolved into Flower Courts, and wouldn't THAT have been something!
In Oz "knocked up" has nothing to do with banging on doors (though the mind boggles) or being in the family way.
A "knocked up" Aussie could also refer to him/herself as tired, dead beat, buggered, rooted or f****d.
Being in the family way is more commonly known as being "up the duff" or "having a bellyful of arms and legs"
We are but simple, common folk.
stales
We are but simple, common folk.
stales
Oooh, ha, ha, ha! Thanks, stales--I needed a good waker-upper!
Court of Piepowder, a court formerly held at fairs and markets
Were they with real judges (magistrates), you reckon? Or did they perhaps elect one of their own to serve unofficially in this capacity?
Not really my period, Jackie, but I consider it most unlikely that the democratic process was used! Much more likely to be a Justice of the Peace, the Town Mayor or, most likely of all, an offical appointed by one or other of those dignitaries. The sort of thing that probably would come before such a court would be weights and measures, overcharging, right to stand (i.e, set up stall) in a particular spot and that sort of dispute.
As to Cadgers - it is not a term that I have ever come across to mean pedlar. I am more familiar with the C16 to C19 term, "Badger" for such a trader. They were licensed to go from door to door and from town to town selling their wares (at a time when vagrancy was a real problem and a threat to law and order) and carried or wore a badge that showed they were permitted to do so - hence the term.
Coupés - eary pictures that I have seen of such vehicles showed the back of the roof cut away and replaced by a collapsable canvas hood. Not to be confused with a Landau-style body.
Dear Dr. Bill;
I accuse you of but taking an innocent word and forcing it into the definition you want. For all you know I was referring to a Permit Flyfishing fly (
http://www.flyshop.com/Bench/Features/02-97Merkin/) or one of the country's premier chamber music concert halls (
http://newyork.citysearch.com/profile/11303295/). Considering *my original use of the term:
Not to mention Merkins giggling... either one makes as much sense as your little attempt to pervert the propriety of this thread.
Never shall you need fear being invited into the Order of the Garter.
>Bingley, I hereby volunteer to wash up your vest and pants.
... but sadly you can't perform such a task in Brit Eng, you can wash up dishes but merely wash people and things.
Jo
Thank you, Rhuby. Look what I found at the Quinion site, though (tsuwm, you're a genius!):
The piepowder courts died out during the course of the nineteenth century along with the fairs that had brought them into being; the last is said to have been that in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, which last met in 1898. They must have gone out of existence in your area earlier. Let me know if you discover anything on these, will you?
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And, Jo--All right, then; either Bingley will have to don dinnerware, or I'll wash him up in some other language--perhaps en Français--ooh la la!
[Bingley running for his life e]
My ASp has pointed out to me the Dec 10th review on the Merkin Concert Hall link I posted. Just goes to prove my contention that there's English schoolboys everywhere.
cadger : One who goes about begging or getting his living by questionable means.
I've known and used the words cadge and cadger ...well... forever!
To cadge means to get what you want sneakily. For instance the guy who shows up at your house *every* Sunday just as dinner is being served and says something like "Oh, gee but that smells good. I haven't had a bite to eat all day." Of course he must - for politeness sake - be invited to dine with you. That's cadging and he is a cadger.
The female cadger is the one who puts you in an awkward position with statements like : "I'm wearing my blue suit to a very important meeting where I must impress the boss. You know, that sapphire pin of yours would really make the outfit." Grrrrr.
The answer to the last is, of course : "Sorry, but I gave it away last Christmas!"
You cannot say "I've already loaned it to someone." because the cadger will want to know who, when it's due back, ....see what I mean? They just put you in very difficult position where it's nearly impossible not to be really rude! That's the cadger.
Maybe we could have a thread on really good excuses not to do some(any)things!
"I'm wearing my blue suit to a very important meeting where I must impress the boss. You know, that sapphire pin of yours would really make the outfit."
"Oh, too bad you don't have one like it. I got mine at Tudbury's. I hear they're having a sale this weekend."
Wow, i am with faldage on this.. i never let a cadger make me feel guilty any more..
"Yes, you are so right-- but i never lend my good jewelry" --or "Yes, but they make such nice costume jewelry these days.. i am sure you can find something wonderful."
if if they are particularly annoying, say "Yes." and nothing else, don't offer the loan, don't take a step to getting it. just agree, your sapphire is a perfect match for their blue suit. and then wait for them to ask you "May I borrow it?" (sometimes they just don't have the nerve!) If they do..
and if they have "borrowed" things before, and not returned them, or returned them damaged.. point it out! "like how you borrowed my silk scarf? and lost it? or how you borrowed my car, and it came back dented? No, i don't want this lost or broken, i am sure you understand." if they just constantly borrow things, just say "No, i don't feel comfortable lending it" if pressed, just repeat, (why? don't you trust me... "i don't feel comfortable lending it"--Do you think i borrow to many things?" "i don't feel comfortable lending it"-- a broken record response.. no anger.. just monotony!)
If they accuse you of being rude, just pause for a moment, and quitely ask, with an incredulous voice, "you think i am being rude? How?" reality is, they are rude. its not rude to say a polite no.
once they realize you can't be manipulated... problem is over...
This reminds me of my brother who claims he's not obnoxious, but using the PC, just tact-challenged.
tact-challenged--I love it! I can think of a few people like that...
Is when you and I agree that everything we say to one another is bulls--t.
Tact
Is when you and I agree that everything we say to one another is bulls--t.No no, Ted. Tact is when you and I agree that everything you and I say is worthwhile, and that what is said by others is bs.
you and I agree that everything we say to one another is bulls--t.
when you and I agree that everything you and I say is worthwhile
When you and I tacitly agree that everything the other person says is bs but *say that we agree that it is worthwhile.