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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
a special about Shakleton this week commented that the first winter on the ice, Shakleton insisted that the men all crop their hair --and keep it cropped, to insure that everyone was keeping groomed, in the long winter. One member notes in a diary, 'we looked liked croppers, convicts all.'
american dictionaries only show two meanings for croppers, is the idea of a convict from the second (a fall from grace, as it were,) and perhaps a prison practice of shaving heads, to keep down on lice, etc?
and the second cropper is from crop and neck--i am guessing cockney rhyming slang, but for what?!
#1
a sharecropper.
#2
NOUN: 1. A heavy fall; a tumble. 2. A disastrous failure; a fiasco.
ETYMOLOGY: Perhaps from the phrase neck and crop, completely
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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My first-year contracts professor (God rest his soul) in law school used the expression "come a cropper" to mean that the intention of the parties was not realized. How does this relate?
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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of troy, here's a pasting from MW Unabridged:
Main Entry: 1crop·per Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: kräp(r)
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: Middle English, from croppen to crop + -er
: one that crops : as a (1) : one that raises produce; specifically : SHARECROPPER <returned to the soil as croppers and later as tenants -- American Guide Series: Tennessee> (2) : a market gardener who raises special crops out of season b : a plant that yields a crop <this raspberry is a good cropper> c : a worker who cuts hides into crops and butt bends -- called also carver d (1) : any of various workers who shear textiles, metals, or leather (2) : a machine for doing this work
Main Entry: 2cropper Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: "
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: 1crop (gullet) + -er
: a pigeon resembling the pouter
Main Entry: 3cropper Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: "
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): -s
Etymology: perhaps from 1crop (neck) + -er
1 : a severe fall <first time in the saddle he got an awful cropper>
2 : a sudden or violent failure or collapse <his delusions and the croppers they cost him -- Edmund Wilson> -- often used with come <to see their betters come a cropper -- Tyrone Guthrie>
- come a cropper 1 : to fall headlong 2 : to fail completely <they'll come a cropper one of these days if they don't balance their budget>
- fall a cropper : to come a cropper
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Etymology: perhaps from 1crop (neck) + -er
Oh! A bird's crop, or craw. Does that fit, Helen?
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Joined: Aug 2003
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 95 |
"come a cropper" ... the intention of the parties was not realized. How does this relate?
Methinks you got the gist of your law professor's meaning, without the specifics. He meant things didn't work out because of some misfortune, as we can see from this history:
"We use come a cropper now to mean that a person has been struck by some serious misfortune, but it derives from hunting, where it originally meant a heavy fall from a horse. Its first appearance was in 1858, in a late and undistinguished work called Ask Mamma, by that well-known Victorian writer on hunting, R S Surtees, who’s perhaps best known for Jorrock’s Jaunts and Jollities."
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Joined: Aug 2003
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 95 |
and the second cropper is from crop and neck--i am guessing cockney rhyming slang, but for what?!At the end of the eighteenth century English developed a phrase neck and crop, with the sense of “completely”. This is first recorded in a poem by Lady Carolina Nairne: The startish beast took fright, and flop The mad-brain’d rider tumbled, neck and crop! You will find the full history here: http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-com2.htm
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