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In the short story, The Griffin and the Minor Canon, by Frank Stockton, the word rum is used:
“When they found that he [the Griffin] had not come to spread rum, but simply to see his stony likeness on the church…”
I might have thought that spreading rum was the distribution of the tipple on a British ship, and therefore something to be looked forward to. But it seems to mean causing trouble or destruction. Does it come from the former horrible triangle of commerce involving humans, sugar and rum? That’s just an off-the-wall guess. (The sun is not yet over the yardarm in these parts and I’m already thinking of booze, although it is Friday)
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Carpal Tunnel
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It's a rum old world, Owlbow!
(I guess the adjective has been nouned.)
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I might have thought that spreading rum was the distribution of the tipple on a British ship, and therefore something to be looked forward to. But it seems to mean causing trouble or destruction.
A tipple of rum a day
Will keep the shivers away
But shiver me timbers
For them that remembers
How to tipple a keg stowed-away.
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From the Online Etymology Dictionary (hi, mav!):
rum (n.)
"liquor from sugar cane or molasses," 1654, originally rumbullion (1651), rombostion (1652), of uncertain origin, perhaps from rum (adj.).
"The chiefe fudling they make in the Island [i.e. Barbados] is Rumbullion alias Kill-Devill, and this is made of suggar cane distilled, a hott, hellish and terrible liquor." [1651]
The Eng. word was borrowed into Du., Ger., Sw., Dan., Sp., Port., It., Fr., and Rus. Used since 1800 in N.Amer. as a general (hostile) name for intoxicating liquors. Rum-runner "smuggler or transporter of illicit liquor" is from 1920.
rum (adj.)
"excellent," 1567, from rome "fine" (1567), said to be from Romany rom "male, husband" (see Romany). A very common 16c. cant word, by 1774 it had come to mean "odd, strange, bad, spurious," perhaps because it had been so often used approvingly by rogues in ref. to one another. This was the main sense after c.1800. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=r&p=20Oh my gosh! I wonder if that's how Kill Devil Hills, NC, got its name?? We were told that in the past it was fairly common practice for a plunderer to place a light on the coast so that ship captains would be misled and become shipwrecked. That was certainly a rum business!
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Dr. Bill suggests that rum may have been a typo for ruin, and he didn’t even have the text in front of him. That may be it. As I went back to the copy I have, I see that “in” was typed “m” in several cases. Perhaps it was scanned and converted incorrectly… Yup, I just retrieved a copy of the story from another source, and there it’s: “ruin”. But Jackie, I find your input very interesting. I also stumbled across this Dutch-Colonies page looking for “kill”, thinking of the Kill van Cull in NYC. I grew up in the area that they talk about there. http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/Dutch-Colonies/1999-07/0932913287and there, along with many other Dutch words, plain as day: “fyke = Dutch for "trap," the prey swims or walks into a narrow opening, but can't get back out; as in Fyke Cripple Bush, a swampy woodsy area.” I suddenly feel very connected, but I’m not getting’ any satellite locator thingy in any of my future cars either.
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Carpal Tunnel
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ha! I'm happy that my conclusion was only a short jump!
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