Dubious Etymologies: Dead Rabbits, Plug Uglies

Jonathan Lighter wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Thu Jun 28 15:19:28 UTC 2007


There's an interesting dicussion at Wackypedia concluding that, indeed, Asbury was primarily responsible for placing "Plug Uglies" in N.Y.

  Someone unusually near and dear has now added reference to Smith's 1868 usage.

  Tyler Anbinder, in _The Five Points_ (N.Y.: Free Press, 2001), may have been the professor who made the connection with *dead _ra'ibe'ads_ . According to James T. Fisher's review [ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_4_129/ai_83355443]

  "It turns out there never was a gang called the 'Dead Rabbits'; they were actually known as the Roche Guards and have only come down through time as the Dead Rabbits because they were so described by their enemies to newspaper reporters."

  I don't have immediate access to Anbinder's book.

  JL

George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: George Thompson
Subject: Re: Dubious Etymologies: Dead Rabbits, Plug Uglies
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The earliest I have for "Dead Rabbits" in my notes is
Juvenile Rioters. -- Two gangs of juvenile rowdies, varying in ages from 8 to 14 years, one boasting in the title of Dead Rabbits, and the other that of the Bowery Boys. . . .
New-York Daily Tribune, September 14, 1857, p. 7, col. 2

I don't have "Plug Ugly" at all. Herbert Asbury (or someone) says they were a Baltimore gang.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Lighter
Date: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 6:47 pm
Subject: Dubious Etymologies: Dead Rabbits, Plug Uglies
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU


> The History Channel's 2002 show on "Gangs of New York" features author
> Peter Quinn commenting on the naming of NYC's infamous gang, the "Dead
> Rabbits," of ca1860. I paraphrase closely:
>
> "A professor found that the Irish words / dEd r@ 'bid / meant
> "tough guy." One day a newspaperman came down to the Five Points and
> asked, 'Who's that?' And somebody said, 'Oh, he's a / dEd r@ 'bid /.'
> And the gang became the 'Dead Rabbits.'"
>
> Luc Sante told a similar tale, though without the Irish part: "Well,
> 'dead' meant 'real or genuine' and 'rabbit' meant 'tough guy.' A 'Dead
> Rabbit' was a 'real tough guy.'"
>
> And the rival "Plug Uglies"? According to Sante [I think],
> volunteer fire departments used to compete to be the first at a fire.
> The first on the scene would "put a barrel over the fireplug to keep
> their rivals from putting out the fire. One of the biggest, toughest
> gang members would sit on the barrel to keep them from getting at the
> fireplug. And that's where we got 'Plug-Ugly.'"
>
> How anybody put the fire out in those circumstances is one of
> history's mysteries.Maybe they fought each other till one side ran
> away or the house burned down. (Not impossible.)
>
> JL
>
>
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