The "Hooligan" Boys 1896

[George Thompson]

"Roughs" was a common mid-19th C term for thuggish young men.  Walt whitman somewhere identified himself as "one of the roughs".

GAT

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

----- Original Message -----
From: Your Name <ROSESKES at AOL.COM>
Date: Saturday, November 3, 2007 12:25 am
Subject: Re: The "Hooligan" Boys 1896
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU


> Maybe the police report originally said "toughs," but was misterpreted
> by the
> newspaper.  In a handwritten report, a "t" could look like an "r."
>
>
> Rosemarie
>
> Why isn't "phonetic" spelled the way it sounds? And why is
> "abbreviation" so
> long?
>
> In a message dated 11/2/2007 10:52:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> hwgray at GMAIL.COM writes:
>
> "Gang of roughs" instead of "gang of toughs"? Interesting!
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 11/1/07, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> > Subject:      The "Hooligan" Boys 1896
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > OED2 has "Origin unascertained.  The word first appears in print in
> daily
> > newspaper police-court reports in the summer of 1898...."
> >
> > 1896 THE "HOOLIGAN BOYS."
> > Liverpool Mercury etc (Liverpool, England), December 26, 1896; Issue
> > 15285, page
> > 3
> > Category:News [19th Century British Library Newspapers]
> > Mr. A. C. Langham, the Southwark coroner, held and inquiry with
> > reference to the
> > death of... Nellie Bryan....alleged...kicks received from a gang of
> roughs
> who
> > attacked her for robbery....The Coroner: Whom did you understand her
> to mean
> > had attacked her?--Witness: One of the Hooligan gangs about the district....
> >
> > Stephen Goranson
> > http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
> >
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> -Sam'l Clemens
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