"Oil as spiritous drink?

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has "the joyful" meaning spiritous drink from 1835, and topselling hymnsmith Isaac Watts has a metaphorical "joyful oil" from at least 1769:

  1769 Isaac Watts _The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament_ (ed. 22)  (London: T. Longman, C. & R. Ware, et al.) 100: Thy Father and thy God, / Hath, without measure, shed / His Spirit like a joyful oil / T' anoint thy sacred head.

  So you get "joyful oil" = "the joyful" by 1900:

  1900 _Annual Report of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture_  (Indianapolis: I.S.B.A.) 1042: He will tie his horse to the hitch rack and run to the nearest fire, and, perhaps, go to a joint where he will take a nip of joyful oil to drive out the cold.

  More expressive than common.  Good find, Joel.

  JL

Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "Oil as spiritous drink?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hate when that happens! Sorry about that, Joel. I should simply have
given you the info and left out the extra stuff, such as I'm
continuing to add, even as we speak.

The correct answer is: HDAS appears to have 1917 for simple "oil" as a
spiritous drink. But HDAS's oldest, clearly-attested cite is only from
1918. It appears to me that you have an antedating, if you have a
clear 1917. But we - you and I - won't know till Jon bringeth down the
tablets in his response.

-Wilson

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 8:47 AM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
> Subject: Re: "Oil as spiritous drink?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yes I mean "alcoholic beverage" (is that different from "spiritous
> drink? :-) ) -- but in the bare, without any modifier.
>
> The quote is:
>
> oh boss
> you ask too much of us we have no flair for toil
> we d rather daily dally thus-imbibing joyful oil
> you can t expect a man to souse
> and do work for your business house
>
> The date is November 14, 1917.
>
> [The hyphen probably is intended to be an em-dash; this was written
> on a manual typewriter, without that character, and two extra
> head-butts would not have been appreciated by Archy.]
>
> I see that OED3 has a draft revision March 2008, for "oil n.1", with
> "C2. In extended use {dag}d. Strong drink, as oil of barley, oil of
> malt. Cf. sense 5. Obs.", latest citation 1881, and all quotations
> are of the form "oil of ". I observe:
>
> There are no citations of just plain "oil" (C is "Combinations and
> phrasal collocations", of course).
>
> Which was not obsolete at least as of 1917; and I'll bet it can be
> found much later.
>
> The reference to sense 5 is mysterious; that's "5. In pl. The sector
> of the commodities or stock market represented by oil or oils (now,
> esp. petroleum); shares in an oil or petroleum company." (?)
>
> Joel
>
> At 5/17/2008 12:26 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
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>>You mean "oil" as in "ignorant-oil" = alcoholic beverage? HDAS has 1917.
>>
>>-Wilson
>>
>>On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 10:50 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> > Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > Poster: "Joel S. Berson"
>> > Subject: "Oil as spiritous drink?
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > When does "oil" as spiritous drink (by itself, not as "oil of
>> > barley", etc.) appear? I couldn't locate this sense in OED2.
>> >
>> > Joel
>> >
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>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>>-----
>> -Sam'l Clemens
>>
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>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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>



--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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