LL-L "Etymology" 2008.12.01 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 01 December 2008 - Volume 02
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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Etymology" 2008.11.30 (04) [E]

from heather rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

re origins and other meanings of 'rag'

How do any of you think the English epression 'local rag' meaning 'local
newspaper' might have got its name?

I was wondering whether it came from the fact that poor quality paper was
made from rags? And so this carried over to mean 'poor quality newspaper'
and then got carried over again to schools and colleges 'the college rag'
i.e. magazine  with the meaning 'amateur paper / magazine'

And might this have also been carried over to sheet music as a music rag i.e
lesser quality music?

Heather

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Etymology

Happy December, everyone, and a happy Advent season to those of you that
celebrate it!

Interesting question about "rag" in this sense, Heather.

I always assumed that "rag" just emphasized the worthlessness of "worthless
newspaper", something that might as well be thrown away.

I believe that in Yiddish, too, you can refer to a worthless newspaper (and
several other things, such as a garment or a worthless document) as שמאַטע (
*shmate*) 'rag'. (*Iz dos rikhtik, Leybl un andere khaveyrim?*) Well, at
least *I* have been known to use the word that way in Yiddish. ;-)
*Shmate*is one of those very useful and ubiquitous Yiddish words that
has found its
way into Northeast American English parlance as a straight loan as well.

So perhaps we are dealing with a Yiddish calque (*shmate* > rag), possibly
one that started in North America. This would have been an easy fit in that
"rag" in the sense of "inferior garment" was probably in English use
already.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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