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<p
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Wide Words</p>
<p style="color:green;margin:0 0 6pt
0;font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;line-height:14.0pt;">Saturday
6 August 2016.</p>
<p style="color:green;margin:6pt 0 18pt
0;font-size:12pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;">This
newsletter is also available online at <a
href="http://wwwords.org/pdvi">http://wwwords.org/pdvi</a><br>
and is also attached to this message as a PDF file containing
illustrations.</p>
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style="font-family:Georgia,serif;margin:0;line-height:15pt;font-size:12pt;"><i>Check
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<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:green;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;line-height:14pt;font-weight:bold;margin:18pt
0 0 0;">Feedback, Notes and Comments</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;"><b
style="margin-right:12px;">Yarely.</b> Following my piece last
time, far too many correspondents to name pointed out a famous use
of the associated adjective <em>yare</em> by Katharine Hepburn in
the 1940 film <em>The Philadelphia Story</em>. (She pronounced it
<em>yar</em>, as some who responded to my piece spelled it.) She
said of the sailboat <em>True Love</em>, “My, she was yar.” which
she explained as “Easy to handle, quick to the helm, fast, bright
... everything a boat should be ... until she develops dry rot”. </p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;"><b
style="margin-right:12px;">Snooter.</b> Leni Verbogen wrote from
the Netherlands: “You referred to the Germanic origin of <em>snoot</em>,
and I have to say that to my ears ‘hit him on the snoot’ sounds
highly amusing. In fact, the word <em>snoet</em> is still used in
Dutch nowadays, meaning ‘face’, in a cute kind of way. Would the
word by any chance have arrived via the Dutch?” The evidence
suggests that <em>snoot</em> was a native English modification,
but as its precursor <em>snout</em> is Germanic, the Dutch word <em>snoet
</em>is almost certainly a linguistic cousin.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;"><b
style="margin-right:12px;">Update.</b> I’ve recently updated my
piece about the curious British slang expression, <em>Lord love a
duck</em>. You’ll <a href="http://bit.ly/29V9KFb">find it
online</a>.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;"><b
style="margin-right:12px;">Future newsletters.</b> Through
matters outside my control, issues in coming months are likely to
be slim and intermittent. The website will continue uninterrupted,
as will my Wordfile postings to <a href="http://wwwords.org/tw">Twitter</a>
and <a href="http://wwwords.org/fb">Facebook</a>.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:green;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;line-height:14pt;font-weight:bold;margin:18pt
0 0 0;">Dope</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:6px;"><span
style="background-color:#008000;color:#ffffff;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica;font-weight:bold;font-style:normal;font-size:1.1em;margin-right:6px;padding-left:4px;padding-top:1px;padding-right:4px;padding-bottom:1px;">Q</span>
<em>From From Terhi Riekkola</em>: I haven't been able to find a
satisfactory etymology for <em>dope</em> when it’s used in the
sense of drugs, either recreational or performance-enhancing. I’ve
encountered what was given as the original sense of <em>dope</em>,
meaning some kind of liquid preparation that helped you with
certain tasks, like lubricants and so on. But I found no
satisfactory links between this “practical sticky stuff” sense and
the drug-related meaning of the word. I was wondering if you could
help me?</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:6px;"><span
style="background-color:#008000;color:#ffffff;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica;font-weight:bold;font-style:normal;font-size:1.1em;margin-right:6px;padding-left:4px;padding-top:1px;padding-right:4px;padding-bottom:1px;">A</span>
<em>Dope</em> has several senses that aren’t obviously linked,
though investigation shows there are clear connections.
Historically, the word has had a wide variety of slangy
associations. They include not only the lubricants and drugs you
mention, but also information, a stupid person, and a varnish for
cloth aircraft parts. Regionally in the US it has also meant
Coca-Cola (because in its early years the drink was sold as a
medicinal restorative and included some cocaine) and the sprinkles
on ice cream (for no obvious reason). </p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">Dictionaries
universally say that <em>dope</em> is from the old Dutch <em>doop</em>,
a sauce or dip, from the verb <em>doopen</em>, to dip or mix.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">The
Dutch word appeared briefly in American writing near the beginning
of the nineteenth century, in a couple of pieces by Washington
Irving in which he used it in the sense of gravy. In the issue of
his satirical magazine <em>Salmagundi</em> of 16 May 1807 he
included a humorous piece, <em>The Stranger in Pennsylvania</em>,
which state he asserts was founded by one Philo Dripping-pan:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">Philo
Dripping-pan was remarkable for his predilection to eating, and
his love of what the learned Dutch call <em>doup</em>. Our
erudite author likewise observes that the citizens are to this day
noted for their love of “a sop in the pan,” and their portly
appearance ... he ill-naturedly enough attributes to their eating
pickles, and drinking vinegar.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">(The
Pennsylvania Dutch as a group were early immigrants from Germany,
though Dutch speakers also settled in the state. It was common in
American English up to Irving’s time to use <em>Dutch</em> as an
informal term for Germans, which is where our confusing name for
the group comes from, not from a mishearing of <em>Deutsch</em>,
the German word for German, or <em>Deitsch</em>, which is what
the Pennsylvania Dutch call their language.)</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">Somehow
— we don’t know the details, but it was presumably at least in
part the result of Irving’s fame as a writer — <em>doup</em>
evolved into the slang <em>dope</em>. It<em> </em>appeared first
in print as an ill-specified term for any thick liquid or glop.
The earliest example that I’ve found — actually the derived verb —
was in a newspaper article that listed deceptions practiced by
sheep farmers:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;"><em>Dope</em>
the sheep:— that is, put on oil and coloring to make a sheep look
like the required breed; that is, paint the sheep as a common
horse was once painted and sold for one of a superior race.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Sandusky Daily Commercial
Register (Sandusky, Ohio), 17 Jun. 1856. You may feel that
buyers of such sheep were more than a little unobservant.</em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">In
later years, <em>dope</em> was recorded for all sorts of stuff —
among others a slop of mud and water to preserve the roots of
trees awaiting planting, the chemical on the heads of matches,
harness blacking, train axle grease, the material that
nitroglycerine is absorbed in to make dynamite, sugar added to
cans of sweetcorn and a lubricant for snowshoes:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">There
is hardly a man, woman, or child on this side of the continent who
has not heard of “Snowshoe Thompson”, yet very few persons really
know anything about him or his exploits. His were the first
Norwegian snowshoes ever seen in the mountains, and at that time
nothing was known of the mysterious “dope” — a preparation of
pitch, which, being applied to the bottom of the shoes, enables
the wearer to glide over snow softened by the rays of the sun. ...
Without “dope” the soft snow stuck to, and so clogged his shoes
that it was impossible for him to travel in it.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Albert Lea Enterprise (Albert
Lea, Minnesota), 30 Mar. 1876.</em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">It’s
also recorded early on in the sense of a drug, either for humans
or horses:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">I
learned something of his giving dope to his horses about the time
he moved from Garrettsville to Chagrin Falls. ... I learned that
he was giving his horse arsenic and laudanum.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Ashtabula Weekly Telegraph
(Ashtabula, Ohio), 4 Dec. 1858. The owner thought giving
arsenic to his horses would improve their health.</em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">The
“doc” made his own pills — “the real dope,” Camp said.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Waukesha Freeman (Waukesha,
Wisconsin), 29 Mar. 1859.</em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">This
drug sense became widespread later in two specific ways, firstly
in reference to the thick treacle-like preparation used in
opium-smoking:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">He
persistently refuses to give the signs by which admittance may be
had to the [opium] den, but he says that it is so jealously
guarded that four doors have to be passed through before the
smoking-room is reached, where a “dope” for ten cents, requiring
about twenty minutes to smoke, is obtained, and on the bare floor
of which the smokers lie extended during their torpor.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Northern Ohio Journal
(Painesville, Ohio), 14 Jun. 1879. </em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">This
gave rise in the early 1880s to the term <em>dope-fiend</em> for
an habitual user. Later, <em>dope</em> broadened to refer to all
sorts of recreational narcotics, becoming widely known by the
early twentieth century.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">In
the other branch of the drug sense, the term became specifically
associated with drugging racehorses, either to improve their
performance or degrade it:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">The
mare was two lengths ahead the first thirty yards, but suddenly
let up, and was badly beaten. There is no doubt but that foul play
was the cause of her losing, the mare having been “doped”.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho),
31 Jul. 1873.</em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">Drugs
of every name and description are used to “dope” horses so that
they may win stakes. The poor animals are stuffed with all sorts
of stimulants from sherry to strychnine. ... Such drugs as
Fowler’s solution of arsenic, Spanish fly, cocaine, chloral,
valerian, and belladonna, were employed.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Galveston Daily News (Galveston,
Texas), 4 Jan. 1896.</em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;"><em>Dope</em>
in the sense of information, particularly information that isn’t
widely known or easily obtained, came directly from this practice.
A whisper from the stables or some confederate telling a gambler
which horses were being drugged was potentially worth a lot of
money, so <em>dope</em> came to mean knowledge that drugs had
been employed. This led to its being used for information about
racing in general and later broadened still further. A publication
giving punters background information about horses at a track
became humorously or sarcastically known as a <em>dope book</em>,
also later a <em>dope sheet</em>; both were recorded in the 1890s
and similarly these generalised later to refer to other topics.
The phrases <em>inside dope</em>, <em>real dope</em>, <em>true
dope</em> and <em>straight dope</em> — asserting the undisputed
truth — were appearing in print by the early years of the new
century:</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">Referee
Bean gave out the following figures and the fight fans who want
the straight dope will probably not miss it far by accepting them.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake
City, Utah), 7 Apr. 1904.</em></span></p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Georgia,Times,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:15pt;margin-top:6px;margin-bottom:6px;">The
sense that’s least clear in its origins is that of a stupid
person. It was recorded a couple of times in the Cumberland
dialect of northern England in the middle of the nineteenth
century in the sense of a simpleton and in the US from the early
twentieth century. We have to conclude that the two arose
independently, the Cumberland one from some unknown source and the
American one from the idea of a person under the influence of a
narcotic. The adjective <em>dopey</em> is also American and is
recorded earlier than the corresponding noun.</p>
<p
style="background-color:#ffffff;color:#000000;font-family:Arial,Tahoma,Helvetica,sans-serif;margin-left:24px;margin-top:6px;margin-right:80px;margin-bottom:6px;font-size:11pt;line-height:14pt;">She
is very thin now, and has the peculiar clear pallor that marks the
excessive opium smoker. She looked “dopey,” too, even then.
“Dopey,” by the way, is the Chinese quarter‘s most brilliant
contribution to American slang. One hears it from the lips of
people who have no idea that dope means opium.<br>
<span style="color:#008000;"><em>Burlington Gazette</em>
(Burlington, Iowa), 1 Dec. 1893.</span></p>
<p style="font-weight:bold;margin:18pt 0 0
0;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;font-size:14pt;color:green;">Useful
information</p>
<p
style="color:black;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;margin:6pt
0 0 0;"><b>About this newsletter:</b> World Wide Words is
researched, written and published by Michael Quinion in the UK.
ISSN 1470-1448. Copyediting and advice are freely provided by
Julane Marx, Robert Waterhouse, John Bagnall and Peter Morris,
though any residual errors are the fault of the author. The linked
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