bucket brigade & chain gang

[Dennis R. Preston]

Mark,

I'm sure you didn't mean to oppose "dialactal" and "standard" but
"dialectal" versus "wide-spread" or some such thing. (Otherwise speakers of
standard dialects won't know what's up.)

dInIs

>I'm sure I've seen "bucket brigade" used to refer to a line of people handing
>stuff along where the stuff was not buckets of water or anything else. I first
>learned the term in its literal sense, but the semantic extension seemed
>obvious.
>
>"Chain gang" is not dialectal US, but standard, and AFAIK is understood
>everywhere in the same way. It refers to a crew of convicts working
>outside the
>prison, generally on some kind of public works project like a road, under
>guard
>and chained together to prevent escape. They have historically been used
>mostly
>in Southern states, or such is my impression. I don't know how much they are
>still used. The term was in New England newspapers last year when a
>Massachusetts sheriff used convict labor in approximately this way,
>evoking many
>protests.
>
>A search of the On-Line Archive of the Boston _Globe_ (
>http://www.globe.com/globe/search/ ) produced 36 hits in 1999, many
>relating to
>this controversy. I append the opening paragraphs of four of them, ordered
>chronologically:
>
>
>   SHACKLED BUT FREE
>   FOR BRISTOL INMATES, CHAIN GANG A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
>
>   Published on 06/17/1999. Article 23 of 33 found.
>   SOURCE: By Ric Kahn, Globe Staff
>
>   NEW BEDFORD -- For Lawrence Woodsum, 26, degradation
>   was not being an inaugural member of the state's first chain gang
>   yesterday, shackled ankle-to-ankle to four other inmates holding
>   paintbrushes like a bunch of tethered pre-schoolers.
>
>   Real humiliation, Woodsum said, was found on the road to prison
>   itself: smoking crack, stealing vegetables, and sleeping on the street.
>
>
>   NOT WELCOME SIGN IS OUT FOR SHERIFF'S CHAIN GANGS
>
>   Published on 06/19/1999. Article 22 of 33 found.
>   SOURCE: By Ric Kahn, Globe Staff
>
>   The state's first chain gangs are all dressed up in silver shackles and
>   new red jumpsuits -- but do they have a place to go?
>
>   Yesterday, the Fall River Housing Authority served Bristol County
>   Sheriff Thomas Hodgson and his black-booted chain gangs with a
>   no-trespass order, kicking him and his 10 men off an abandoned
>   ball field they had planned to transform into a field of dreams.
>
>
>   CHAIN GANG IS RELIC OF AMERICAN APARTHEID
>
>   Published on 06/21/1999. Article 18 of 33 found.
>   Your June 17 Metro headline, ``Shackled but free: For Bristol
>   inmates, chain gang a breath of fresh air,'' reeks of Antebellum
>   nostalgia. Just for the record: A person wearing shackles in public is
>   not free, nor does anyone working in them really believe that.
>   Otherwise people in offices, maybe even a few at the Globe, would
>   be wearing them.
>
>
>   TWO MORE TOWNS REJECT CHAIN GANGS
>
>   Published on 06/23/1999. Article 17 of 33 found.
>   SOURCE: (AP)
>
>   The showdown over chain gangs in southeastern Massachusetts
>   intensified as two more towns joined a growing list of communities
>   saying no to the program. Despite votes by selectmen in Dartmouth
>   and Freetown to reject community cleanup work by shackled
>   inmates, Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson vowed yesterday
>   to press on. The gangs began work last week in New Bedford
>   when two groups of five men, chained together at the ankle and
>   watched by armed guards, painted a fence at a drug treatment
>   center.
>
>
>-- Mark A. Mandel