"mountain boomer"

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 04:31 PM 4/26/2001 -0400, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM> wrote:
>The OED will be treating these terms (the three different animal
>senses and the 'hillbilly' sense) under the same headword, broad sense
>'mountain' + 'one that booms', exactly as Joanne suggests.

But note that she has suggested the possibility that the name "mountain
boomer," when used of a type of beaver in the Pacific Northwest, may have
something to do with the act of making booms (i.e., structures made of
floating logs), whereas the etymology in DARE appears to assert that
"boomer" comes from the idea (if, presumably, scientifically inaccurate)
that several different upland animals produce vocalizations that echo along
hillsides or in valleys. The two kinds of "boom" are etymologically unrelated.

Actually, does OED2 boom v2 meanings 2a and 2b, i.e., "to boom" in the sense
of "furnish with a boom," carry senses that apply to beavers? Do people say
"the beavers boomed the river" or "that species of beaver booms" (cf. the
intransitive cite given in DARE) or the like? In any event, there are two
cites in DARE in which "boom" as a verb is used of beavers, so if there is
no verb "to boom" descriptive of beavers building boom-like structures, then
those two DARE cites are probably using "to boom" in the more common sense
of "to make a loud noise," which seems likely to be the sense in which it
was also applied to eastern squirrels.

BTW, there are lots of examples of "boomer" being used for things that make
loud, echoing noises -- I can quickly note that Partridge DSUE has "boomer"
= propagandist etc., DARE has "boomer" = thundercloud, etc. Pending good
evidence for "boomer" = builder of booms (used of animals), my parsimonious
tendency would be to take "boomer" the squirrel as implying some idea,
accurate or not (probably the latter), that it makes some noticeably loud noise.


>My question
>was not questioning this arrangement, which, barring some unexpected
>evidence, seems hard to refute.

That was my thought too, but I *am* trying to take account of possibilities
and suggestions that cannot be ruled out prima facie!


>Rather I was asking if there was
>any idea about the 'hillbilly' sense in particular--whether it can
>be said to have derived from the 'squirrel' sense (e.g. 1.a. squirrel
>b. hillbilly 2. lizard 3. whatever the other thing was), suggested
>by the chronological arrangement ('hillbilly' is only slightly later
>than 'squirrel') and the later explanations relating them, or if
>the 'hillbilly' sense should be regarded as one on an equal footing
>as the animal senses (1. 2. 3. 4., chronologically), or if the
>various animal senses should be regarded as one unit and the
>'hillbilly' as another (I. animals 1. 2. 3. II. people 4.). Or
>perhaps something else.
>

Given what I tend to work on, my most detailed experience is with OED1
rather than OED2. My sense of OED1 is that entries seem to combine
chronological and conceptual arrangement in sometimes complicated ways,
depending on what the needs of the semantic history seem to be in a
particular case. (If Jesse has any comments along these lines, I'm sure
listers would find them instructive.)

Anyhow, to the extent that more than one structural factor appears to be
involved, and given that those factors must sometimes push in different
directions, maybe the "crane shot" take on "mountain boomer," pending
receipt of subsequent research results that we casual posters don't have
time to generate, is this: Like most words that migrated across the
continent in the course of the 19th century, "mountain boomer" most likely
began on the east coast. According to what I've seen, it is attested in
several upland areas, including North Carolina, in application only to a
squirrel -- i.e., it is not used on the east coast for either the lizard
native to Missouri and Oklahoma (it's the state animal of Oklahoma, if I'me
remembering correctly) or the beaver native to the Pacific Northwest. The
concept of hillbilly (under that term and others, incl. "mountain boomer")
seems to have originated in the Southeatern U.S. and is still strongly
associated with that region.

So perhaps -- again, pending further evidence and analysis -- the
development runs from the squirrel to the hillbilly, within the Southeast,
and meanwhile from the squirrel to the lizard and the beaver as people moved
west and redeployed an animal name they may no longer have had a use for out
there. (I've seen no evidence yet that "mountain boomer" squirrels are found
in Oklahoma or the Pacific Northwest). Of ocurse, there is tons of evidence
for the redeployment of floral and faunal terminology as people migrated
first from Europe to Eastern North America, and then across the US.

If you wanted a strictly chronological development for your entry, you'd
have to determine whether the hillbilly sense developed before or after the
non-east-coast animal names. However, OED (i.e., OED1) often arranges
overall entries (headwords) not by the first attested use of each sense but
in conceptual order instead (but using chrono arrangement within each sense,
of course). In this case, one would treat hillbilly either as (A) a derived
sense immediately following the treatment of the squirrel (i.e., meaning 1b,
after meaning 1a), or else (B) at the end of the entry (i.e., meaning 4) as
a result of the idea that the reapplication of the animal name going west
across the country is the most important issue for the entry, with the
application to people taken as a side issue to be treated at the end of the
entry.


>This is not very likely to clarify things, I see upon reading over
>that morass up there.
>

My experience, which I fear is probably typical, is that we only avoid
"morassity" after a long process of gathering and analyzing information. So
"morassity" is stylistically appropriate to the period of struggle. Didn't
Skeat always claim that he only spent three hours in total on any one entry,
and then let it go? Hmm, how did he do it?



Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at nyu.edu