JOLTS; bullpen

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 08/11/2002 2:31:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Bapopik at AOL.COM writes:

> JOLTS--From the Sunday NEW YORK TIMES, 11 August 2002, sction 10, pg. 1,
col.
> 1:  "Known as JOLTS, for job openings and labor turnover..."  Why JOLTS and
> not JOLTs or JOLT?  JOLT, or Job Opening-Labor Turnover, has been in
> existence since at least 1969.  "JOLTS" would appear to be an error.
Doesn't
> anyone at a major newspaper read over the copy anymore?

Obviously written by someone whose world is filled with "brother-in-laws" and
"solicitor-generals".

(Is JOLT Cola---"all the sugar and twice the caffeine"---still on the market?)

>  BULLPEN & BULLDYKE & BULL RUN--There was a whole lot of "bull" in the
Civil
> War. "Last ditch" was very popular at this time.  Perhaps someone used
"dyke"
> for "ditch," and the term is similar to "bullpen"?

In the Civil War the term "last ditch" meant exactly that.  Barbed wire not
yet having been invented, ditches were dug in front on the fortifications and
if you were engaged in a "last-ditch defense" you were literally holding (or
not holding) the enemy at the last possible point before he broke your lines.
 Unlike in World War I, where the soldiers lived in "trenches", in the Civil
War the soldiers were behind "breastworks" which were above ground rather
than in the ditches.

At Valley Forge there is a display of a properly (by 18th century standards)
constructed fortification.  The fortification is a bank of dirt, behind the
soldiers took cover, and the dirt came from a ditch dug in front the of the
fortification.  Rather to my surprise, the OED says that "dyke" can refer
both to a mound of dirt and to the ditch the dirt was excavated from.

In place of the not-yet-invented barbed wire, soldiers sharpened stakes and
planted them in front of the breastworks, with the sharpened ends facing the
enemy.  The jargon term in English-speaking armies for the stakes was
"cheveaux-de-frise", generally rendered "frizzy horses".  This will provide
an antedating for "frizzy" in the OED if anyone can locate a contemporary
soldier's reference to to "frizzy horses".

"Bull-pen" originally was a pen for holding bulls, but OED gives a citation
from 1865 for "bull-pen" meaning a prison of some kind, so yes it must have
been a Civil War term.  However, I find it unlikely that anyone would have
confused "dyke/dike" meaning "ditch and/or accompanying breastwork" with
"bull pen" meaning "stockade, prison."

              - Jim Landau