mort "woman"--article deriving this word from mort "salmon" (was: Irish apples)

[Gerald Cohen]

  In Jonathon Green's very helpful ads-l message about Daniel
Cassidy's _NY Observer_ article, there's mention that Cassidy might
have solved a centuries-old  problem: the origin of cant "mort"
"woman, harlot". The _NY Observer_ article says: "Mort: old New York
slang for a woman -- Mór te: fiery passion, high spirits, warm
affection."

    Green, addressing D. Cassidy says:

>...Then mort. Here I think you have cracked a centuries'-old conundrum. No-one
>has ever been able to pin this one down. The OED is most honest: 'Origin
>unknown' and other suggestions are pretty specious. The question remains,
>was the Irish term in existence c. 1560?...

     However, in Oct. 1990  my _Comments on Etymology_ carried what I
consider to be a plausible explanation of this "mort", and it was
then published formally in my _Studies in Slang, part IV_; Frankfurt
am Main: Peter Lang, 1995, p. 51;
article title "Cant _mort_ 'girl, woman' from _mort_ 'salmon in its third
year',"; author: Gerald Cohen. I'll now reproduce the article up to
the Reference:

     "OED2 presents cant _mort_ (sb. #4) as meaning 'girl, woman' and
being of unknown origin.  But I believe a lead can be furnished by an
awareness of the now dated German slang _Backfisch_ 'frying fish,';
cf. its appearance in 'Meine erste Liebe,' (part of
_Lausbubengeschichten_) by the Bavarian author Ludwig Thoma.

    "_Backfisch_ 'teenage girl' is known to derive from the idea of
young fish past the throw-back stage being more suited for frying --
and hence eating -- than the adult fish.  German clearly indicates
that men could liken women to fish; and this is part of the larger
picture of men describing women with food imagery, e.g. _a peach_, _a
tomato_, _a dish_.

        "Now, it turns out that _mort_ is also a term for a salmon,
specifically a salmon in its third year (see OED2, sb. #3).  And a
check of Chambers 1753 _Encyclopedia_ shows that the fish becomes
officially a salmon in its sixth year;  i.e. a mort is neither very
young nor very old:

    "(under salmon): 'The salmon in the different stages of its life
and growth has different names.  The Latins call it when young
_salar_, when of middle growth _sario_ or _fario_, and only when
fully grown _salmon_.  In England the fishermen have names for it in
every year of its growth.  In the first it is called a _smelt_, in
the second a _sprod_, in the third a _mort_, in the fourth a _fork
tail_, and in the fifth a _half-fish_;  finally, in the sixth it is
called a _salmon_.  This is the common agreement of our fishermen,
though there are some who say the _salmon_ comes much sooner to full
growth.'

        "The first attestation of _mort_ as a fish is 1530; as a
girl/woman: 1561-75.  So chronologically there are no problems with
the suggestion of _mort_ 'salmon to woman' in cant."

****

   That's the article. Also, if "mort"  (woman) is in fact derived
from Irish Mór te  (fiery passion, high spirits, warm affection), one
would expect this semantic development to have occurred first within
Irish.

Gerald Cohen