"herring-broth" revisited

[Gerald Cohen]

   A while back, George Thompson shared with ads-l an 1807 incident in
which an Irish woman reacted furiously to a request for herring
broth. I wrote up the brief ads-l discussion of this matter in draft
form, and now some additional comments have come from an Irish
Studies group.
      Those comments may be of interest to ads-l, both because of the
herring-broth matter itself and because of the terms "herringchoker,"
"herron", "mackerel snapper," and "Two-boaters."  I have been unable
to get to the library for the past week and am therefore unaware what
DARE et al. may have to say about them.
     The new comments appear below my signoff. First, though, my
thanks go to John Morgan and the Irish Studies discussion group for
their assistance. When the article appears (in two months?) I'll be
happy to provide a complimentary copy to the Irish Studies
participants. (It's co-authored by George Thompson and me, with due
credit given throughout).

Gerald Cohen
editor, Comments on Etymology


[recently added to draft of article on "herring broth"]:

        John Morgan notified the Irish Studies discussion group
(irishstudies at lists.services.wisc.edu) about the 1807 'herring-broth'
incident and soon received several insightful replies:

1) from Carmel McCaffrey (cmc at jhu.edu): 'Actually, as a native Irish
person I know that broth was always the food of poor people who just
boiled or
simmered bones and the like into a broth.  In Dublin there is an
expression to describe the eating habits of the poor "your dinner's
poured out."'

2) from Jim MacKillop (pmackkillop at yahoo.com): '..."herringchoker" is
an archaic insult for my own ethnic group, the Scottish Gaels (mostly
Catholic, former Jacobites) of Nova Scotia.  It has been so
ameliorated that the abbreviated form, "herron," is now a term of
rough affection.  More significantly when my father migrated to
Boston c. 1923, "herringchoker" was a term of derision used by Boston
Irish, who considered themselves a cut above, for the New World Gaels
of Nova Scotia.
        'In other contexts, "herringchoker" has also denoted poor
Scandinavians.'

3) from Catherine Shannon (CBS38 at aol.com): 'Re: herring issue--I too,
born and bred near Boston, recall the use of the term "herringchoker"
to denote those who came down to the area from the Canadian
Maritimes.  Jim is correct that the implication was that they weren't
quite as Irish as we were who had parents and grandparents who came
directly from Ireland to Boston.  There was also another term
suggesting a bit of smug superiority over those "Irish" who came from
the Maritimes---they were referred to as "Two boaters." Does anyone
else recall that usage?
        'Mackerel snapper was a term of derision that applied rather
broadly among the lower echelons of WASP Boston to all the local
RC's.  Too bad our television age and pc'ness has made our language
less graphic and imaginative in some respects.'
        [G. Cohen: In the last paragraph, Catherine Shannon is
replying to Jim Doan's e-mail: 'I'm just guessing, but could it be
comparable to calling someone a "mackerel snapper," one of the few
anti-Catholic terms of derision I remember from my youth?  In other
words, he [of the 1807 article] made an immediate assumption that the
couple were Irish, therefore Catholic (and fish-eating), as well as
presumably of a lower socioeconomic level than the individual who
entered the apartment.' ----- John Morgan then added: 'I do know that
herring and mackerel are the fish ordinaire in Ireland.']