["Bulldyke"] (1892)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>         My father, who owned a small farm in Adair County, Kentucky, used
> to name his bulls "Bullduck."  He considered it a traditional name for a
> bull.  "Bullduck" was only a bull's name in my experience, but at least
> on occasion it seems also to have been applied to humans.  The Adair
> County News on 12/22/1897, online at
> http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/ky/adair/news/1897d04.txt, had this
> passage:
>
>         <<"Bullduck" MILLER is the Tom Sawyer of Columbia among the
> colored boys. We
>contract with him weekly to turn the press. He never fails to bring less than
>four boys with him. They watch him turn the big wheel and it looks so easy
>they volunteer to help him and, when the edition is off, "Bullduck" has done
>but little work and receives all the pay. When he walks out of the office the
>boys follow him, wanting a piece, but the only response from "Bullduck" is,
>"I am Shifty and I tell you that".>>
>
>         "Bullduck" and "Bulldyke" are close enough that I wonder if
> Bulldyke may also have started as a traditional bull's name.

That's interesting. I wonder why "Bullduck" was/is a traditional bull's
name ... and if "Bulldyke" was one too, why it was.

There is a bird called the bull duck, AKA ring-necked duck. "Bullduck" has
been used like "bullshit" occasionally too (cf. "bullpuckey", "bulldust",
etc.)..

-- Doug Wilson