"Ax(e) to grind" redux

[Jonathan Lighter]

My understanding is the same as Wilson's.  I suppose the story could be the indirect origin of the phrase, if "He's got an ax to grind" orig. meant, "He's got something that needs doing," and then was misunderstood to mean, "He has an ulterior motive."

If.

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "Ax(e) to grind" redux
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On Jul 25, 2005, at 4:24 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
> Subject: "Ax(e) to grind" redux
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On 2 Jun 2005, Fred Shapiro inquired:
>>
>> The OED states the following:
>>
>> "to have axes to grind (orig. U.S. politics): to have private ends to
>> serve [in reference to a story told by Franklin]"
>>
>> Can anyone supply any details as to where the Franklin story referred
>> to
>> here is published?
>
> Sam Clements responded:
>>
>> According to Christine Amer in AHD of Idioms,
>>
>> "...comes from a story by Charles Miner, published in 1811, about a
>> boy
>> who was flattered into turning the grindstone for a man sharpening his
>> ax. He worked hard untill the school bell rang, whereupon the man,
>> instead of thanking the boy, began to scold him for being late and
>> told
>> him to hurry to school."
>
> This question came up recently on the alt.usage.english newsgroup, and
> I
> dug up an article that helps explain how Miner's story got attributed
> to
> Franklin:
>
> -----
> New York Times, Apr 12, 1914, (Book Review) p. 190
> "Queries and Answers in All Branches of Literature"
>
> Can the editor tell me where to find the story of the man who had the
> axe
> to grind? It is generally attributed to Franklin, and I believe myself
> to
> have read it once in one of his books, but cannot find it now. I want
> to
> place it, and shall be grateful for information.
>
> According to Walsh's Handy Book of Literary Curiosities the phrase
> about
> which our correspondent inquires has been frequently attributed to
> Benjamin Franklin, but it really belongs to Charles Miner (1780-1865),
> and
> occurs in an essay, entitled "Who'll turn the Grindstone?" originally
> contributed to The Wilkes-Barre Gleaner, a country newspaper

> in the interior of Pennsylvania

I beg to differ. ;-) Wilkes-Barre is in _northeast_ Pennsylvania.

> , in 1811. The author says that when he was a
> little boy he was accosted one cold Winter morning by a man with an
> axe on
> his shoulder. [...]
> The essay, it will be seen, is imitated from Franklin's "Don't pay too
> much for your whistle." To make the analogy more complete, the series
> to
> which it belonged was gathered up into a book under the title of
> "Essays
> from the Desk of Poor Robert the Scribe," Doylestown, 1815.
> The lines which contains the phrase referred to are as follows:
> When I see a merchant over-polite to his customers, begging them to
> taste
> a little brandy and throwing half his goods on the counter--thinks, I,
> that man has an axe to grind.
> -----
>
> So the similarity of the story to Franklin's "Whistle" story, and its
> inclusion in an anthology under the pen name "Poor Robert" (suggestive
> of
> Franklin's "Poor Richard"), led people to attribute the story to
> Franklin.
> On APS, I see attributions to Franklin going back to 1836. And in the
> early 20th century, credit was given to Franklin in the widely read
> _Elson
> Readers_ by William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck (Elson also
> coauthored
> the "Dick & Jane" series). In Book 5 of the _Readers_ series, Elson and
> Keck included both "The Whistle" and "The Axe to Grind", allowing for a
> side-by-side comparison:
>
> http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/7lsrd11.txt
>
> There's still the question of when Miner's story was originally
> published.
> Both of the above sources say 1811, but Sam found the story appearing
> (unattributed) in the Nov. 28, 1810 issue of _The Centinel_ of
> Gettysburg, Pa., reprinted from _The Luzerne Federalist_.
>

The "Luzerne" referred to is also a town in northeast Pennsylvania.

> More on Charles Miner in this interesting blog entry:
>
> http://vernondent.blogspot.com/2004/10/blogging-in-1820.html
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>

But, seriously, folks, how does this story relate to the meaning of
have "an ax(e) to grind"? I've always considered this phrase to be
another way of saying "a bone to pick" or "a personal interest in."
Have I simply been mistaken in this belief?

-Wilson Gray

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