a very old joke

[George Thompson]

"Authenticated Etymologies", New-York Daily Gazette, May 15, 1789, p.
2, col. 4 - p. 3, col. 1, copied from Poughkeepsie Journal.  A column
of joke-etymologies, mostly of place names.

This includes a story that a man, needing to think of a name for the
province located north of Connecticut, asked a slave for suggestions;
the slave was stumped too, and said "Massa Chuse It".
I remember being told that joke by a classmate in grade-school -- a
particularly obnoxious little jerk, and I knew better than to give any
credit to his etymologies.

This issue of the New-York Daily Gazette is available in the Early
American Periodicals microfilms, if any of you are collectors of
antique bogus etymologies.  Another was that Columbus chose the name
America on a day when his crew was in a particularly jovial mood: "in
A Merry Key" -- but I didn't hear this one from that kid.
I haven't looked for the story in the database.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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