Guard-house" once = "jail / gaol"?

[Joel S. Berson]

I agree with Jon that the citations do not distinguish the two
senses.  As for a prison, might it have been used in that way only
for military personnel?

In my reading of 18th c. colonial newspapers, and a little of other
writings of the same time and place, I do not recall
"guard-house".  There is gaol, goal, and prison, and bridewell.

Joel

At 4/2/2007 06:02 PM, you wrote:
>OED distinguishes the two definitions, but the block of citations
>(from 1592) is not very helpful. Most or all look like "a building
>for the accommodation of a (military) guard" (def. a) rather than "a
>building in which prisoners are detained under guard" (def. b).
>
>   The "place of confinement" sense has been/ was common - if
> informal - in the U.S. army since before WWI at least.  I recall an
> overseas song from the immediate post-Kipling era of about 1900
> (you young whelps) with the words
>
>   "Now I'm in the guard-house a-waiting my discharge.
>   To hell with the sergeant and the corporal of the guard !"
>
>   I'm less certain about usage during the Civil War, but my
> impression is that "guard house" was more frequent then than
> "stockade," which suggests to me something more elaborate.
>
>   Here's an ex. ref. to the Mexican War of 1846-48:
>
>   1847, in J. Jacob Oswandel _Notes of the Mexican War_  (Phila.:
> [pvtly. ptd.], 1885) 174: Sunday, May 30, 1847.- This morning a
> non-commissioned officer was put in the
>   guard-house for passing soldiers on spurious passes.
>
>   I believe that this sort of "guard-house" was originally just the
> guards' quarters enlarged to include a common cell for prisoners
> awaiting trial.  This obvious set-up could easily date back to the 16th C.
>
>   JL
>
>Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: Wilson Gray
>Subject: Guard-house" once = "jail / gaol"?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Jon Lighter posted;
>
>ex., from 1814 :
>
>http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/facsimiles/1810s/181407060006.html
>
>"_A_....The other man, I saw the blow coming, I stooped my head, and
>in stooping
>I fell. Ashton directly collared me; he called me a b - y sod, and
>said he would take me to the _guard-house_.
>"_Q._ He called you a sod; did you know what he meaned by that
>expression - _A_. I know now; I did not at that time. He said he would
>take me to the _guard-house_."
>
>I've long wondered why it is that civilians often refer to the what we
>(ex-)GI's know as the "stockade" as the "guard(-)house." Making a WAG
>on the basis of Jon's evidence, I'd say that, once upon a time,
>"guard(-)house" was simply another term for "jail / gaol." In the
>current military - rather, when I was in the military a half-century
>ago - the guard house was the building or, sometimes, just a room, in
>which the privates of the guard were confined, for the convenience of
>the sergeant of the guard, when they were not actively engaged in
>guarding: "walking their posts from flank to flank and deferring to
>anyone above their rank." The equivalent of a civilian jail or prison
>is / was? the stockade.
>
>-Wilson
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>-Sam'l Clemens
>
>Dope wil get you through times of no money better than money will get
>you through times of no dope.
>-----
>-Free-Wheeling Franklin
>
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