Bouey knife (Bowie knife) (Jan. 25, 1836)

[Jonathan Lighter]

When white banjo-picker Frank Proffitt of N.C. sang "Tom Dooley" for a folksong collector ca1940, he sang "You _stobbed_ her with your knife."  He kept singing it that way too till he died, thirty years later.

  I met an old Kentucky miner in 1976 - also white - who likewise sang "stobbed" in the ballad he called "Purty Polly."

  Cf. "stamp/stomp." "champ/chomp."

  JL


Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: Bouey knife (Bowie knife) (Jan. 25, 1836)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FWIW, as a child in Texas, I learned "dirk" as the name of what I
would now call a "hunting knife."

Blues line: "I stobbed her wif my doik." (According to someone on BET,
"stob" is still normal in Alabama BE.)

-Wilson

On 6/22/07, Bapopik at aol.com wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Bapopik at AOL.COM
> Subject: Bouey knife (Bowie knife) (Jan. 25, 1836)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Dominican mother-in-law is in town, and we took her to the Alamo. She
> still doesn't know what it's about or what it's called.
> ...
> In the gift shop was an exhibit on the Bowie knife. I forget the citation,
> but an early one was for "Bouey" knife. I would never have thought to look
> for this spelling (and can't find it on the web).This is before the death of
> Jim Bowie at the Alamo, March 6, 1836.
> ...
> ...
> ...
> 25 January 1836, Nashville Banner and Nashville Whig, pg. 4,col. 4 ad:
> 40 dozen Rodger's Superior Pen and Pocket Knives,
> Dirk, Deer and Sportmen's Knives;
> Arkansas and Bouey Knives;
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



---------------------------------
Get the Yahoo! toolbar and be alerted to new email wherever you're surfing.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org