"Hunc over de" clubs, NY 1736?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/4/2007 12:02 AM, Doug Wilson wrote:
>>... I had to use Wikipedia to remind myself what "I spy"
>>is.  But did the name mean the same game in 1892?
>
>Probably not. It was usually described as an outdoors hide-and-seek game.
>
>>How does "I spy"
>>(of today) oppose to something called "maintain truth"?
>
>Don't know. Don't know how hide-and-seek would oppose it either.
>
>>And finally -- who can divine the relationship between a game like "I
>>spy" and the very possibly salacious activities inquired about by
>>ladies between 15 and 50 in my 1736 newspaper letter?
>
>There are boy-girl variants of hide-and-seek -- IIRC -- in which
>(e.g.) when the man finds the hiding woman (could be vice versa) he
>is supposed to hide with her: maybe no more salacious than ballroom
>dancing, but still it makes a sort of a couple, I guess.

Yes, good suggestion.  I too remember this from my dimming youth, and
as including boy-girl "play" as well, or at least the aroma of
it.  Perhaps at the 1736 "Hunc over de" club meetings (or at least in
the possibly-satiric article) when a man found a hiding woman he went
off with her to a private room.  That would fit the comment, and
choice of words, of the young widow:

"... as it is described to her, there is no Difficulty in their Sport
but what may be soon acquired, that she conceives she understands it
well, and proposes another Society of Hunc over de's to be
established by the Company present, with a competent Number of Males,
but submits it to your Advice, and the Opinion of the younger Ladies,
for the Elder she thinks are less interested in the Matter."

>>Or relate "I
>>spy" to the somewhat casual mention in connection with the men's
>>"Hunc over de" club that near to demolished the ladies' tea table,
>>and became as warm as scallopt Oysters?
>
>My casual impression is that the tea table demolition might refer
>simply to voracious eating, the warmth simply to heated political
>discussions ("party" = "partisanship" or so, I think).

Yes, "party" seems definitely a play on partisan political factions;
that sense was I think becoming common at that period, the age of Walpole.

>I have put a question on Dave Wilton's Wordorigins.org discussion
>board; some participants there have shown some familiarity with Dutch
>in the past.

Joel

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