"Hunc over de" clubs, NY 1736?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On 10/3/07, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
> >-----
> >"Folk-Custom and Folk-Belief in North Carolina," by N. C. Hoke.
> >_Journal of American Folklore_  Vol. 5, No. 17 (Apr. 1892), p. 118
> >"I spy" is more commonly played under the name of "Hunk Over-Dee." I
> >had supposed this a collection of arbitrary sounds, until Mr. Culin's
> >article gave ground for the belief that the name comes from a Scotch
> >playground. "Over the Dee" was probably the _Ultima Thule_ of a home,
> >or hunk, to these Scotch children.
> >-----
>
> There was something in N&Q too, but I can see only the despicable snippet.

Here 'tis. The explanation of the metaphorical extension seems
plausible to me, if not the allusion to the River Dee. (So now we have
Dutch, Scottish, and Welsh provenances!)

-----
http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/s5-VI/157/534-a
_Notes and Queries_, 5th S. VI, Dec. 30, 1876, p. 534, col. 1
"HUNK O' DEE." -- This is the singular name of a boys' game in
Pennsylvania which is very similar to "I spy." Instead of saying "I
spy Brown, Jones, or Robinson," as the case may be, we say "Hunk o'
Dee Brown," &c. It is a contraction of the words "Hunk over Dee," as I
find in two communications to Zenger's New York Weekly Journal, March
1 and April 19, 1736, by a writer who often speaks of the "pretty game
of Hunk over Dee," which he charges his political opponents as
playing, using it entirely in a metaphorical sense of evasion or
dodging. This shows the game has long been known in Pennsylvania or
the vicinity, as that paper circulated in the neighbouring provinces
as well as New York.
I have been unable to find it in Strutt or in any book of sports and
games, and have consulted many. The fact of its not being known in any
other state at the present day except Western New Jersey and Delaware,
where the early settlers, like those of Pennsylvania, were mostly
English and Welsh Quakers from those counties in the
neighbourhood of the river Dee, would seem to indicate its origin as
having some connexion with that river, where it was probably played by
the little Quaker children in their old homes on its banks nearly two
centuries ago. Ormerod, however, does not speak of it.
The persecution of the worthy disciples of George Fox: was so great in
North Wales that most of their meetings were entirely broken up at an
early date and the members emigrated in a body to Pennsylvania, where
now exist many Welsh names as well as those of Cheshire, both local
and family, also old English words peculiar to the latter place which
have gone out of general use.
WILLIAM JOHN POTTS.
Camden, New Jersey, U.S.A.
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--Ben Zimmer

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