square from Delaware (1939)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:03 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>
>> Oh, I was just floating the idea that "square" in the relevant sense
>> could have originated as a shortened form of "square from Delaware",
>> which in turn might have started out as not much more than a funny
>> rhyme along the lines of the others in the 1939 Dan Burley cite (Lane
>> from Spokane, killer from Manila, Home from Rome). Then when it was
>> established as a pejorative term for an unhip outgrouper, the "from
>> Delaware" part could be dropped. Just a theory...
>
> And a reasonable one IMHO.
>
> In "home from Rome", is "home" an abbreviation for "home[town]-boy" or
> some such thing? If so, can "square" be short for some analogous
> expression (e.g., [*]"square-boy") denoting a person from one's home
> "square" (nowadays we would say "[city] block" maybe)? Just woolgathering.

"Home" shows up as a vocative equivalent to "homeboy" in Burley's 1944
_Original Handbook of Harlem Jive_, as cited in HDAS: "Well, Home, ...
you'd better get on it if you want it." "Lane", meanwhile, is defined
by HDAS as "a person easily imposed upon or cheated; victim; sucker;
(also) (now usu.) one who is foolish or socially unsophisticated;
square." (A 1940 cite is given for "A lane from Spokane/Spain", app.
in the "sucker" sense.)  _The New Cab Calloway's Hepster's Dictionary_
(1944) defines "lane" more generally as "a male, usually a
nonprofessional."

Also from Burley's _Original Handbook of Harlem Jive_ is this passage
(reprinted in _Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel_):

----
The tendency toward rhyming which has been noted before, is to be
found more  especially among members of the Negro theatrical and
musical fraternities. These people travel more extensively than the
average Harlemites and, since they are engaged, more or less, in work
that has to do with the lyrical and poetic, such expressions as "like
the bear, I ain't nowhere"; "like the bear's brother, Freddie, Jack I
ain't ready"; "like the chicken, I ain't stickin'," (broke); "Home
from Rome" (Georgia); "Lane from Spokane," (Lane is the same as home);
and innumerable others are widely used.
----

So it looks like "home" in "home from Rome" had a pejorative sense (an
unsophisticated person from Rome, Georgia), to match "lane (from
Spokane)" and "square (from Delaware)". (In his "Square from Delaware"
song, Fats Waller adds another rhyming toponymic pejorative: "strictly
from Dixie".)


--Ben Zimmer

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