square from Delaware (1939)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:32 AM -0400 9/4/08, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>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

Was "Spokane", from the evidence here and below, formerly pronounced
to rhyme with "lane"?  Or is this just an outlander pronunciation, as
pronouncing "Arkansas" to rhyme with "Kansas"?  Waller's "strictly
from Dixie" works pretty well as a half-rhyme, but for me "a lane
from Spokane" doesn't come close.  "A trash can from Spokane" maybe.

LH

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

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