"shade-tree mechanic", not in (some) dictionaries

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:13 AM -0500 2/25/09, Bill Palmer wrote:
>What is the issue?  The widespread use of the phrase?
>
>I have lived all over the US, and, in one circumstance or another, have
>heard the term very often.
>
>Bill Palmer

I haven't lived an entirely sheltered life, having resided in and
around NYC, upstate NY, MA, CA, MI, WI, and CT, and had never heard
the term until encountering in the song noted below, which led me to
suspect that there's a strong regional component to it.  It's also in
neither AHD4 nor the OED, which led me to suspect it's not all *that*
widespread, given the fact that (unlike, say, "tractor mechanic")
it's not entirely transparent.  Perhaps the lexicographers are living
in the shell with me.  (I also imagine it might be more familiar to
mechanics like the Car Talk guys than to non-mechanics like me, so
there would be an argot component as well.)  Is there an etymology
provided somewhere, either confirming or disconfirming my speculation
below?

LH

>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Stephen Goranson" <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
>To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 6:07 AM
>Subject: Re: "shade-tree mechanic", not in (some) dictionaries
>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail
>>header -----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
>>Subject:      Re: "shade-tree mechanic", not in (some) dictionaries
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Quoting Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>:
>>
>>>At 4:56 PM -0500 2/24/09, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>>>On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Laurence Horn
>>>><laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  Emmylou Harris's new album "All I Intended To Be" contains a
>>>>>  particularly fine song "Broken Down Man's Lament", which contains a
>>>>>  line I was sure I was mishearing, but it turns out I wasn't:
>>>>>
>>>>>  "I was a good shade-tree mechanic."
>>>>>
>>>>>  More fully, the quatrain in question runs as follows, confirmed by
>>>>>  both the enclosed lyrics and various web sites:
>>>>>
>>>>>  ======================
>>>>>  I was a good shade-tree mechanic
>>>>>  So I sent myself to school
>>>>>  They smoothed out my rough edges
>>>>>  In my hand they put new tools
>>>>>  ======================
>>>>>
>>>>>  No help from the usual sources, but urbandictionary.com comes
>>>>>through nicely:
>>>>[snip]
>>>>
>>>>Barry Popik has it on his site with citations back to 1942:
>>>>
>>>>http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/shade_tree_mechanic/
>>>>
>>>>In a 2005 thread here I noted some other variants, including "shade-tree
>>>>engineer" and "shade-tree philosopher".
>>>>
>>>>http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0506C&L=ads-l&P=15454
>>>
>>>I obviously had plumb forgot that thread, and hadn't checked Barry's
>>>site.  Is the idea that you're doing the car-repair, or engineering,
>>>or philosophizing in the comfort of your old shade-tree?  Since there
>>>seem to be no dictionary entries, it's hard to get a bead on the
>>>etymology.  Or, for that matter, the relevant isogloss--it is really
>>>localized to Texan and points west, or found elsewhere in the south?
>>>We need to get us some shade-tree mechanics in Connecticut!
>>>
>>>LH
>>
>>The Cambridge MA Car Talk guys (at least one of them) on NPR used the
>>term.
>>
>>Stephen
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>
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