Jinks Hoodoo again

[Jonathan Lighter]

Clinchers?:

1893 _Logansport [Ind.] Pharos_ (Oct. 14) 4 (NewspaperArchive): "Little
Puck"...will occupy the boards at the opera house Tuesday night....John
Canfield as the unfortunate Jinks Hoodoo is amusingly grotesque,

1895 _Hawaiian Gazette_ (Honolulu) (March 19) 2 (NewspaperArchive): When
they heard of the ship's escape the winners [in a shipboard card game] were
glad and the  losers declared that Mr. Ficke was a genuine "Jinks Hoodoo."

(Ficke, a gloomy ship's passenger, had constantly expressed a premonition
that the ship would sink.)
JL

On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Jinks Hoodoo again
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> An earlier ex. of "Jinks Hoodoo":
>
> 1887 _St. Louis Globe-Democrat_ (Oct. 10) 6: George Woodward as _Dr.
> Savage_, J. W. Summers as _Jinks Hoodoo_, and Bob Fraser as _Slaggers_ [or
> perh. "Sluggers"- JL].
>
> This comes from a review of a comedy called _Little Puck_, which later
> played in Brooklyn in 1888 and on Broadway in 1890. It starred Frank
> Daniels
> as "Packingham Giltedge." Acc. to the _Daily Inter Ocean_ (Chicago) (Sept.
> 20, 1887), the play premiered in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sept. 18, 1887.
>
> Acc. to the _Atchison Daily Champion_ of Dec. 23, 1885, "Bronson Howard has
> written a new play for Frank Daniels. It is called 'Little Puck' and is of
> the 'Rag Baby' order."
>
> _Little Puck_ was allegedly based on the novel, _Vice Versa_, by the
> English
> novelist Frank Anstey. A search of a reprint at Amazon.com finds no exx. of
> either "jinks" or "hoodoo" in Anstey's novel. GB offers no text of either
> the novel or the play.
>
> Regardless of OED/HDAS _jynx_, the name of "Jinks Hoodoo" is likely to have
> been the immediate origin of the modern _jinx_. Howard may have been the
> first to associate the name "Jinks" (cf. "Captain Jinks of the Horse
> Marines") with the word _hoodoo_.  It seems that the name eventually came
> to
> denote the concept by metonymy (or is it synecdoche?).
>
> JL
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 2:03 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>
>  > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> > Subject:      Jinks Hoodoo again
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Here is a transitional instance of "Jinks Hoodoo", the apparent ancestor
> > of the modern word "jinx". From the "Chronicling America" site.
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > _Salt Lake Herald_ (Salt Lake City UT), 24 Dec. 1895: p. 8:
> >
> > <<But a whole page of Herald and Tribune notices combined could not have
> > rescued the affair from the failure to which it was foredoomed when its
> > management was entrusted to the hands of a "manager" who combined in so
> > eminent a degree the qualities of a Jonah and a Jinks Hoodoo.>>
> >
> > ----------
> >
> > Apparently this writer perceived a distinction of some sort between "a
> > Jinks Hoodoo" and "a Jonah" (which seem to have been at least near
> > synonyms). Possibly he took "Jonah" to mean "one who carries bad luck
> > for his companions" and "Jinks Hoodoo" to mean "one who carries bad luck
> > for himself [too]"?
> >
> > -- Doug Wilson
> >
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> >
>
>
>
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