Country talk, 1840

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, back in Saint Louis, "squat-doodly" was a viable alternative to
"doodly-squat."

Although I've heard "cop a squat" used only with the meaning, "have a
seat," IMO, it's easy to see "cop a squat" coming to mean, "take a
dump," depending upon where it was that one had copped the squat. And
it's downhill (in the positive sense) from there.

-Wilson

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 11:21 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Country talk, 1840
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 12:35 PM -0400 4/8/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>I believe that Squatawa was the proposed sister city to Ottawa.
>>
>>Actually I don't.
>>
>>Never heard of it.
>>
>>JL
>>
>>On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 10:13 PM, George Thompson
>><george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:
>>
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>>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>>  Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
>>>  Subject:      Country talk, 1840
>>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>         THE FORCIBLE ARGUMENT. -- "Gentlemen of the jury," said a hoosier
>>>  lawyer, addressing a real shell-bark jury, "I say that ere magnanimous sun
>>>  shines in the heavens, though you can't see it, kase it's behind a cloud;
>>>  but you know it, though I can't prove it; so my client, who rises airly and
>>>  hunts coons like an honest man, has a good case, though he can't prove it.
>>>   Now if you believe what I tell you a bout the sun, you are bound on your
>>>  bible oaths to believe what I tell you about my client's case, and if you
>>>  don't then you call me a liar, and that I'll be squatawa'd if I'll stand it
>
> Or as we'd say now, "I don't care squat if you call me a liar."  I
> always wondered where "squat" came from...
>
> LH
>
>>  > anyhow; so if you don't want to swear false and have no trouble, you'd
>>>  better give us our case."
>>>         N-Y Daily Express, August 11, 1837, p. 2, col. 5
>>>
>>>  I don't have the vol. of DARE that would cover "shell bark" and
>>>  "squatawa'd".  I see that "shell bark" is a type of tree, and I dare say
>>>  that it is wide-spread in Illinois.  As for "squatawa'd", I dare say that
>>>  the spelling will vary greatly, if it's otherwise recorded.
>>>
>>>  GAT
>>>
>>>  George A. Thompson
>>>  Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
>>>  Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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