Sambo -- not 1861 or 1704, but 1657

[Wilson Gray]

"with dry lips" perhaps = "with a dry throat"?

For some reason, generic _singularia tantum_ always give me a chuckle,
when used of people. I've never forgotten the similar generic use of
_Comrade_ "German by us hamburgers, a half-century ago. It covered any
random numbers of Germans from a single individual to the entire
nation.

Of course, we'd a said, "If ..., Comrade _ be (steady [st^dI]) _
gettin' [gETIn] up."

The above use of "get up" is semantically derived from the "Get up!"
used  to put a horse into motion and not from the one that's
equivalent to "Stand up!"

-Wilson

On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 10:20 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Sambo -- not 1861 or 1704, but 1657
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Not just HDAS but even the OED has the 1704 instance.  And in
> addition to the HDAS 1838 generic use, the OED has one from 1735:  J.
> ATKINS Voy. to Guinea, Brazil & W. Indies 170 If you look strange and
> are niggardly of your Drams, you frighten him; Sambo is gone, he
> never cares to treat with dry lips.
>
> But I found a reference to a specific "Sambo" from 1657, via
> EEBO.  See ADS-L archives, 2008 Sep 11, Subject: "Sambo" 1657,
> antedates OED 1704-.  (The OED entry has not yet been revised from
> the 1989 edition.)
>
> Joel
>
> At 1/29/2010 10:24 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>HDAS files contain two refs. to slaves actually named "Sambo" (1704 and
>>1768). OED has an 1818 that is unlikely to be generic.
>>
>>Judge Haliburton's _Clockmaker_ (Series 2)  1838, p. 30 seems to use
>>the name generically: "And Sambo...is sold a second time ag'in."
>>
>>Henry Louis Gates (_Signifying Monkey_, p. 95) cited an undoubted ex. from
>>1846: "Here, 'Sambo,' you dam jiggery toe nigger."
>>
>>The name was in common (white) use by the 1850s. There's even a rare plural
>>by 1864:
>>
>>1864 in _Arkansas Historical Qly._ XII (1953) 360: Hundreds of spectators -
>>ladies, gentlemen, civilians, soldiers, "Sambo's," etc., crowded around.
>>
>>JL
>>
>>
>>
>>On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 9:12 PM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com> <
>>JJJRLandau at netscape.com> wrote:
>>
>> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> > -----------------------
>> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster:       "James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>"
>> >              <JJJRLandau at NETSCAPE.COM>
>> > Subject:      Sambo
>> >
>> >
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > I found an 1861 usage of "Sambo" to mean a black man.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/december/george-opdyke.htm
>> >
>> > Harper's Weekly    December 21, 1861
>> >
>> > <quote>
>> > Some writers from Port Royal have stated that the negroes will not work,
>> > but that when work is offered them they will fly to the woods. This is
>> > indignantly denied by other writers, and by several officers of the
>> > expedition, who state that the contrabands work willingly and
>> ably. It would
>> > not be surprising if poor Sambo, after a dozen generations of slavery,
>> > should want to celebrate his sudden emancipation by a brief holiday.
>> > </quote>
>
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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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