Sambo -- not 1861 or 1704, but 1657

[Robin Hamilton]

I can't for the life of me think of examples off-hand -- something seems to
have switched off in my brain -- but wouldn't the generic naming of the
Scots, Irish, and Welsh based on a "typical" name date back to maybe the
Renaissance, including a use in drama?  (As in, "There are too many paddys
on this list.  <g>)

The only thing I can call to mind in terms of specifics -- the general use
of a particular name -- isn't quite parallel: the Machiavels are coming to
town.

Robin

> Know what?  "Sambo" may actually be the earliest ex. of this kind of
> generi=
> c
> naming in English.
>
> Am I right?
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 8:59 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Sambo -- not 1861 or 1704, but 1657
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> "with dry lips" perhaps =3D "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
>> >>spectato=
> rs
>> -
>> >>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
>> >> > slaver=
> y,
>> >> > should want to celebrate his sudden emancipation by a brief holiday.
>> >> > </quote>
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> =96=96=96
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=96=96a strange complaint
>> t=
> o
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> =96Mark Twain
>>
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
>
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