"joining giblets"

[George Thompson]

You're expecting another dirty posting from GAT, aren't you?  No such thing.

>From 1831.  The NYC newspapers then thought "news" meant "news from Europe", which came by means of bundles of newspapers from England and elsewhere, brought when saiiing ships reached port.  In order to get these bundles, the morning papers would send small sailboats out beyond the harbor and meet the ships from Europe 50 or 100 miles off shore.  The morning papers had formed a cooperative to share the cost of keeping the newsboats, and shared the news.  The Courier & Enquirer broke from this combine and began running its own boat.  Then the Journal of Commerce was founded, also running its own boat.  After a long paragraph surveying the history of newsgathering in the 19th century, the editor of the Courier speaks:

***  "Let us . . . take the lead . . . ; the Gazette is good for nothing -- the Mercantile is always asleep -- the Daily is dull and heavy -- the Standard no one reads or care for.  We have only one opponent, he of the Journal of Commerce, to contend against, and we can beat him with all his assumed piety."  Accordingly we obtained our news boats, made our arrangements, beat the whole concern ten times our of eleven, and compelled the Journal to join giblets with the other sleepy editors.  ***  Here we are then, standing alone against this unholy alliance -- bearded and blackguarded by them all.  ***
        Morning Courier & New-York Enquirer, November 5, 1831, p. 2, col. 3

This expression is not in HDAS.  The OED has one quotation in an applicable sense: 1769 Stratford Jubilee II. i. 29 If your ladyship's not engaged, what's the reason but we may join giblets without any pribble-prabble?  (definition 2c, "transf. with reference to a human being. "to levy one's giblets": ? to summon up one's courage. "to join giblets": to marry.")

Well, maybe it does mean "doing the nasty", but it can't have been very dirty, if it got into a 1831 newspaper.
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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