more information on the kibosh, qirbach, kurbash

[Douglas G. Wilson]

Stephen Goranson wrote:
> ....
>
> The May 5, 1835 article in True Sun [London] , now that I have a full copy--thank you Garson!-- provides additional insight on the kibosh. As Garson noted, "the kibosh" is used twice (col. 4):
> "They say so [make accusations] to rise the kibosh against me, and my wife" and "...they gets other Jews give me the kibosh upon me, and its all the same to me which of the whole set struck me." Now how to describe that person was a matter of dispute at the hearing. He claimed he was a Jew, but, others claimed he was not (possibly making the issue of "naturalized" or not a red herring), and the judge apparently decided he was an unreliable narrator. One witness claimed to have seen him and his wife scores of times covered in soot like chimney sweeps. That is notable (if true), as some of the earliest known accounts involve London chimney sweeps. A witness said he saw him wearing a turban.
>
> Given the claim that he was threatened and struck with the kibosh, and given the defendant's reply that he finds them disagreeable, "but to talk of blows it quite ridiculous," we can conclude that "the kibosh" was an instrument used for striking blows--exactly as the kurbach, kourbach, qirbach, qurbash, courbache.
>
> The non-rhotic Cockney version of the world helps explain why the meaning was lost later on many readers. And alternate interpretations proliferated. Nonsense, influenced by bosh (e.g., as, perhaps,  in "Kybosh Poetry" 1841*). And Chy-bosh as 18 pence. And echoic, like bash. And eventually also fashion, death hat, rain hat, mosquito net tent, Portland cement, comic characters names, etc.--none of which fit the earliest scenarios of being hit with a stick or whip.
>
> These newly-found accounts reveal both the etymology and help show why it was, for years, lost. ....
--

I think the person quoted here ("Myers") was an immigrant (a "German
Jew", says the text), with imperfect English. Possibly his use of
"kibosh" was aberrant or plain erroneous.

It is interesting that "put the kibosh on [someone]" is parallel to "put
the whip on [the horse etc.]" which was (I think) conventional usage of
the time. "Kibosh" [transitive verb] = "put the kibosh on" is also
parallel to "whip" [verb] = "put the whip on".

I think Myers was definitely a Jew (according to the article) and I
don't think anyone claimed otherwise. I don't think anyone suggested
that he was or might have been a chimney-sweep; rather it was suggested
that he had darkened his skin (and worn a turban), and had pretended to
be of some exotic nationality, presumably to improve his prospects as a
beggar.

Incidentally, from the context here I understand "naturalized" to mean
here essentially "converted from the Jewish religion [presumably to
Church of England]" although this may not have been the usual sense of
"naturalized" at the time.

Based on exactly the same newspaper article discussed above, I generated
(independently, recently) a different casual speculation ... for which I
can find no supporting evidence. "R[a]ise the kibosh against me" here
can be equated to "arouse the local people against me" or so ... which
evokes the name of Simon Caboche, a famous rabble-rouser in French
history. Another candidate for the [bottom of the?] list.

Of course somebody long ago (IIRC) suggested the etymon "caboche" =
"behead" reflected in the heraldic term "caboched"/"caboshed".

I think there are still several candidate etyma ... with the true one
perhaps yet to be discovered.

-- Doug Wilson

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