Whet the hell is this?, pts. I & II

[Jonathan Lighter]

A "huckleberry above one's persimmon" used to mean something that was just a
little bit better or more extraordinary, etc.

In HDAS from 1840, s.v. "huckleberry."  So 1838 is kind of an antedating,
even if it's backwards.

JL
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 4:37 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Poster:       victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Whet the hell is this?, pts. I & II
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> I had no problem searching for "moonraker" (no hyphen):
>
> >  1. A native of the county of Wiltshire, in England.
> >  2. Naut. A sail set above the skysail. Cf. moonsail n. at moon n.1
> Compounds 2, raffee n.
>
> WIktionary is substantially the same but with more detail:
>
> > 1. Someone from Wiltshire. (After a story in which some Wiltshire
> peasants, seeing the reflection of the moon in a pool, tried to rake it
> out.)
> > 2. (nautical) A small, light sail located high on a mast (above the
> skysail) and used for speed.
>
> Infoplease likely sheds more light on this:
>
> > 1. Also called moonsail. [key] Naut.a light square sail set above a
> skysail.
> > 2. a simpleton.
>
> The second one fits here. Unsurprisingly, Dictionary.com nets the same
> pair--both use Random House Unabridged, but InfoPlease relies on 1997,
> which Dictionary.com claims to be current (2011).
>
> Online Etymology D adds a bit more detail, connection Wiltshire with
> "simpleton":
>
> > a name traditionally given to Wiltshire people, attested from 1787, is
> from the stock joke about fools who mistook the reflection of the moon in a
> pond for a cheese and tried to rake it out. But as told in Wiltshire, the
> men were surprised trying to rake up kegs of smuggled brandy, and put off
> the revenuers by acting foolish.
>
> Peevish.com (UK slang glossary):
>
> > A person from the town of Middleton, Manchester. Occasionally derog.
>
> VS-)
>
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 4:15 PM, George Thompson
> <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > I: [a stage coach is robbed near Patchogue, L. I.]
> > We have heard of moon-rakers about Rockaway Beach, but no land pirates in
> the interior of the island since the revolutionary war.  Evening Star, April
> 13, 1838, p. 2, col. 3
> > The on-line OED says it has never heard of "moon-raker", but I really
> thought that the print OED I looked at when I found this gave as meanings 1)
> one of the higher sails on a sailing ship (cf. sky-scraper) and 2) a
> confederate of smugglers who digs up contraband buried in the sand.  (These
> were in some dictionary, at least.  Neither helps much, unless we suppose a
> link of "smuggler's confederate" > "smuggler" > "pirate".)
>
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