"critter"

[victor steinbok]

FWIW, I'm with Doug Wilson on this one--all I see is critter==creature, with
no particularly strong attachment to any slurs.

Here's a selection from just one year's worth of a publication that covers
critter/crittur==dog/horse/rattlesnake/mermaid/person/[unidentified
animal].

http://goo.gl/zpiA8
Graham's Magazine. Volume 22. Philadelphia: 1843
No. 1 (January). How to Tell a Story. By Seba Smith. pp. 34-5

> "Well, the next night John took Rover--now Rover was the largest dog I ever
> see, near about as large as a heifer, and the knowingest *critter* I ever
> laid eyes on. Well, John took him out to the pen, and told him to watch the
> sheep. John 'll never forget how that *critter* looked up in his face, and
> licked his hand when he left him, just as if he knew what would come of it,
> and wanted to say good bye; nor how he crouched down before the bars, and
> laid his nose upon his paws, and looked after him solemnlike. Poor Rover!
> The next morning John was up airly, for he felt kind a worried. He went out
> to the sheep pen, and sure enough the first thing he see, was--(Polly, you
> 've just cut a worm-hole into your apples)--the first thing he see, was
> poor Rover dead I by the bars, his head torn right open, and another sheep
> gone. John's dander was fairly up--he took down the gun, there it hangs on
> the hooks, took his powder-horn and bullets, and started off. I tried to
> coax him to set a trap, or to watch by the sheep-pen. But John always had a
> will of his own, and was the courageousest man in the town, and he declared
> he 'd have nothing to do with any such cowardly tricks. He 'd kill the *
> critter* in broad day-light, if 'twas only to revenge poor Rover. So he
> started off. He tracked the *critter* about a mile round by the mountain,
> which in them days was covered with trees to the very top.


[Review of] The Career of Puffer Hopkins. By Cornelius Mathews. ... New
York, D. Appleton & Co. 1842. p. 59

> "Not more thnn twenty acres," responded the deepchested juror, with the air
> of a gentleman carrying all before him; "and swimmin' a healthy run o' water
> a rod wide give the *critter* a belly-full at any time."


No. 2 (February). The Enchanted Gun. A Tennessee Story. By C. F. Hoffman. p.
62.

> "You thought I would have been here before?" I exclaimed at last, in reply
> to her singular salutation; "why, my good woman, I have lost my way, and
> only stumbled upon your house by accident--you must take me for somebody
> else."
> "I 'm no good woman. Don't good woman me," she replied, with a scrutinizing
> glance which had something, I thought, of almost fierceness in it, as
> shading the now lighted candle with one hand, she turned scornfully round
> and fixed her regards upon me.
> "Yes! yes, strannger, you are the man, the very man that was to come at
> this hour. I dreamed ye--I dreamed yer hoss--yer brown leggins and all, I
> dreamed 'em--and now go look after yer *critter* while I get some supper for
> ye."


 The Fire-Doomed. A Tale of the "Old Dominion". By Reynell Coates. p. 122

> "There, Mister," said his attendant, "I kinder calkilate you've ben sleepin
> with a bed-feller not of your own choosin last night, any how. I 'd rather
> keep to hum than come all the way up here after such a tarnal reptyle *
> crittur* as that. It's well for you that our Crumple strayed away yester
> noon, and the old woman took on so powerful about the milk. This chap was
> quirled up close to your ear when I came upon you. Do tell! Arn't he a
> swingeing big one?" And he lifted, upon the end of his stick, a monstrous
> rattle-snake, whose head had been crushed by the last blow. His back had
> been broken before the sleeper woke.
> ...
> "Now, you don't say! Come all the way from Virginia a huntin! Why, how
> tired you must be! You 'd find it much easier to ride. May be you and me
> couldn't make a bargain for my four-year-old? He's as handsome a *
> crittur* as ever you see: he takes to the beach-woods as nateral and as
> spry as a squirrel—gallops over log causeway and never stumbles--and gits
> fat on nothin and potatoe rinds!"


Volume 23
No. 2 (August). Jack Spanker and the Mermaid. By Elizabeth Okes Smith. pp.
69-70

> "I won 't deny, says I, you 're a nice lookin' gal, but what colors do you
> sail under, how do you hail? I 've no notion bein' fool'd by any heathenish
> *critter*, bred a Christian as I 've been.
> "You should a seen her laugh. 'You may call me what pleases you best. Won't
> you give me a name, Jack ?'
> "No, faith, I mean to do that for Nelly. Howsomever, I do n't object to
> call you Nelly jest one v'yge.
> "The *critter* laughed agin, and I don't know how it was, she did look like
> Nelly Spaulding. I rubbed my eyes over and over agin, but there she was
> growin' more and more like her every minit. After awhile, says I,
> ...
> "You may well say that, says I, and none of your fish-ending and 'yster
> kind of *critters* neither, for you must know I had n't hardly got over her
> asking me to lake a trip to Davy's locker. I had n't well nigh got the words
> out of my mouth, before there the *critter* was a sittin' on the jib-boom,
> right before me, and two the funniest little feet just peeping out from
> under her petticoats. I jest took my fore-finger and touched her little
> white arm, same as I used to do to the dough, when my mother's back was
> turned. And sure enough 'twas soft and warm, and nothing like clam or fish
> about it. But she didn't mean to stay, for she jumped down agin, laughin' in
> great fun. Then the mate called out, ' Jack, a'int you done that jib yet?'
> "Aye, aye, mostly, sir, but there's been a confounded mermaid here plaguin'
> me. Then the men all laughed, as if they thought it a good joke, but I knew
> it was airnest. But what's the use tryin' to teach poor ignorant *critters*
> what wont believe what a man tells them he has seen with his own eyes?"


No. 6 (December). A Day in the Woods. Or English and American Game. By Frank
Forester. p. 294

> "Yes, that is it, certainly--and those *are *hares and pheasants--and
> that's a right smart Jersey trotter, I some guess--a *critter* that can
> travel like a strick--and the boy holding him--that's a Long Island nigger,
> now I calkilate, --oh, ya--as! and that's a Yorker on a gunnin' scrape,
> stringin' them pheasants! ya--as;" and he spoke with so absurd an imitation
> and exaggeration of the Yankee twang and drawl, that he set Heneage
> laughing, though he was still more than half indignant.



It's possible that someone divined that "critter" was a slur from various
uses such as the ones in Uncle Tom, or a comment by a Sheridan scout (from
his memoirs) concerning" Injuns and other critters". But, really, just
substituting "creature" for "critter" makes it look less like a slur and
just a term of general indifference. It applies in random measure to all
sorts of animals--same as it does today, but without the additional
connotation of smallness and cuteness, perhaps--to mermaids, to people of
pretty much any creed. There is some derogatory sense in it, but that's not
racial--just a general sense of contempt--and even that only on occasion. It
certainly does not appear to have been /intended/ as a slur in the mid- to
late 19th century (and entirely US).

BTW, any attempt at antedating (OED--1815) failed in GB--all pre-1815 tags
and many of 1816-1833 turned out to be spurious, some obviously so
(including the Sheridan memoirs published in 1885 but tagged as 1825).

VS-)


On Sat, Aug 27, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

>
> Worth more than a little, I think.  Googling one edition shows 4
> instances of "critter".  From an 1852 edition, vol. 2, GBooks full view.
>
> Topsy speaking of herself:  "I spects I's the wickedest critter in
> the world."  [Surely this must have made the YBQ!  Or at least a
> stage version.]  Page 50.
>
> A master speaking of a slave: "Well, here's a pious dog ... Powerful
> holy critter, he must be!"  Page 197.
>
> Tom speaking of his master: "Ye poor miserable critter! ... there
> an't no more ye can do! I forgive ye, with all my soul!"  Page 274.
>
> Tom talking to George (another slave?) about (I believe) a master:
> "O, don't---oh, ye mustn't! ... he's a poor mis'able critter! ... O,
> if he only could repent, the Lord would forgive him now ..."  Page 281.
>
> Use by both masters and slaves is interesting.  And I wonder if the
> master's use can really be considered racial.
>
> Joel
>
> At 8/27/2011 12:33 PM, Andrea Morrow wrote:
> >FWIW I am reading Uncle Tom's Cabin (Kindle edition) and "critter" is used
> >extensively there as one of the milder references by the white characters
> to
> >the African American characters.  Even the "good" people use that term.
> >
> >Andrea
>

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