chub

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

The really fun part is that CHUB comes from CHUBBY (as in CHUB[BY] CHASER) and also means 'erect penis'.

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 7, 2011, at 8:03 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> Please forgive the long post.
>
> There are several OED entries for "chub".
>
>> 1. a. A river fish (/Cyprinus/ or /Leuciscus cephalus/) of the Carp
>> family (/Cyprinidæ/), also called the Chevin. It is a thick fat
>> coarse-fleshed fish, of a dusky green colour on the upperparts and
>> silvery-white beneath, frequenting deep holes, especially about the
>> roots of trees, and in warm weather rising near the surface.
>> b. /U.S./ A local name for the Black Bass (/Perca huro/). Also 'a name
>> sometimes given to the Blackfish (/Tautoga americana/)'. (Bartlett.)
>> 2. a. /transf./ A lazy spiritless person; a rustic, simpleton, dolt,
>> fool; also, playfully, lad, 'fellow', 'chap'. /Obs/.
>> Etc./
>> /
>
> The first thought that comes to mind is, are 1. and 2. really connected?
> (3. and 4. seems to be close to 2.) If not, why are they not listed as
> separate articles? However, I am mostly concerned about the fish.
>
> Walk into any deli in the US--even many supermarket delis--and you will
> find "smoked whitefish chubs" on the menu. The "chubs" are herring-like
> small fish that have been hot-smoked and acquired the characteristic
> light bronze color of all smoked fish. They don't fit any of the
> definitions above. In fact, I've often wondered if the "chub"
> designation refers to the fact that they are sold as whole fish. There
> are large smoked whitefish as well and they belong to a different
> species--but I've never seen them referred to as "chubs". Most
> importantly, it has a plural--"chub" refers to a single fish, "chubs" to
> a collection. The same cannot be said about either 1.a. or 1.b.
>
> Looking up "whitefish" doesn't help, as only one definition is even
> remotely related.
>
>> 3. A common name for the fishes of the genus /Coregonus/, of the
>> family /Salmonidæ/, found in the lakes of North America, and valued as
>> food.
>
> As a sidenote, compare this definition with the taste note Thoreau gave
> on chubs (immediately following below)--combining the two, we get
> whitefish chubs that are "valued as food and taste like boiled brown
> paper salted". Not quite what I had in mind...
>
> Second, the 1.b. entry has three examples:
>
>> 1862 H. D. Thoreau /Atlantic Monthly/ Aug. 248/2   The chub is a soft
>> fish, and tastes like boiled brown paper salted.
>> 1883 /Cent. Mag./ July 376/1   There are but two species of black
>> bass..the large-mouthed bass and the small-mouthed bass..known in
>> different sections of our country [U.S.] as bass, perch, trout, chub
>> or salmon.
>> 1884 /Cent. Mag./ Apr. 908/1   A black bass..becomes a 'chub' in Virginia.
>
> OK, the first one refers to "chub" but does not actually identify it, so
> there is little opportunity to find out if it is actually related to the
> other two. The third claims that Virginia regional name for "black bass"
> is "chub"--maybe it is, maybe it isn't (or maybe it once was). But the
> middle one is just absurd. Bass, trout, perch and salmon simply do not
> belong to the same species--no matter how you slice it. And they did not
> belong to the same species in 1883 either, which makes me suspect that
> the 1884 identification is just as (in)accurate. Seriously--trout and
> salmon may be distant relations, but they are not the same species. In
> fact, there are at least three distinct genera that include fish labeled
> as "trout". Per Wiki:
>
> # Oncorhynchus - Pacific salmon and trout (14 species)
> # Salmo - Atlantic salmon and trout (29 species)
> # Salvelinus - Char and trout (e.g. Brook trout, Lake trout) (49 species)
>
> None of these go by "chub"--and I find no persuasive evidence that they
> ever did. And Bass and perch are from completely different families,
> although it's easy to see how someone might refer to a smallmouth bass
> as a "perch". The reality is that only the black bass has been
> mistakenly identified by all these other names, but the fish that are
> normally identified as trout, salmon, etc., rarely, if ever, cross over
> (with the exception, in fact, of trout and salmon!). So the problem is
> that /regionally/ black bass used to be referred to by these names, but
> the regions were non-overlapping.
>
> I tracked down the 1883 article and got the full excerpt:
>
>> "There are but two well-defined species, the large-mouthed bass and
>> the small-mouthed bass," continued the Professor, settling himself for
>> a lecture. "There has been more confusion and uncertainty attending
>> the scientific classification and nomenclature of the black bass than
>> usually falls to the lot of fishes, some dozen generic appellations
>> and nearly fifty specific titles having been bestowed upon the two
>> species by naturalists since their first scientific descriptions by
>> Count Lacepede in 1802. Nor has this polyonomous feature been confined
>> to their scientific terminology, for thenvernacular names have been as
>> numerous and varied; thus they are known in different sections of our
>> country as bass, perch, trout, chub, or salmon, with or without
>> various qualifying adjectives descriptive of color or habits."
>> "Yes," assented Ignatius, "I have heard them called black perch,
>> yellow perch, and jumping perch up the Rockcastle and Cumberland
>> nvers, and white and black trout in Tennessee."
>> "Exactly," returned the Professor. "Much of the confusion attending
>> the common names of the black bass arises from the coloration of the
>> species, which varies greatly, even in the same waters; thus they are
>> known as black, green, yellow, and spotted bass. Then they have
>> received names somewhat descriptive of their habitat, as, lake, river,
>> marsh, pond, slough, bayou, moss, grass, and Oswego bass. Other names
>> have been conferred on account of their pugnacity or voracity, as,
>> tiger, bull, sow, and buck bass. In the Southern States they are
>> universally known as 'trout.' In portions of Virginia they are called
>> chub, southern chub, or Roanoke chub. In North and South Carolina they
>> are variously known as trout, trout-perch, or Welshman; indeed, the
>> largemouthed bass received its first scientific, specific name from a
>> drawing and description of a Carolina bass sent to Lacepede under the
>> local name of trout, or trout-perch, who accordingly named it
>> /salmoides, /meaning trout-like, or salmon-like."
>> "How do you account for the ridiculous practice of applying such names
>> as trout and salmon to a spiny-finned fish of the order of perches ?"
>> asked Ignatius.
>> "They were first given, I think, by the early English settlers of
>> Virginia and the Carolinas, who, finding the bass a game fish of high
>> degree, naturally gave it the names of those game fishes parexcellence
>> of England, whert they found that neither the salmon nor the trout
>> inhabited southern waters. In the same way the misnomers of quail,
>> partridge, pheasant, and rabbit have been applied, there being no true
>> species of any of these indigenous to America."
>
> The piece is called "Black Bass Fishing" and is signed "James A.
> Henshall". The date and page number in the OED citation are indeed
> correct, but the entire piece appears in the second column, not first,
> so it should be 376/2, not 376/1. In any case, despite this small
> correction, correcting the reference was not my goal. Rather, I would
> like to see the entire subentry dismissed or modified.
>
> As is clear from the article (and from several others), the name "chub"
> was only used for Black Bass in Southern Virginia--and very likely is no
> longer used as such. If we follow this standard, we would have to
> identify over 40 different species or even genera of fish that go by the
> name "chub", with only some of them belonging to the Carp family, as
> chub 1.a. tells us (Wiki identifies 2 individual species and 2 genera
> that go by "chub", in addition to a list of 15 genera in the Cyprinidae
> family). This is absurd. It is pointless to identify every single
> species of fish that's ever been identified as "chub", regionally or
> globally. Furthermore, the lemma identifies Black Bass species
> incorrectly. I have no idea where the OED name came from, but even in
> 1883 largemouth bass was identified as Micropterus salmoides and
> smallmouth as Micropterus dolomieu. This designation has been unchanged
> for over 100 years. There are two other species that are designated as
> belonging to the Black Bass genus, but they are not relevant here at
> all. The point is that none of them are /ever/ identified as "Perca
> huro". Perca huro is Yellow Perch from Lake Huron--utterly unrelated to
> Black Bass--and even that name is a misnomer, as "huro" refers to
> subspecies of several perch species that live in the lake (primarily
> Perca flavescens). At one point, largemouth bass was classified as
> /genus/ Huro, but that was Huro salmoides, and it was only a brief
> flirtation before the entire Micropterus genus was reunited. I have no
> idea where "Perca huro" might have come from other than utter confusion
> on the part of the responsible editor.
>
> The Tautoga reference is more interesting. Wiki identifies only one
> species of Tautog and that article has a useful quotation:
>
>> Barlett (1848) wrote "[Tautaug] is an Indian word, and may be found in
>> Roger Williams' /Key to the Indian Language/." The name is from the
>> Narragansett language, originally /tautauog/ (pl. of /taut/). It is
>> also called a "black porgy" (/cf./ Japanese black porgy), "chub"
>> (/cf./ the freshwater chub) , "oyster-fish" (in North Carolina) or
>> "blackfish"(in New York/New Jersey, New England).
>
> Here we get the "freshwater chub". But if this is the same Bartlett,
> where is the 1848 reference in the OED?? All I see is three articles in
> US periodicals that are ridiculing the notion that black bass is in any
> way a "chub". In fact, why is "chub" getting this treatment, while
> "trout" and "salmon" are not? Trout handles it slightly better:
>
>> 1. a. A well-known freshwater fish of the genus /Salmo/, esp. /S.
>> fario/, the common trout, inhabiting most rivers and lakes of the
>> temperate or colder parts of the northern hemisphere; it is
>> distinguished by numerous spots of red and black on its sides and
>> head, and is greatly valued as a sporting fish and on account of its
>> edible quality.
>> 2. Used as a name of various fish (chiefly /Salmonidæ/) resembling the
>> trout in appearance or habits. Now /local/.
>> 3. With defining prefix, as the name of various species of the genus
>> /Salmo/ (or of the allied genus /Salvelinus/), and occasionally of
>> other genera.
>
> This is better but still underwhelming. For one, OED lists rainbow trout
> as S. irideus, but Wiki has it as Oncorhynchus mykiss--linking it
> directly with Pacific salmon. Both are questionable--the latter is
> better known as "steelhead trout" is the relationship with salmon is
> obvious because of the color of the flesh. What one finds in an American
> supermarket labeled as "rainbow trout" is actually brown trout from the
> genus Salmo--"rainbow" sounds so much better than "brown", doesn't it?
> (And, no, brown trout is not S. fario, but S. trutta.)
>
> In any case, 2. is the dominant definition here. The family that
> includes most trout--/including Salmo/--is Salmonidae. That's the top
> link in the taxonomy. OED is mum on this. But even then, there is
> nothing wrong with this definition, right?
>
> Look again at the 1883 account:
>
>> "How do you account for the ridiculous practice of applying such names
>> as trout and salmon to a spiny-finned fish of the order of perches ?"
>> asked Ignatius.
>> "They were first given, I think, by the early English settlers of
>> Virginia and the Carolinas, who, finding the bass a game fish of high
>> degree, naturally gave it the names of those game fishes parexcellence
>> of England, whert they found that neither the salmon nor the trout
>> inhabited southern waters.
>
> If the dictionary is going to include a minor regional use of "chub" it
> should certainly include a broader regional use of "trout", right? And
> if it does not include one for some pragmatic reason, it should exclude
> the other /for the same reason/! Take your pick, I don't really care
> which way it goes. But correct the taxonomic nomenclature.
>
> Salmon is actually done much better.
>
>> 1. a. A large fish belonging to the genus /Salmo/, family /Salmonidæ/,
>> esp. /Salmo salar/, comprising the largest fish of this family, which
>> when mature are characterized by having red flesh, and a silvery skin
>> marked with large black and red spots; highly prized as an article of
>> food.
>> b. Applied to fishes belonging to other genera of the same family;
>> esp., a fish of any of the species of the genus /Oncorhynchus/, called
>> the Pacific salmon.
>> c. Applied to fishes resembling a salmon, but not belonging to the
>> /Salmonidæ/. /(a) /In U.S., the squeteague n.; also the /pike-perch/
>> (see pike n.4 2). /(b) /In Australia and New Zealand, /Arripis salar/.
>
> The fun part here is that the Salmo genus has also been listed as trout,
> making "large fish" from Salmo both trout and salmon. Ironically, this
> is actually true for steelhead trout that is colloquially referred to as
> "salmon" because of the color of its flesh, but, from 2008, can no
> longer be referred to as "salmon" commercially. The same applies to
> "char", which is neither salmon nor trout, but belongs to one of the
> same genera that contain other fish that are identifies as either salmon
> or trout or both. But the Salmon entry is handled much better than
> either the trout or the chub entry--among other reasons because it does
> not contain the lame reference to Black Bass. If I were to draw a Venn
> diagram for the salmon definitions, it would actually make sense,
> whereas the other two would not. And if you really want to scream, look
> up "forelle" in the OED online.
>
> In any case, all of this is somewhat convoluted and perhaps /ultimately/
> important, but it doesn't have the same immediate impact as the absence
> of /any/ definition that can resolve "smoked whitefish chubs".
>
>    VS-)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org