true bubbles & Merry Andrew cards

[Dan Goncharoff]

Re Water Street: when Water St was on the water (it is now a block
inland) it would have been lined on the inland side by warehouses.
Might the early numbering have referred to warehouse stalls rather
than building numbers?

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 4, 2011, at 4:40 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      true bubbles & Merry Andrew cards
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>            Sometime ago, JB and I posted some stuff here regarding the
> beginnings of the use of house numbers in U. S. cities; specifically Boston
> & NYC, of course.  The connection with dialectology isn't obvious, perhaps,
> but we can see it.  But lately we have been sneaking about, discussing the
> topic behind your backs.
>
>            Trying to elucidate the puzzling fact of very early references
> to shops on Water street with numbers above 1000, I tried searching the
> EAN/AHN database for "water-street, no." (the numbers seem generally to have
> followed the street name, prefaced by "no.")
>
>
>
>            One of the fruits of this are a word not in the OED, and a
> mystifying phrase.
>
>
>
>            JOSEPH ROSE, Living a few Doors East of Peck's Slip, in Water
> Street, No. 1046, HAS just imported . . . Tea Cups and Saucers, Bowls,
> Plates & Dishes, And Articles of Queen's Ware, With a large and neat
> Assortment of CHIMNEY TILES, Also a few Setts of true BUBBLES for proving
> the strength of Rum, and what it will bear.
>
>            Royal Gazette, September 6, 1780, p. 2, col. ?
>
> The OED has nothing under "bubble" that satisfies this.
>
> It has:
>
> bubble-trier n. an instrument used for testing the accuracy of the tubes of
> spirit-levels.
>
> a1877    E. H. Knight Pract. Dict. Mech.,   Bubble-trier, an instrument for
> testing the delicacy and accuracy of the tubes for holding the spirit in
> leveling-instruments.
>
> 1890    W. F. Stanley Surveying Instruments 88   The Bubble Trier is a bar
> or bed 12 to 20 inches long, with two extended feet ending in points at one
> end, and a micrometer screw, the point of which forms a resting foot, at the
> other end, thereby forming a tripod.
>
> bubble-tube n. the glass tube of a spirit-level containing spirit and
> enclosing an air-bubble.
>
> 1888    Lockwood's Dict. Mech. Engin.,   Bubble Tube, or Spirit Glass, the
> tube of a spirit-level which contains the enclosed spirit.
>
> 1890    W. F. Stanley Surveying Instruments 86   Level Tubes, or Bubble
> Tubes as they are technically termed, are used in nearly all important
> surveying instruments.
>
>
>
>           Also, an ad from a grocer who had just received a shipment of
> stuff, which he lists in two columns.  In the midst of a very miscellaneous
> stock, he offers Merry Andrew cards.  What the hell were they?  (I know what
> a "Merry Andrew" was.)
>
> Because it's an item from a list, there is no context.  I am giving the
> items just above and below, which don't clarify anything.
>
>
>
>            THOMAS ROACH, In Water-street, No. 942, next but one to the
> corner of the Fly-Market, has for sale wholesale and retail, [Madeira,
> sherry, port, claret, rum, and groceries, spices; also ". . .
>
> Irish and Scotch snuff,
>
> Chambers best smoaking tobacco,
>
> Merry Andrew cards,
>
> Raisins and currants,
>
> Olives, capers,
>
> Anchovies. . . "]
>
>            New-York Gazette; and W Mercury, September 1, 1777, p. 4
>
>
>
>            For those of you who share our fascination with the history of
> house numbers: there is no way that Water street was long enough then to
> have counted a thousand house lots, starting with no. 1.  What was being
> counted is as yet a mystery.
>
>
>
> GAT
>
> --
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
> Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.
>
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