"Cave Nullo cock" (of a hat, that is; ignore any chili peppers)

[Wilson Gray]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 11:02 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
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> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Â  Â  Â "Cave Nullo cock" (of a hat, that is; ignore any chili peppers)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I remember when high-brim'd Hats were in the Mode, she insisted on an
> Elevation of my Beaver of near half an Inch, with a Fierce Cave Nullo Cock.
>
> New York Mercury, 1757 Jan. 31, page 3, col. 1.
>
> Postdates OED2 "Kevenhuller" sense a. Â -1746. Â (Due I think to a
> stylistic quirk of the OED, as explained to me by Jesse, all the
> quotations appear under sense b., whereas the 1746 pertains to sense a.)
>
> The amusing article containing this quotation is excerpted
> extensively in Mary Caroline Crawford's _Social Life in Old New
> England_ (1914), pp. 222-226. Â Crawford presents it as factual,
> whereas I sense a satire, written in the style of London magazines of
> the period.
>
> Joel
>
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You've induced an attack of cultural deprivation, Joel. What is your post about?

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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