"bamboo", some kind of drink?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 3/2/2012 03:31 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>He's a cat in a contemporary novel. What makes you think he knows what he's
>talking about, or if he does, that his transcriber does (or, more to the
>point, cares)?

Well, not so contemporary -- 1956.  From the age of hepcats.  Would
you question the veracity of a hep cat?

The book is _Capt. Kidd's Cat: Being the True and Dolorous Chronicle
of Wm. Kidd, Gent. & Merchant of New York, Late Captain of the
Adventure Galley, of the Vicissitudes Attending His Unfortunate
Cruise in Eastern Waters, of His Incarceration in Newgate Prison, of
His Unjust Trial and Execution. As Narrated by His Faithful Cat
McDermot, Who ought to know. Set down and Illuminated by Robert
Lawson_.  A first-hand account, set down by an author noted for his
historical works (others being The Story of Jesus ..., Ben and Me,
Dick Whittington & his Cat, and Mr. Revere and I: An Account ... by
his Horse, Scheherazade).

>But maybe the word is OED's "bumbo":
>
>"'A liquor composed of rum, sugar, water, and nutmeg' (Note to *Rod. Random*);
>also other alcoholic mixtures."

[1748]  This is undoubtedly what McDermot meant, and what Lawson
probably set down from speech.  There are other words in McDermot's
narrative that come from the decades of the 1730s, 1770s, 1800s.  And
Roderick Random is located in part in the Caribbean, a nest of
pirates (in earlier years); Tom Tew, McDermot's previous master, set
out from Bermuda on his pirating voyages.  So McDermot was familiar
with the word.

The only problem with this "traveler" is that he may have been a
"travel liar" (to adapt from the title of Percy G. Adams's book on
fraudulent travel narratives set in eighteenth-century
America).  McDermot seems to have been recalling his adventures from
one of the last of his nine lives.  The events he recounts took place
in 1696--1701.

Joel



>JL
>On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Alice Faber <faber at haskins.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> > Organization: Haskins Laboratories
> > Subject:      Re: "bamboo", some kind of drink?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On 3/2/12 3:00 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
> > > What is "bamboo", in:
> > >
> > > "So then they [pirate captains, 1700, reminiscencing in Madagascar]
> > > sat down and gossiped about old times, drinking their bamboo the
> > > while.  I had no taste for the sickly stuff, myself, it being nothing
> > > but water, limes and sugar."
> > >
> > > Related by Capt. Kidd's cat, McDermot, as written down by Robert Lawson.
> > >
> > > I haven't found it in the OED, but perhaps imaginative spellings are
> > > escaping me.  Or perhaps Lawson's transcription is inaccurate -- what
> > > was he thinking of?
> > >
> > By a process of (very) free association, what comes to mind is "shrub"
> > (a fruit-infused syrup that can be diluted to taste).
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> >
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