antedating "donkey"

[Jonathan Lighter]

> It morphed into an ass very quickly, sometime between Fred's 1774 and the
OED's 1785.

This is possibly an illusion. The 1774 writer assumes that his readers
already know what he means by "Dunkey," even if we're not 100% sure.  If,
as seems possible, it had been applied locally for a number of years to any
Scottish-bred livestock, including asses, there would have been no
"mutation," just an eventual narrowing of meaning.

Grose, in 1785, evidently thought of it as a neologism, meaning ass only.
Born in 1731, he may have been familiar with it for many years.  It would
not be likely that such a term would appear very promptly in print -
particularly if it were rural and specialized.

JL

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 12:18 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: antedating "donkey"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 2/17/2013 03:51 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >On Feb 17, 2013, at 2:56 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
> >
> > > On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 8:47 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> > > <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> Dunkey
> > >
> > > Assuming [d^NkI], it matches the BE pronunciation of "donkey," as
> > > opposed to, e.g. BE "hunky" [hONkI].
> > >
> > > --
> > > -Wilson
> >
> >I pronounce it that way too (well, actually,
> >[d^Nki]), rhyming with "monkey", and get teased
> >for it (e.g. by my children).  I think in my
> >case it may simply have arisen as a spelling
> >pronunciation, caused precisely by the fact that
> >it *is* spelled like the more familiar (to me)
> >"monkey".  I certainly didn't realize it was a
> >diminutive of "Duncan"--but that will be useful
> >to bring up next time I'm teased about it.
>
> DonQui xoté? Or dunk[y]e donut?
>
> My pronunciation (NYC) is the latter. (Same for
> "monkey", which I do not pronounce like "monk".)
>
> But I'm more interested in the fact that no-one
> has commented that the (now) earliest citation
> for "donkey" makes it a pig!  It morphed into an
> ass very quickly, sometime between Fred's 1774 and the OED's 1785.
>
> Joel
>
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