"croutcatcher" and "hunky"

[Joel S. Berson]

Lovely stuff, Bonnie.  Weren't the newspapers fun then (and earlier)?

Considering Artemus Ward's persistent idiosyncratic spelling, I
assume his "croutcutter" is everyone else's "krautcutter".

I noat in passun that his 1866 "hunkiest" is not fir frum his 1861
"hunkey boy", the earliest OED2 citation fir "hunky, adj.1", "In good
condition; safe and sound; all right".

I'll have to poke historians about the surnames.

Joel

At 9/27/2013 01:44 PM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake wrote:
>[Snake Feeder, 1821]
>
>On the 7th of June last, about 5 o'clock in the afternoon; there
>passed over Willistown and and Goshen a swarm of the animal
>denominated the "Devil's Darning Needle," or the "Snake Feeder, or the
>Snake Servant."  So vast was the number, that to use the expression of
>a respectable person who witnessed their flight, 'they were like a
>cloud and darkened the air.' From the best information we can obtain,
>the swarm extended a mile in width, and was more than an hour in
>passing.  They did not move fast; their general course was from east
>to west.  Any futher information relative to this vast congregation,
>we shall be glad to receive.  Were they seen at any considerable
>distance from the towns mentioned?  One gentleman suggests that they
>had been waiting upon the great sea serpent, and finding their service
>no longer needed, were emigrating in quest of other business.
>
>[From "From the Village Record, West Chester, (Penn.), Aug. 15.," in
>The New-York (NY) Evening Post, 17 August 1821, p. 2.]
>
>---------------------------
>
>[Croutcutter, 1866]
>
>We were akumpanied by a towerist and artist, Sir Croutcutter, a furrin
>gentleman, who acted as mi treasurer -- this is a goak, for he is not
>in a monetury of the kaes, but he merely treasures up the grate and
>little sayins that ockashunally drop from mi lips, and he reports them
>weakly to the Times newspaper -- not the little villin's Times from Nu
>York, but the thunderin big one from Londun.
>
>Sir Croutcutter is one of the hunkiest jenisus and most habitual
>connosure English society onse a while can afford to spare fo the the
>benefit of us benited or rather unknitted Yankee roosters.
>
>[From "Artemus Ward Visits Stein's Gold Gift Sale," The Nashville
>(Tennessee) Daily Union, 24 March 1866, p. 1, column 3.  You can see
>the remainder of the article, which includes a few more mentions of
>Croutcutter, at http://ow.ly/p9bYp.]

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