sea cunny

[Laurence Horn]

Much less ribald than it would appear.  So while "coney" /'k^ni/ = 'rabbit' was taboo-avoided into non-existence when it wasn't tortured beyond recognition in "Coney Island" (and Fr. "connil" suffered an identical fate for essentially the same reason), "sea cunny" has somehow, as you note, thrived (or perhaps thriven) as an every-day expression.  Preserved by the saltiness, no doubt.  

LH

On Jul 28, 2014, at 5:35 PM, George Thompson wrote:

> Here's an antedating by nearly a decade of a word we all use just about
> every day.  And a couple of post-datings thrown in.
> 
> OED:  sea-conny, n.  Forms:  Also seacunny, sea-cunny, seconny, seacony,
> sea-connie, secunnie.
> 
> A steersman or quartermaster in a ship manned by lascars.
> 1801   *Asiatic Ann. Reg. 1800: Chron.* 21/1   A Frenchman..concerted a
> plan with a Spaniard and four of the seacunnies, for murdering the officers
> and seizing the ship.
> 1801   in A. Duncan *Marin. Chron.* (1804) II. 355   Leaving Captain
> Porter, who, with six Manilla seconnies, remained on board the wreck.
> 
> 
> 
>     Bombay Gazette, Feb. 2.  Mallawans.
> 
>     ***  [pirates seize a ship]  Happy it would have been, had the
> business rested here; in the course of their plundering, some of them
> attempted to strip one of the Seacunnys, who not relishing such a
> procedure, made resistance and knocked one of them down. . . .
> 
>     Daily Advertiser (New York City), September 7, 1793, p. 2, col. 3
> 
> 
> 
>     From a Calcutta Paper of December 15.  [report of a mutiny]  [The
> captain] was then between the wheel and the cuddy door, when the sea cunny,
> who suffered on Saturday, instantly plunged a crease into his heart. . . --
> he had wounded one of the sea cunnies, but being pent under the poop, he
> had not sufficient room to wield his sword in his defence.
> 
>     Morning Chronicle (New York City), June 11, 1806, p. 2, col. 5
> 
> 
> 
>     Pulo-Penang, April 3, 1819.
> 
>     Extract of a letter, dated Coast of Pedier, 15th March, 1819.
> 
>     "I am now enabled to give you a circumstantial account of the Massacre
> of Capt. Onetta, his Wife, and the Officers of the *Wilhelmina*: it appears
> that the subject was proposed by a Seacunny of the name of Jem, to the
> Syrang, who, together with the Crew, immediately entered into his views o
> hearing there was money on board. . . .
> 
>     Carolina Sentinel (Newbern, S. C.), October 9, 1819, p. 1, col. 3
> 
> 
> 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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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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