[Ads-l] get one's goat (1906)

[Ben Zimmer]

I discussed "get one's goat" in the latest installment of Slate's
Lexicon Valley podcast:

https://soundcloud.com/slateradio/linguafile-v

And here's my writeup for my Word Routes column:

http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wordroutes/getting-ones-goat-can-you-help-solve-the-mystery/

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread! Perhaps Lexicon
Valley listeners will dig up some further early evidence.

--bgz


On Fri, Oct 3, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> The mysterious origins of "get one's goat" came up on Twitter
> recently. HDAS and GDoS both start with "goat" glossed as "anger" in
> _Life in Sing Sing_ (1904) and have cites for the full phrase starting
> in 1908. I was able to find a few cites from 1906 in the Genealogy
> Bank archive.
>
> 1906 June 2 _Jersey Journal_ 3/3 (head & text) Colored Man "Got His
> Goat." But There Was a Real Goat in It, Too, and Carmody Butted Into
> Trouble. "Judge, he got my goat," said William Carmody, 23 years old,
> of 302 Second Street, Hoboken, when arraigned before Judge Higgins in
> the First Criminal Court on a charge of atrocious assault and battery,
> preferred by John Bailey, colored, of 276 Eleventh Street.
>
> 1906 Sept 7  _Daily People_ (New York, NY) 2/3 Something or other I
> said in my criticism of Raiser's letter of the 14th instant must have
> "got his goat."
>
> 1906 Nov 23 _Wilkes-Barre (Penn.) Times_ 7/1 "Step on the old man's
> feet," said the Kid [sc. Kid McCoy to Jack O'Brien]. "His feet are in
> the cornfield, and you will get his goat more by keeping on top of
> them all the time than by stabbing him in the food chopper."
>
> The first cite above is about a case involving an actual goat, but the
> headline indicates that readers would appreciate the double entendre.
> The same is true of this later cite, also from the Jersey Journal:
>
> 1907 Dec 14 _Jersey Journal_ 3/3 It is easy to "get the goat" of the
> police of the Second Precinct now, for locked up in a cell at the
> Seventh Street police station is a "Nannie" that was arrested by
> Roundsman Sniffen for her obstreperous conduct in Jersey Avenue
> yesterday.
>
> The 11/23/06 cite suggests the expression was in common use in the
> boxing world. See also the boxing-related treatment of the phrase in
> Richard Barry's "The Prize Ring" (Pearson's Magazine, July 1910):
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=Pm8-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA6
>
> Here is Barry's explanation of the origin:
>
> "Originally this phrase was racing slang. To keep a racehorse from
> going stale a trainer frequently quarters with him a goat, for the pet
> relieves the thoroughbred of his loneliness. But intriguers have found
> that by stealing a goat from a horse a day or two before a great race
> he can be thrown out of condition. The loss of his favorite companion
> annoys the horse and he goes into the big event in a highly feminized
> state of nerves. So, to 'get his goat' is to remove his confidence."
>
> Like Michael Quinion, I find the horse-racing story rather dubious,
> but it's notable that this explanation was given quite early on.
>
> http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-get1.htm
>
> If I had to guess, I'd say "goat" developed as an alteration of "goad"
> (note that _Life in Sing Sing_ glosses "goat" not just as "anger" but
> "to exasperate") -- for comic effect, or maybe as a kind of prison
> code.


-- 
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org