[Ads-l] Hager-ma growley (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

> On Apr 8, 2015, at 4:27 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL> wrote:
> 
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
> 
> Saratoga Spring NY _Daily Saratogan_ 22 Feb 1883
> 
> "Beware, you base twelve-ounce-to-the-pound huckster, you gimlet-eyed
> seller of dog-sausage, you sanded-sugar idiot, you small potato three card
> monte sleight of hand rotten egg fiend, you villain that sells smoked sturgeon
> and dogfish for smoked halibut. The avenger is on your track."

These all seem like vile acts indeed except for the smoked-sturgeon-selling villain.  Could smoked halibut really have been more highly valued than smoked sturgeon?  Today, smoked sturgeon is available unsliced in 1.0-1.3 pound chunks at the moment for $32 at one site, and at another (http://www.911caviar.com) at $25.50 for a 10-12 ounce package.  Smoked halibut from Alaska seems is variably available for online purchase in the neighborhood of $20-$25 a pound.  So maybe today's villains would be selling smoked halibut for smoked sturgeon.  (Of course it's all a matter of supply, demand, and custom--back in 1883 fish-house workers were probably still rioting over being served oysters and lobsters too often.)

LH
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2015 8:28 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Hager-ma growley
>> 
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header ---------------
>> --------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Hager-ma growley
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --------
>> 
>> Here's some colorful (and surely romanticized) Civil War grousing, from
>> "D. S. Forbes" [actually S. W. Lewis] *History of the Thirty-
>> Days=E2=80=99 = Campaign of the Sixty-Eighth Regiment, New York State
>> National Guards* (Fredonia,
>> N.Y.: pvtly ptd., 1863).
>> 
>> P. 20:
>> 
>> Gentlemen, by smut, hark, and I'll just naturally put a flea in your
>> ears.
>> Now, you see this is a grab game, and if we don't keep our eyes peeled,
>> we'll get euchered. These gol-blasted commissioned officers are going
>> to be powerfully patriotic and great Union-loving sons of ------- until
>> the thing is all fastened and the knots all tied. When things look
>> smutty and danger begins to look a little red in relation to our bones
>> and sinners, why they'll resign, and we poor, unlucky, cat-hauled
>> devils may go to H =E2=80= =94l, for all of them; they'll resign their
>> commissions and are all sound on the goose.
>> 
>> 
>> P.45:
>> 
>> "I can just naturally look through this d----d clap-trap game, and I
>> ain't going to stand it; now that's what's the matter with the mule.
>> ...  Old Snipe, (Knipe,) the lop-eared, penurious, snake-eyed Hager-ma
>> growley, is going to slip us across the Potomac, and clear on down to
>> where it is hotter than Balshazzar's furnace."
>> 
>> P. 49:
>> "The old whiskey-drinking pop-gun; he's gone home, the old lily-livered
>> cuss....  Knipe, the old, black,wall-eyed, crabbed, fiery-mouthed,
>> flint-pated devil, will be here in about ten minutes, frothing and
>> foaming because we ain't down there in the scorching Virginia swamps."
>> 
>> "By smut" and "smutty" may euphemize "shit" and "shitty," but the
>> historical record makes that uncertain.  To "euchre" is to victimize by
>> trickery.  A "grab game" is a swindle, and "sound on the goose" usually
>> means "sound in one's political views."  Here it may simply mean "safe
>> and sound," but that is conjecture.
>> 
>> "That's what's the matter with the mule" elaborates the19th C.
>> catch-phrase, "That's what's the matter!"  It meant pretty much what it
>> means today, but seems to have been used frequently for its own sake -
>> possibly a quotation from somewhere?
>> 
>> "Hager-ma growley" may be a one-off creation. The regiment was camped
>> near Hagerstown, Md.
>> 
>> JL
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --=20
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>> 
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> 
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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