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

Thu Apr 9 15:42:43 UTC 2015

I'd check the price of sturgeon vs. halibut in the vicinity of Saratoga Springs, NY, in the 1880s.  Sturgeon were from colonial days and now again are prized fish in the Hudson River (they were declared endangered in the 1960s).  "The largest of New York's sturgeons, Atlantic sturgeon in the Hudson River occasionally reach over 200 pounds in weight and six to eight feet in length."  And look up "Hudson River sturgeon caviar."
"The sturgeon used to be fished heavily to make a popular smoked meat known as Albany beef, named for the fish's upstream spawning site near the state capital of Albany."Joel
      From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 10:09 PM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Hager-ma growley (UNCLASSIFIED)
   
> 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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