[Ads-l] ridley (sea turtle) antedated to 1885

[Dan Goncharoff]

I doubt this is relevant, but there is a nautical term, fidley, meaning the
space or deck above a boiler or engine, that is also of unknown etymology.
On Aug 18, 2015 11:46 AM, "Stephen Goranson" <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      ridley (sea turtle) antedated to 1885
>
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>
> OED has it from 1897 "Etymology:  Origin unknown.
>
> Various suggestions have been made about the etymology of the name, but
> non=
> e seems convincing. For a full discussion see H. A. Dundee in Marine
> Turtle=
>  Newsletter 58 (1992) 10-2."
>
> The text below fits with the so-far know local use in South Florida (and
> th=
> e Bahamas). It may be early enough to further discount the proposal that
> it=
>  was named after H. N. Ridley, who has no clear connection to this turtle
> o=
> r its area. It does not prove another proposal, but does not contradict
> the=
>  proposal that this turtle, sometimes locally called the "bastard turtle"
> m=
> ight be a local development from riddle (to riddler?) to ridley,
> supposedly=
>  from it's uncertain parentage, locally supposed crossbreed between
> loggerh=
> ead and green turtles (as reported in the article cited by Dundee, "The
> Ety=
> mological Riddle of the Ridley Sea Turtle" [1]). The name here is not
> capit=
> alized.
>
> Since the article, Pegging Turtles," is freely available online, I won't
> qu=
> ote extensively.  Thursday, May 7, 1885 p. 9 col. 1-2, here col. 2, The
> Yaz=
> oo Sentinel (Yazoo City, Miss.).
> "....We pegged a ridley, or yellow turtle ten minutes later. This was
> estim=
> ated to weigh 350 pounds....We let the ridley go after extracting the
> 'peg'=
> ...."
>
>
> http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87065683/1885-05-07/ed-1/seq-9/#da=
> te1=3D1836&index=3D0&rows=3D20&searchType=3Dadvanced&language=3D&sequence=
>
> =3D0&words=3Dridley+turtle&proxdistance=3D10&date2=3D1922&ortext=3D&proxtex=
> t=3Dridley+turtle&phrasetext=3D&andtext=3D&dateFilterType=3DyearRange&page=
> =3D1
>
> Stephen Goranson
>
> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
>
> [1] http://www.seaturtle.org/mtn/archives/mtn58/mtn58p10b.shtml
> <http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/>
>
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