[Ads-l] =?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=9Cwolawant=E2=80=9D_?=1734 Oct., antedates OED2 1828- (Bonus: "hurrah"?)

[Joel Berson]

(My apologies for the unreadable block of text in the prior transmission, probably mostly due to a dispute between Word, Yahoo email, and the ADS-L listserve over what encoding represents a carriage return/line feed.)

... that is, “vol-au-vent”, noun.  


They begged and prayed for one year more,     but it was all in vain;No wolawants you’d have, you swore;     by jove you made it plain:So sent them home to take their rest,And here’s a health unto the best;          with a fa la la.  


A Song Made Upon the Election of New Magistrates for This City. In a broadside ballad, 1734 [Oct.], printed by John Peter Zenger.  


“wolawant” 1734 Oct., antedates OED2 “vol-au-vent” 1828--.  


My source is James Alexander, A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John Peter Zenger, Printer of the New York Weekly Journal, edited by Stanley Nider Katz (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1963), page 110.  Also in Early American Newspapers, Evans 3836 (which I have not examined, so I don’t know what the imprint is or if it is dated).  Livingston Rutherfurd’s John Peter Zenger: His Press, His Trial and a Bibliography of Zenger Imprints (New York, Dodd, Mead, 1904), facing page 38, has a photo-reproduction of a single side containing both songs; but the sheet seems to be cut off at the bottom and no imprint is visible (Google Books, full view).  


One of two well-known “scandalous” songs printed by Zenger to celebrate the victory of the Morrisite party over the supporters of New York Governor William Cosby in the election for the New York City Common Council on Sept. 29, 1734.  Zenger's broadside was presented to the October 1734 Grand Jury and ordered to be burned.  (Thus we have here the indictment, conviction, and punishment of a written document.) 

This song refers sarcastically to a banquet to honor Gov.Cosby that was held earlier (in May) by his supporters, and specifically deprecates its “feasting” and “usquebaugh and beer”.  The association of “vol-au-vent” with the Cosby supporters seems clear: the feast --> vol-au-vent, a puff pastry -->  “puff”, n., sense 2, (“a puff pastry”) and sense 7, “a person regarded as inconsequential” --> supporters of Cosby, now out of office.  


Katz glosses “wolawants” as “presumably ‘fops’,” but I think the connotation of “puffs” is closer.  The spelling with w’s instead of the French v’s probably had the happy result of leading the many Dutch opponents of Cosby in New York City into the correct pronunciation when they joined in the singing.  Zenger himself was a Palatine German who had immigrated to New York State in 1710, and he had published a number of books in Dutch.  His typeset English was said to be poor, so perhaps he simply transcribed what he heard into Dutch-English.
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Bonus:  Possible "hurrah", int., 1734; interdates OED2 1716 (earliest) -- 1773.


The last verse of the other scandalous song ends with:


While they with us resolve to stand     for liberty and law,We'll drink their healths with hat in hand,     whoraa! whoraa! whoraa!

A Song Made Upon the Foregoing Occasion.  Same broadside.  Same sources (except for Katz, page 111).


I note that the OED's 1716 quotation has "Whurra!" while its 1773 has "Hurrea".


Joel




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