[Ads-l] "kick the bucket"

Fri Feb 19 16:33:02 UTC 2016

I found some early uses on British Newspaper Archive that may perhaps be significant.  The first is supportive of the theory that "kicked the bucket" refers to kicking a bucket away when committing suicide by hanging.  This is a literal use of the term, so it is not clear that it is necessarily the same as the idiom.  The second undercuts this theory, because it asserts that to kick the bucket is to die in one's bed.  The third, and perhaps the most interesting, is an altogether different use of the idiom to mean having made a great mistake.  Perhaps the development here is similar to "went for a burton," which seems to have gone from meaning "screwed up badly" to "died in military action"?

Oxford Journal, Sept. 28, 1788:  "Last Week John Marshfield, a labouring Man, hanged himself in an Out-House in Avon Street.--He had very deliberately just before bought a Piece of Cord, which he put around his Neck, and by standing on a Bucket, fixed it to the Beam--he then kicked the Bucket to a considerable Distance from under him, and was found soon after with his Head almost severed from his Body, owing to the smallness of the Cord.--The Jury having brought in their Verdict, Felo de se, he was buried in the Cross Road leading to Charlcombe."

Chester Chronicle, Feb. 7, 1794:  "Strange misapplication of _Jests_--It is worthy observation, how the most serious, sacred, and important events of life, can be sported with.  To come to an ignominious end, is only "to go off at the drop," or "at the fall of the _leaf_;"--and to die in bed, is "to flip your _wind_," or "to kick the _bucket_.""  (A similar sentiment was expressed in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette on Jan. 23, 1794, but the Chester publication is more legible.)

The (London) Courier and Evening Gazette, Feb. 25, 1802, an account of an action for breach of promise of marriage by a man who had made substantial expenditures (buying a house and a business) in anticipation of marrying the defendant.  On the advice of her friends, she had broken off the relationship, but in a later letter to a mutual friend, dated Aug. 18, 1801, she questioned her decision:  "If I can bring him round again I am determined to marry him in spite of my friends.  I trust to your father for the settlements.--But I am afraid I shall have no occasion for his assistance.  As you say, 'I kicked the bucket too violently.'  How could I be such a fool!"  (The plaintiff won the case and received a damages award of 200 pounds, a substantial amount at a time when a poor man might live for a year on 20 pounds.)

John Baker

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 19, 2016, at 6:53 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> As Stephen noted, the ADS archive has some early citations. In 2015
> Peter Morris found instances in 1774, 1775, 1780 and 1784. Back in
> 2011 I found instances in 1778 and 1780.
> 
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-September/139014.html
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2015-September/139015.html
> 
> Below is an entertaining instance; the confusion described seems familiar.
> 
> A writer in "The London Magazine" in May 1780 remarked that he did not
> know what the phrase kicking the bucket meant, but he was told that
> "it is an expression used to inform us of a person's death". He
> humorously suggested two alternative phrases to signal mortality.
> 
> Date: May 1780
> Periodical: The London Magazine: Or, Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer
> Volume 49
> Publication Information: Printed for R. Baldwin, London
> Article: For the London Magazine: Observations on the Errors and
> Corruptions that Have Crept into the English Language
> Start Page 201, Quote Page 202
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=91QDAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+bucket%22#v=snippet&
> 
> [Begin excerpt - double check for errors]
> I should have been at a loss also to have
> known the significance of kicking the
> bucket, but am told it is an expression
> used to inform us of a person's death,
> although I should no sooner apprehend
> it to be so than if I were told he had let
> fall his watch, or rapped at my door.
> The poor man's dying rich, although
> the expression be a bull in itself, yet it
> is but a small deviation from truth, be-
> cause we have continual examples of
> those, who in the midst of riches and
> wealth, have the same proportion of
> poverty in respect to happiness and
> ease of mind; . . .
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Garson
> 
>> On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 5:41 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
>> Subject:      "kick the bucket"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Anatoly Liberman recently wrote about "kick the bucket" here:
>> 
>> 
>> http://blog.oup.com/2016/02/kick-the-bucket-idiom-origin-etymology/
>> 
>> 
>> I commented:
>> 
>> 
>> I agree that the proposals offered (and another "proof" I encountered) are =
>> not persuasive. (Also, there are some antedatings at american dialect socie=
>> ty list archive.)
>> I suggest that focus on the sense of "bucket" may mislead us. The verb "kic=
>> k" v. 1 sense 1 b is already attested earlier as slang: "1725   New Canting=
>> Dict.   Kick'd, gone, fled, departed."
>> So, perhaps, left, departed life, or the job, or the vessel, or some other =
>> bucket-associated entity or image.
>> "Bucket" adds (emphatic?) sound play after "kick," kick bucket.
>> Perhaps compare 'kick off,' "kick up," "kick out," and maybe even the later=
>> "kick the habit."
>> 
>> 
>> Stephen Goranson
>> 
>> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
>> 
>> Stephen Goranson's Home Page - Duke University<http://people.duke.edu/~gora=
>> nson/>
>> people.duke.edu
>> Stephen Goranson. goranson "at" duke "dot" edu _____ Jannaeus.pdf. My paper=
>> on the history of Alexander Jannaeus as the Qumran- and Essene-view "Wicke=
>> d Priest" and ...
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I agree that the proposals offered (and another "proof" I encountered) are =
>> not persuasive. (Also, there are some antedatings at american dialect socie=
>> ty list archive.)
>> I suggest that focus on the sense of "bucket" may mislead us. The verb "kic=
>> k" v. 1 sense 1 b is already attested earlier as slang: "1725 New Canting D=
>> ict. Kick'd, gone, fled, departed."
>> So. perhaps, left, departed life, or the job, or the vessel, or some other =
>> bucket-associated entity or image.
>> "Bucket" adds (emphatic?) sound play after "kick," kick bucket.
>> Perhaps compare 'kick off,' "kick up," "kick out," and maybe even the later=
>> "kick the habit." - See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2016/02/kick-the-buck=
>> et-idiom-origin-etymology/#sthash.VqiIy6Sj.dpuf
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I agree that the proposals offered (and another "proof" I encountered) are =
>> not persuasive. (Also, there are some antedatings at american dialect socie=
>> ty list archive.)
>> I suggest that focus on the sense of "bucket" may mislead us. The verb "kic=
>> k" v. 1 sense 1 b is already attested earlier as slang: "1725 New Canting D=
>> ict. Kick'd, gone, fled, departed."
>> So. perhaps, left, departed life, or the job, or the vessel, or some other =
>> bucket-associated entity or image.
>> "Bucket" adds (emphatic?) sound play after "kick," kick bucket.
>> Perhaps compare 'kick off,' "kick up," "kick out," and maybe even the later=
>> "kick the habit." - See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2016/02/kick-the-buck=
>> et-idiom-origin-etymology/#sthash.VqiIy6Sj.dpuf
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I agree that the proposals offered (and another "proof" I encountered) are =
>> not persuasive. (Also, there are some antedatings at american dialect socie=
>> ty list archive.)
>> I suggest that focus on the sense of "bucket" may mislead us. The verb "kic=
>> k" v. 1 sense 1 b is already attested earlier as slang: "1725 New Canting D=
>> ict. Kick'd, gone, fled, departed."
>> So. perhaps, left, departed life, or the job, or the vessel, or some other =
>> bucket-associated entity or image.
>> "Bucket" adds (emphatic?) sound play after "kick," kick bucket.
>> Perhaps compare 'kick off,' "kick up," "kick out," and maybe even the later=
>> "kick the habit." - See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2016/02/kick-the-buck=
>> et-idiom-origin-etymology/#sthash.VqiIy6Sj.dpuf
>> I agree that the proposals offered (and another "proof" I encountered) are =
>> not persuasive. (Also, there are some antedatings at american dialect socie=
>> ty list archive.)
>> I suggest that focus on the sense of "bucket" may mislead us. The verb "kic=
>> k" v. 1 sense 1 b is already attested earlier as slang: "1725 New Canting D=
>> ict. Kick'd, gone, fled, departed."
>> So. perhaps, left, departed life, or the job, or the vessel, or some other =
>> bucket-associated entity or image.
>> "Bucket" adds (emphatic?) sound play after "kick," kick bucket.
>> Perhaps compare 'kick off,' "kick up," "kick out," and maybe even the later=
>> "kick the habit." - See more at: http://blog.oup.com/2016/02/kick-the-buck=
>> et-idiom-origin-etymology/#sthash.VqiIy6Sj.dpuf
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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