[Ads-l] Throwing a Monkey Wrench and Sabotage

[Peter Reitan]

I just put up a first draft of a post about the origin of "throwing a monkey wrench" in the works/machine - and Sabotage.  Comments appreciated.


http://esnpc.blogspot.com/2017/04/iowa-farmers-wooden-shoes-and-french.html


Highlights (if you can call them that) include:

The idiom "throw a monkey wrench in the machine" can be traced to Leslie M. Shaw who was elected the Governor of Iowa in 1897.  The earliest example of the idiom I can find appeared shortly after his election, and praises his turn of phrase as being "worthy of Lincoln."



"Hon. L. M. Shaw, the Vermont boy who has just been elected governor of Iowa, used an illustration worthy of Lincoln in addressing the voters.  He asked them if they meant to go to the polls and deliberately drop a monkey wrench into the threshing machine just as we are starting at a new setting.  They could see the point easily enough."

Herald and News (West Randolph, Vermont), November 18, 1897, page 2.



All of the several earliest examples of the expression are from Iowa - or expressly credit Shaw.


In 1902, when Shaw became Secretary of the Treasury, The Saturday Review published an article about Shaw, and included a lengthy description of his Lincoln-like speech that included the "monkey wrench in the threshing machine" metaphor.  The expression became more widespread and increasingly common after the Saturday Review article.


As for sabotage, its etymology is fairly well known, but I did find two entries in Larousse's Grand Dictionnaire Universel, volume 14, that appear to be precursors to the word, that I have not seen mentioned anywhere else.


The verb, saboter, could mean making wooden shoes, or making wooden railroad ties (wooden shoes for train tracks), but it could also mean playing hooky from school or working "fast and badly".


Jouer au sabot: Un enfant qui SABOTER au lieu d'aller a l'ecole.
Faire vite et mal: Saboter de l'ouvrage.


I believe that the 17 volume Larousse was completed by 1895, which places it before "sabotage" became an official word related to labor direct-action.  The dictionary is undated, but I've seen advertisements for the complete set from 1895.  Can anyone provide better date on it? Am I missing anything?


I also put in some historical details about French shoe makers, a silk weavers strike and presidential assassination that relate to the probably false etymology of sabotage involving the throwing of wooden shoes into the machinery.




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