[Ads-l] 'gee', to inform 1932

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 8:50 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:
>
>
> …with the second line of the couplet providing a helpful cite for the
> OED’s entry at _cunt_, just predating one from Lawrence of Arabia, although
> well after the one from(?) (or about?) Honest Abe that suggests either an
> curiously different pronunciation or a half-rhyme.
>
> 3.  As a term of abuse for a man.
>
> 1860   in M. E. Neely Abraham Lincoln Encycl. (1982) 154   And when they
> got to Charleston, they had to, as is wont Look around to find a chairman,
> and so they took a Cu—.
>
[snip]

According to Neely, the doggerel appeared in a letter to Lincoln from his
friend Ward Hill Lamon, and the topic was the Democratic presidential
nominations of 1860. The first nominating convention in Charleston, which
ended in a deadlock, had Caleb Cushing as its chairman. And indeed, the
next line of Lamon's verse follows "Cu-" with "-shing," allowing for
plausible deniability a la the Shaving Cream song. Thus:

And when they got to Charleston, they had to, as is wont
Look around to find a chairman, and so they took a Cu-
-shing, who is known throughout the land
As most prodigious "pumpkins" when the niggers is on hand.

(Under "pumpkin," OED has: "U.S. slang. In predicative use: a person or
matter of importance or consequence; an impressive thing. Esp. in 'some
pumpkins.'")

p. 154 in snippet view:
https://books.google.com/books?id=fwt3AAAAMAAJ&q=%22as+is+wont%22

--bgz

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