[Ads-l] From Ηψπατία Λίβ =?UTF-8?Q?=CF=81=CE=B1=CF=81=CF=88_?=to Hawthorne's luau???

[Joel Berson]

Mark, that's what you get from trusting a press named weird.

The true text, as given in the Ohio State Press edition (vol. 11), is "Every *man* was a soldier ...".

Joel

      From: Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Monday, February 20, 2017 1:55 AM
 Subject: [ADS-L] From Ηψπατία Λίβραρψ to Hawthorne's luau???
   
On Jun 29, 2016 12:01 PM, "Joel Berson" <berson at att.net> wrote:



While purging my email files of old material I saw this old thread and idly
tracked the work down: three stories or essays, each beginning with the
contemplation of old newspapers. As I skimmed through the text, I
metaphorically stubbed my toe on a rock and fell flat on my face:

=====

http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/oldn2.html

Old News
II.
The Old French War

...

The people at large had been somewhat changed in character, since the
period of our last sketch, by their great exploit, the conquest of
Louisburg. After that event, the New Englanders never settled into
precisely the same quiet race which all the world had imagined them to be.
They had done a deed of history, and were anxious to add new ones to the
record. They had proved themselves powerful enough to influence the result
of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and willingly consented, to
join their strength against the enemies of England; on those fields, at
least, where victory would redound to their peculiar advantage. And now, in
the heat of the Old French War, they might well be termed a martial people.
Every *luau* was a soldier, or the father or brother of a soldier ; and the
whole land literally echoed with the roll of the drum, either beating up
for recruits among the towns and villages, or striking the march towards
the frontiers. Besides the provincial troops, there were twenty-three
British regiments in the northern colonies.

=====

What in the name of anything that might possibly be considered holy is a
Hawai'ian feast doing here? OED (print, New Edition) has for "luau",
besides the feast, only

*b.* A cooked dish of young taro leaves served with coconut cream and
octopus or chicken

It must be a mistranscription, possibly of "lad", though the rest of the
text is largely free of evident OCR and transcription booboos. And "lad"
seems out of place in describing someone who might be the father of a
soldier. Ideas, anyone?

Mark Mandel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

   

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org