[Ads-l] Doughboy - alternate explaination and implied antedating

[Jonathan Lighter]

More exx. than you might want in HDAS. Also another, if less colorful,
proposed derivation.

To my knowledge, "the gridiron and doughboys" was a British phrase.

BTW, here is a major antedating of the synonymous "doughfoot," freq. used
by Ernie Pyle in WW2 - and naturally also in HDAS, your one-stop resource
if you don't give a good goddamn about the second half of the alphabet.

Like "dogface," it must have been used in WW1 by very few :

1917 *Every Evening* (Wilmington, Del.) (June 19) 8: Everyone who was a
“dough-foot” at Plattsburg will remember what a Godsend the canteen
was…after a day’s training.

Derivation: "one who plods; slowpoke". [But infl. by "doughboy."]

1903 *Professional World* (Columbia. Mo.) (Dec. 11) 4:The parrot…shrieked
“dough-foot.” *1911* *Dayton* [O.] *Herald* (May 24) 12: Ty Cobb stole
three bases,  [but]…even such a dough-foot as Sam Crawford swiped two.

No appearance of the British phrase "gridiron and doughboys" is known to me
outside of old slang dictionaries.


 JL





On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 12:54 PM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>
wrote:

> Two 1835 uses of "dough boy"
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-August/101783.html
>
>
> Stephen Goranson
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <...> on behalf of Peter Reitan <...>
> Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 12:43 PM
> To: ...
> Subject: [ADS-L] Doughboy - alternate explaination and implied antedating
>
> "Doughboy" is associated with WWI, but it dates to at least 1846, as
> evidenced by a letter included in a collection of Mexican-American War
> letters published in 1990.
>
>
> Monterrey is Ours, The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Dana 1845-1847,
> University Press of Kentucky, 1990, page 166. [Excerpt]  We were off at
> daylight, and the morning was mighty cold, so our pace was soon quickened
> almost to what is vulgarly called a dogtrot until we were stopped about
> eight o’clock at the foot of a large steep hill, where we “doughboys” had
> to wait for the artillery to get their carriages over. [End excerpt]
>
>
> The term was used during the Civil War, where it referred to the infantry,
> as distinguised from the cavalry.  A reference from 1865 may suggest that
> the writer believed that the term derived from their walking on soft
> ground, although it is possible that it was merely a "clever" figurative
> turn of phrase playing off the word "dough", and not suggestive of the
> origin of the word:
>
>
> From Philadelphia Inquirer, April 3, 1865, page 8, from a letter from a
> correspondent covering the Army of the Potomac as it approached Richmond.
>
>
> [Excerpt] The sacred soil of Virginia – so often have our marching columns
> been called to knead its saturated surface, that an infantryman is known as
> a “dough-boy” – if it is not sacred, morning, noon and night, sacred now
> and forever and sacred to all intents and purposes, it is simply because
> our soldiers are entirely too earnest in their anathemas to take time to
> swear in the polished Gallic tongue.
>
> [End Excerpt]
>
>
> A comment in a military history article published in 1868 suggests that
> "doughboy" was in use as early as 1808.
>
>
> From Army and Navy Journal, Volume 5, Number 46, July 4, 1868, page 727.
>
>
> [Excerpt] Although the regiment of artillery raised under the law of 1808
> was designated light artillery, it differed in no respect, in way of
> equipment, from the old regiment; both serving chiefly as red-legged
> infantry, a designation used in contradistinction to other infantry who
> were styled dough-boys.
>
> [End Excerpt]
>
>
> The use of "red legged infantry" used to distinguish the artillery from
> regular infantry from "doughboys" may support the explanation used in
> etymonline.com.  It lists the theory that "doughboy" refers to the look
> of buttons on an infantry uniform.  It would be a nice symmetry if both
> terms were based on uniform items - as was, apparently, "leatherneck" that
> refers to the leather collar worn by the marines.
>
>
> An alternate idiomatic use of "doughboy" from the period may also be
> consistent with the button theory.  A few references show that sailors
> referred to the American flag as the "gridiron and doughboys", as a play on
> "stripes and stars."  "Doughboy" was the name of a water-boiled dumpling
> commonly eaten by sailors.  The "doughboys" standing out on the blue field
> of the flag would be similar to buttons standing out on blue uniforms.
>
>
> Army soldiers also ate "doughboys" at times.  British soldiers ate
> something related to "doughboys" as early as the Napoleonic wars, at least
> in one particular location in Portugal.  Two separate memoirs of soldiers
> who served in the Peninsular War referred to a placed they nicknamed
> "Dough-boy Hill," for the horrible bread made from a dough of hand-ground
> "corn" (wheat?) they were forced to eat at the place.  It's not clear
> whether "dough-boy" here referred to the bread or to the boys making the
> dough.
>
>
>
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