[Ads-l] dough boys 1823, 1826

[Laurence Horn]

> On Apr 29, 2018, at 8:37 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I read it as a simple pun: he's "down in the mouth" (depressed,
> discouraged, unhappy) like a biscuit because the biscuit in the mouth is
> about to be swallowed down.
> 
> JL

As I recall, one of the eponymous "1001 Riddles”, a book of sainted childhood memory, went along similar lines…

Q: Why do dentists seem so sad?
A: They’re always looking down in the mouth.


> 
> On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 12:02 PM, Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> As for cutting out the "dough boys" and girls and horses for the Christmas
>> stockings, it is different from the normal "dough boys" - because they are
>> probably cutting out boys and girls in the cookie dough, not making "dough
>> boy" bread pieces.  The giving of cookies was an early Dutch New York
>> Christmas tradition.
>> 
>> 
>> As for the down in the mouth sailor, it seems like a metaphor using a pun
>> on the expression, "down in the mouth" - as "down in the mouth" as a
>> "midshipman's dough boy".  It might be read as including a reference to how
>> seasick young "midshipmen" (soft, educated, wannabe officers, just getting
>> acclimated to shipboard life) get - he "comes up" as "down in the mouth"
>> (that is to say, coming up instead of staying down) as a "midshipman's
>> dough boy."  And the speaker is "down in the mouth" - depressed - about
>> being put "clapt into limbo" - tied down or put into chains.
>> 
>> 
>> ________________________________
>> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
>> Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
>> Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2018 2:11 AM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: dough boys 1823, 1826
>> 
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
>> Subject:      dough boys 1823, 1826
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------------------
>> 
>> a) "....the eldest, was busily engaged at the table, cutting out dough
>> boys=
>> and girls, and birds and horses to fill up the long row of [Christmas?]
>> st=
>> ockings...." [like gingerbread men?]
>> 
>> Dutchess Observer (Poughkeepsie, NY) Dec. 10, 1823, p. 4, col. 1. Readex
>> Am=
>> . Hist. News.
>> 
>> 
>> b) "Well, howsomever, to shorten the matter: as I comes up, as down in the
>> =
>> mouth as a midshipman's dough boy, I was clapt into limbo...." [a marine
>> be=
>> ing seen by sailors as useless aboard ship as a humanoid cookie?]
>> 
>> Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 19 (1826) Naval Sketch-Book p. 365b.
>> 
>> https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=3Dnjp.
>> 32101076889615;view=3D1up;seq=
>> =3D399
>> 
>> 
>> Stephen Goranson
>> 
>> Origin of Kibosh (Routledge)
>> 
>> http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
>> <http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/>
>> 
>> 
>> <http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/>
>> 
>> 
>> <http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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