[Ads-l] YouTubery: "I guess you never heard of a _wheelbarrel_."

Mark Mandel mark.a.mandel at GMAIL.COM
Mon Apr 22 05:52:12 UTC 2019


I guess you're right, here.

MM


On Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 3:38 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>
wrote:

> >Garson O'Toole wrote:
> > > The following 1898 citation employed "wheelbarrow" and "wheelbarrel"
> > > in adjacent sentences. Yet, the two terms apparently referred to the
> > > same object.
> > >
> > > Date: October 16, 1898
> > > Newspaper: The Cincinnati Enquirer
> > > Newspaper Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
> > > Article: Street Talk
> > > Quote Page 13, Column 1
> > > Database: Newspapers.com
> > >
> > > [Begin excerpt]
> > > "If yer had a wheelbarrel we'd be all right," asserted the young man
> > > who had delivered the guitar.
> > >
> > > "Well, there's a wheelbarrow somewhere on the place. It's back by the
> > > stable."
> > > [End excerpt]
>
> Mark Mandel wrote:
> >  I suspect that was intended to reflect different usages by the
> > conversants. Note the eye dialect "yer" of the "wheelbarrel" speaker,
> while
> > speaker "wheelbarrow" is recorded in standard spelling. That's not much
> > evidence in such brief utterances, but it's something. The source cited
> > must have more.
>
> Below is a link to a clipping together with a longer excerpt. The task
> was to travel to a village and bring back liquid refreshments for a
> group of people. The tool was a wheelbarrel or wheelbarrow.
>
> I would guess that a barrel with wheels would work for this task. So
> the ambiguity of "wheelbarrel" remains unresolved (to me). In the
> article, a wheelbarrow was successfully employed.
>
> Date: October 16, 1898
> Newspaper: The Cincinnati Enquirer
> Newspaper Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
> Article: Street Talk
> Quote Page 13, Column 1
> Database: Newspapers.com
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/30820921/wheelbarrel/
>
> [Begin excerpt]
> "Gentlemen, I am sorry, but I have nothing in the house to drink. The
> stable is locked and the coachman has gone away with the key or I
> would send down to the village for a keg of beer for you," said the
> now somewhat restless Judge.
>
> "If yer had a wheelbarrel we'd be all right," asserted the young man
> who had delivered the guitar.
>
> "Well, there's a wheelbarrow somewhere on the place. It's back by the
> stable."
>
> Three of them started for the village with the wheelbarrow, and in
> remarkably short space of time came trundling back heavily laden.
>
> "We couldn't get a keg any place in 'Ditchtown,' Judge, and we had to
> get a half barrel," they explained, "an' while we was comin' we
> brought a box of cigars."
>  [End excerpt]
>
> Garson
>
>
>

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