[Ads-l] Antedating of "Goundhog Day"

[Peter Reitan]

That 1847 reference is the earliest groundhog-specific reference I found.  And the 1852 cites are the earliest “groundhog day” references I’ve seen.

Wikipedia has information on earlier hibernating animal traditions.

When I started an as-yet-unfinished post about groundhog day last year, I had references to poems about the weather on Candlemas, February 2, dating back to the 1600s, which claim that a sunny Candlemas portends more winter weather, and vice versa – but without mentioning animals and shadows.

When I came back to groundhog day again this year, I got distracted by comments posted online that day about a man who supposedly invented the ice cream scoop as reflected in a patent that issued on February 2, 1897.  He did invent an ice cream scoop, not THE ice cream scoop; not the first and not the last, and it’s not clear whether anyone actually manufactured on based on his design.  Post-pending.

Perhaps I’ll get back to groundhog day itself soon.


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Subject: Re: Antedating of "Goundhog Day"

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There is a passage describing the folklore of groundhog day in 1847
although the passage does not contain the phrase "ground hog day".

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117784753/arkansas-intelligencer/

Peter Reitan clipped this passage two days ago, so he may be working
on an entry on this topic.

Garson

On Thu, Feb 2, 2023 at 1:57 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Seems like a good premise for a movie...
>
> On Thu, Feb 2, 2023 at 11:19 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > Groundhog Day (OED 1865)
> >
> > 1852 Lebanon (Pa.) Courier 13 Feb. 2/5 (Newspapers.com)  The Johnstown
> > Mountain Echo, of the 3d inst., says: The 2d of February is known to our
> > natives of the mountains by the not very euphonious name of ground-hog day.
> > ... On that day the ground-hog emerges from its hole, and if it gets a
> > glimpse of its shadow it will return immediately, and remain for six weeks,
> > as the weather for that apace of time will be extremely hard and severe.
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
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