[Ads-l] Birdge-Flag

George Thompson george.thompson at NYU.EDU
Wed Aug 28 10:43:03 UTC 2024


            Last Week as Major Rickets, together with his Wife, Child, and
Nurse, &c. was going home to Elizabeth-Town, in his Pleasure Boat, the Man
of War fired at them, with an Intention to bring her too, he having a small
Birdgee-Flag hoisted, the second Shot, struck the Nurse in the head so that
she expired in a few Hours after, the Coroners Inquest has brought in their
Verdict willful Murder.
            New-York Evening Post, June 11, 1750, p. 3, col. 2

This may be a typo, but it's not my typo.

Birdgee-Flag and Birdge-Flag appear nowhere else in America's Historical
Newspapers.  Birdgee also doesn't appear elsewhere.  Birdge shows up only
as a typo for "bridge", but not "bridge flag".

Mysterious.

GAT


-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

But when aroused at the Trump of Doom / Ye shall start, bold kings, from
your lowly tomb. . .
L. H. Sigourney, "Burial of Mazeen", Poems.  Boston, 1827, p. 112

The Trump of Doom -- also known as The Dunghill Toadstool.  (Here's a
picture of his great-grandfather.)

https://heritagecollections.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/HOP_WOA_3851

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


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