[Ads-l] "Peckerhead" (antedating, 1932-1938)

Wed Jul 10 19:42:54 UTC 2024

A belated thank-you for this helpful information, Jon. I figured you were
sitting on some indispensable data and I appreciate your sharing it.

OED's current entry for "peckerhead" was last revised in 2005; it includes
that "peckerhead" stems from "pecker [penis]" + "head."

OED2 (1989) not only lacks this etymology, but it is also missing
Ginsberg's "peckerhead [romanticism]," which causes me to guess that by
2005 editors were influenced by a more modern usage of "peckerhead"
("dickhead"), had found Ginsberg's text, and missed that the same term,
with a different origin, had earlier circulated as a pejorative for a type
of backwoods white person.

-- Bonnie

On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 3:42 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 1949 V.O. Key _Southern Politics in State and Nation_ (N. Y.: Knopf) 231:
> The [Mississippi] “redneck,” “peckerwood,” or “peckerhead” inhabits another
> world. His “hills” — the highest altitude is around 700 feet — run from the
> northern end of the state and occupy roughly its eastern half, broadening
> out almost to the River in the south and petering out in the pine forests
> of the coastal region.
>
> HDAS III would have had a bunch of these. I discern two overlapping
> meanings: 1. fool. 2. "redneck."  1 is from "pecker," 2 is from
> "peckerwood," prob. infl. by "pecker."
>
> I doubt that TIME would have printed the word in 1955 if the editors had
> been familiar with the (secondary?) "dickhead" sense.
>
> JL
>
> On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 1:58 PM Bonnie Taylor-Blake <
> b.taylorblake at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I'm trying to reconcile finding a few examples of "peckerhead(s)" in
> mostly
> > small-town newspapers in the 1930s (see far below) with OED's entry for
> the
> > word.
> >
> > OED has for "peckerhead" "[a]n aggressive, objectionable person; a fool,
> an
> > idiot" and holds (as others do) that it derives from "pecker [penis]" +
> > "head." (I suppose this compares with “dickhead” and related uses of
> “dick”
> > and “prick.”) I have no issue with that definition; it's the etymology
> > that's now puzzling to me.
> >
> > The earliest example that OED shares dates to 1945. These instances of
> > "peckerhead [romanticism]" that Ginsberg and Kerouac traded in private
> > letters may convey "foolish" or "aggressive," but they may also slyly
> play
> > on sexuality, so maybe a link to "pecker [penis]" + "head" could work, at
> > least for now.
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jack_Kerouac_and_Allen_Ginsberg/N5FN49R58-gC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=%22peckerhead%22
> >
> > But OED's second example for "peckerhead" (1955), when set in context,
> > doesn't completely track. It comes from a TIME magazine review of a movie
> > deemed "a rather unnerving spectacle in which the contemporary South
> looked
> > like a magnolia tundra strewn with discarded Coke bottles" (I love that;
> > https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,823994,00.html
> ).
> >
> > The relevant usage is: "When the girl's husband (Cameron Mitchell), a
> > got-rich peckerhead, finds out about that hotel visit, he ravishes his
> > wife, just to even the score."
> >
> > Maybe "pecker [penis]" + "head," in the context of rape, but maybe
> > something else.
> >
> > It seems improbable to me that "peckerhead" would've appeared in
> > the popular press in the '30s (see examples far below) had it been based
> on
> > this taboo etymology.
> >
> > A few of these '30s uses reflect OED's definition for "peckerhead," but
> at
> > least one seems to be edging toward "peckerwood," in the sense of "[a]
> > white person, esp. a white person regarded as poor, rustic, or
> > unsophisticated" (OED, n.2.) and "[s]mall, poor, inferior; (also) of,
> > relating to, or characteristic of the (poor white) population of the
> > Southern states of America" (OED, adj.). DARE's lengthy and helpful entry
> > for "peckerwood" gives "[a] poor, backward, rural White person."
> >
> > The use of "peckerwood" as a class descriptor goes back to ca. 1870 and
> > appears to be based on "peckerwood" employed earlier in the South for
> > "woodpecker." (I should note that some early human peckerwoods that I've
> > located in 19th-c texts are described as having red hair.)
> >
> > Importantly, DARE has for "peckerhead, "1 A woodpecker" and "2 A
> > disparaging term for a person" and cites, among other things, Pederson's
> > _Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States: Concordance_ (1986), which points
> at
> > a relationship between the disparaging terms "peckerwood" and
> "peckerhead"
> > and stresses "thickheaded," "stupid," and unsophisticated for the latter.
> >
> > I think it's certainly possible that Ginzberg and Kerouac were familiar
> > with this older "penis-less" form of "peckerhead." Two slightly earlier
> > letters that they had traded mention that "[t]he Thomas Wolfish reaction
> to
> > all this, of romantic disapproved [sic] and fiery rejection, doesn't
> > particularly interest me" (Ginsberg) and "[n]ever would you subscribe to
> > 'Thomas Wolfish fiery rejection and romantic disapproval.' It pains me,
> my
> > friend, it pains me" (Kerouac).
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/Jack_Kerouac_and_Allen_Ginsberg/N5FN49R58-gC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=wolfish
> >
> > My guess is that Ginzberg's reference to "peckerhead romanticism" was
> > primarily based on his early reference to Thomas Wolfe (as representative
> > of a class or type known as "peckerheads," as aggressive, foolish, and
> > unsophisticated) and not so much on a derivation involving penises.
> >
> > If any of this is correct, OED's entry should be amended to reflect an
> > older "peckerhead," with a kinship to "peckerwood," and a newer
> > "peckerhead," with a basis in "pecker [penis]" + "head."
> >
> > (I mean, the other explanation, of course, is that "peckerhead" has no
> > relationship to "peckerwood" and that an origin involving penises was
> very
> > old by the 1930s.)
> >
> > -- Bonnie
> >
> > -----------------------------------------
> >
> > It's a good idea to study for yourself whom you wish to support and not
> let
> > some peckerhead get you off the right track by propaganda that Smith or
> > Jones is running way ahead of his opponent in the north end, or the south
> > end, or the east or west side of the county. [The Enterprise-Courier
> > (Charleston, Missouri), 16 June 1932, p. 4,
> >
> >
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/enterprise-courier-peckerwood-61632/149831854/
> > .
> > "Peckerhead" appeared in the same newspaper a couple of times the
> following
> > year, too:
> >
> >
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/enterprise-courier-peckerhead-41333/149832165/
> > ,
> >
> >
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/enterprise-courier-peckerhead-62633/149832259/
> > .]
> >
> > ------------------
> >
> > One is that greatly mooted and far from settled question the obligations
> > and duties between owner and tenant, in this case between the cotton
> > planters and the poor peckerheads who till their soil. [Richard C.
> > Holderness, "Stars in New Film of South; Problems of Planters and Tenants
> > Are Aired in Picture," The Denver Post, 14 November 1932,
> >
> >
> https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/newspapers/image/v2%3A12C7581AC4BD0728%40GB3NEWS-1711E6BD1EC044B1%402427026-170FD93FEA890DCE%4011-170FD93FEA890DCE?clipid=gamtklwiqcjiaqlkncyyaklrcyhxoycl_ip-10-166-46-155_1719096894698
> > .]
> >
> > ------------------
> >
> > Tell your pals around the service station what you've learned about
> > astronomy and think up some good ones to pull on those peckerheads who
> > can't tell the difference between an electric light and a celestial body.
> > ["Evening Star Is Over Pittsburgh," The Record American (Mahanoy City,
> > Pennsylvania), 9 July 1938, p. 4,
> >
> >
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-record-american-peckerhead-7938/149832338/
> > .]
> >
>
>

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