[Ads-l] Why "Orangemen" ?

[Stanton McCandlish]

Dave's hypothesis:

> Perhaps because the Syracuse sense, Orangeman n.2, is distinct from
Orangeman n.1, that is "a person who espouses Protestant political
principles, esp. in Northern Ireland."

is entirely plausible to me as well. (And that religio-political sense goes
back to William of Orange and the "Glorious Revolution").

I'm more or less an American culturally (born in Texas, learned to read and
write in the UK, spent most of my life in the US aside from a stint in
Canada, and probably more aware than American-average of British Isles
history due to genealogy investigations), but am not interested the
slightest in American college sports. So, I wasn't even aware of the
Syracuse team name or nickname (I think I'd heard/seen it before but
couldn't've told you "Syracuse"). I was, though, well aware of the older
meaning, which generally pertains to British loyalists in Ulster, and even
Americans of my generation were exposed to a lot of sporadic news about
that region because of the Troubles.

I would think that, on average, English-speaking readers who are not
Americans would be fairly likely to be familiar with the term in the
Ulster/N.Ir. sense, but very unlikely to be familiar with the American
sports alternative meaning, and thus might be sorely confused by it if they
encountered it.

PS: I'm skeptical there's a connection between the two meanings. Syracuse
U. was founded by Methodist Episcopals, who split off from the Anglicans,
while the vast majority of Ulster Protestants are Presbyterian of one
variety or another and not allied with Anglicanism and variants thereof
any further than being generally un-Catholic. There are American
institutions founded by Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots Presbyterian immigrants,
but Syracuse U. wasn't one of them. I would think that their Orange[men] is
simply from the school color, like the Crimson Tide of U. Alabama. (I had
to look that one up, too; couldn't remember what school it was. I can tell
you all about pro pool players though; I'm not 100% sport-deficient!)



On Sun, May 12, 2024 at 4:17 AM dave at wilton.net <dave at wilton.net> wrote:

>
> Perhaps because the Syracuse sense, Orangeman n.2, is distinct from
> Orangeman n.1, that is "a person who espouses Protestant political
> principles, esp. in Northern Ireland." I would bet there were questions to
> the dictionary editors about whether or not the Syracuse nickname was
> somehow related to the Irish question. The n.1. entry had been in the
> dictionary since the first edition; the n.2 entry was added in June 2004.
> Such questions, especially ones relating the politics of Northern Ireland,
> don't arise with other US team names.
>
> Also, the Syracuse entry was added to the dictionary in June 2004. In May
> 2004 the university had officially changed the "Orangemen" name to the
> gender-neutral "the Orange" (under pressure from Nike who supplied the team
> uniforms for both the men's and women's teams). That made significant news
> headlines at the time. But that is a very fast turnaround for a new
> dictionary entry, and the entry says nothing about the name change, so it
> seems more likely the entry was already in the works when the news of the
> name change broke.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2024 4:08pm
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: [ADS-L] Why "Orangemen" ?
>
>
>
> One curious thing I have noticed in the OED is that there is an entry for
> "Orangeman" in reference to affiliates or sports teams of Syracuse
> University. Why "Orangeman' and not more famous nicknames like Trojan,
> Longhorn, Fighting Irish, Crimson, Crimson Tide, etc. ?
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
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