[Ads-l] toboggan (as a cap), antedating to ca. 1886

Tue Jan 7 18:48:28 UTC 2025

I remember discovering that usage many decades ago in Wisconsin—the New York and New England toboggan is always sense 3 in the DARE entry reproduced below.  Seems like a weird isogloss, as well as a weird polysemy. Anyone want to speculate on how that happened? Sense #3 is evidently (< OED) from a native term borrowed into English in eastern Canada.  Not sure how we got from there to senses 1 and 2, much less in the southeast.  Maybe (via toboggan cap/scarf) a clothing item worn while tobogganing (in sense 3), then a loss of transparency.   

LH

toboggan, n  <https://www.daredictionary.com/view/dare/ID_00059577?rskey=mqtthE&result=2>
often toboggan cap , toboggan

1 often toboggan cap, ~ hat; also aphet boggan, boggin; rarely tobogganing cap: A stocking cap. chiefly South <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.Sth>, South Midland <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.S%20Midl>; also Inland North <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.Inland%20Nth>
2 usu as toboggan scarf: A long winter scarf. esp North <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.Nth>
3 A single bobsled or a double-runner. <https://www.daredictionary.com/view/dare/ID_00015986#ID_00015986>New England <https://www.daredictionary.com/search?rcode=region.NEng>
 <https://www.daredictionary.com/view/dare/ID_00010689?rskey=mqtthE&result=3>

> On Jan 7, 2025, at 12:04 PM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> As a native North Carolinian, I sometimes feel the need to stick up
> for the often-mocked "toboggan" as a thing you wear on your head in
> winter. This regionalism (Midwest, Southeast) has shown up on the list
> before, but I can't find that anyone has gone looking for early
> usages.
> 
> OED has pushed back the standalone "toboggan," with the meaning of a
> knit cap (originally with a sort of "tail"), to 1907. (The solitary
> "toboggan" for hat was preceded by "toboggan hat" and "toboggan cap.")
> 
> You'll find some earlier examples below.
> 
> I should mention, though, that not all of the following are slam-dunks
> for standalone "toboggans" as hats. I can't rule out that at least one
> or two of these appearances aren't shorthand for "toboggan suits,"
> "toboggan costumes," "toboggan jackets," and the like, though I think
> that those abbreviations might have been very rare. (Tobogganing seems
> to have become a big thing in northern climes in about 1885.)
> 
> Although predominantly popular in winter, early toboggans (hats) were
> all-year things. Babies seem to have been early adopters of toboggans:
> millinery shops were selling toboggans (even lace ones) for small
> children as early as 1887. At the same time, their mothers were
> wearing a style of "crush hat" known as a toboggan in the warmer
> months.
> 
> -- Bonnie
> 
> ------------------------
> 
> All the best people down that way are now wearing toboggans. ["Of
> Interest to Buffalo Tobogganists," The Buffalo Evening News, 9 January
> 1886, page unnumbered, but presumably the third;
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-buffalo-news-wearing-toboggans-hats/162409019/.
> Originally published in the Detroit Evening Journal.]
> 
> A very handsomely decorated team of black horses were attached to a
> double cutter and wore little toboggans between their ears, ornamented
> with ribbons. ["Elegant Equipages," Daily Globe (Saint Paul,
> Minnesota), 5 February 1886, p. 1;
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-saint-paul-globe-toboggans-on-horses/162406262/.]
> 
> Babies lace toboggans are the latest novelties in the millinery
> stores. [Monmouth (Illinois) Review, 29 April 1887, unnumbered page,
> but presumably fourth;
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-monmouth-review-babies-lace-toboggan/162446763/.]
> 
> KNIT GOODS
> Toboggans and Hoods in all new designs.
> [In an advertisement in The Quincy (Illinois) Herald, 22 December
> 1887, p. 8; via newspaperarchive.com.]
> 
> The plug hat rage has died out altogether and the young bloods are
> thinking of wearing toboggans. ["Additional Local," The Journal (Falls
> City, Nebraska), 23 December 1887, page unnumbered, but presumably the
> eighth; https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-falls-city-journal-toboggan-hat-1/162409319/.]
> 
> WOULD like the acquaintance of young lady dressed in red, wore
> toboggan, who loaned gent opera-glass Sunday afternoon at three
> o'clock performance. [Advertisement in The Enquirer (Cincinnati), 13
> February 1888, p. 8;
> https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-toboggan-hat/162406413/.]
> 
> No one need wear Toboggans or Sunbonnets during the Hot Summer days
> when you can buy Straw Hats at 25, 30, 40, 50 & 75 cents each. [In an
> advertisement in The Frontier (O'Neill City, Nebraska). The Library of
> Congress says that this appeared in the 25 April 1889 issue of that
> newspaper; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2010270509/1889-04-25/ed-1/seq-8/.]
> 
> How that boy suffered! The younger boy, who wore a toboggan and a
> melancholy expression, was soon affected in a like manner. ["Chat and
> Comment," Indiana (Pennsylvania) County Gazette, 9 December 1891, p.
> 4; https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-indiana-gazette-toboggan-hat-129/162407671/.]
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org