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

Tue Jan 7 21:32:55 UTC 2025

Oh, thanks for that, Larry, I just learned a lot.

-- Bonnie

On Tue, Jan 7, 2025 at 4:26 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Thanks Bonnie, this all makes sense.  When I mentioned loss of transparency ("toboggan cap” ‘cap worn while tobogganing’ > ’toboggan variety of cap’, licensing subsequent reanalysis of “toboggan” as the name for the cap) I was thinking of cases like “tuition” deriving from orig. “tuition fee” ‘fee for instruction’.  I know there are many other examples of such shifts but I can’t pull them up at the moment.  It’s not that different from “adequation” as in the etymology of “bead” for ’small spherical object' (orig. ‘prayer’) or “horn” for a type of wind instrument (orig. just 'bony protrusion from animal’s head’).  Did Gustav Stern invent that term or just (attempt to) popularize it?
>
> LH
>
> > On Jan 7, 2025, at 4:14 PM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > I do think that there was a bit of tobogganing craze in the Northeast
> > and Upper Midwest (and Ontario?) in the mid-1880s, with toboggan hats
> > becoming popular winter-wear elsewhere in the country, even in places
> > generally deprived of snow. (And some of the things I ran across
> > indicate that lightweight knit hats called "toboggans" were also worn
> > by babies and women, even when it wasn't cold.)
> >
> > BTW, for anyone interested, here are some early examples of toboggans
> > worn in the Bronx in the winter of 1888:
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleetwood_Park_Racetrack#/media/File:Tobogganing_at_Fleetwood_Park,_1888.jpg.
> > (Growing up with the term in the '60s and '70s, I'd always equated the
> > toboggan with simple beanies or stocking caps, so the notion that
> > these were elongated, with tassels or pom-poms, was new to me.)
> >
> > As for formation, I wonder whether we might compare the standalone
> > toboggan -- which I think must've derived from "toboggan cap" and
> > "toboggan hat" -- with the "boater," which apparently emerged not that
> > long before the "toboggan."
> >
> > Originally a "boater hat" (or "boaters' hat"; after people who boat),
> > then clipped to "boater" and embraced by the non-boating public
> > outside the realm of boating.
> >
> > Not quite the same, and not a great addressing of polysemy, but it
> > occurred to me that there may have been a similar evolution in naming.
> >
> > -- Bonnie
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 7, 2025 at 1:48 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >> 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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