"Bigfoot:" (tangential topic)

[David D. Robertson]

The message below was recently posted on the ADS-L list, and I re-post it
here due to its relation to NW regional English.  For my own tubits, let me
point out that (Bit 1) Nampa, Idaho is supposedly from the name of an
Indian man (Nam-puh, reputedly meaning "Big Foot") and (Bit 2) "Bigfoot" as
an epithet for Sasquatch bears striking resemblance to a widely attested
characteristic of such beings, mentioned for example in Chinook Jargon
narratives about /stik sawash/, tsiatko, and so forth.  --Dave



Date:         Sun, 8 Dec 2002 05:25:43 EST
Reply-To:     American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sender:       American Dialect Society Mailing List <ADS-L at uga.cc.uga.edu>
From:         Bapopik at AOL.COM
Subject:      Bigfoot (August 1958)
Comments: To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

   OED doesn't have a "bigfoot" entry.  The term was used before, such as
the
title of ADVENTURES OF BIG-FOOT WALLACE (1870).
   From the AP and AOL News:


SEATTLE (Dec. 7) - The man who used 16-inch feet-shaped carvings to create
tracks that ignited the ``Bigfoot'' legend has died. He was 84.

Ray L. Wallace's family admitted his role in the creature myth after his
death Nov. 26 from heart failure.

``The reality is, Bigfoot just died,'' his son, Michael, said.

In August 1958, a bulldozer operator who worked for Wallace's construction
company in Humboldt County, California, found huge footprints circling and
then leading away from his rig.

The Humboldt Times in Eureka, California, coined the term ``Bigfoot'' in a
front-page story about the phenomenon.
(...)