World Wide Words -- 06 Aug 16

[Michael Quinion via WorldWideWords]

World Wide Words

Saturday 6 August 2016.

This newsletter is also available online at http://wwwords.org/pdvi
and is also attached to this message as a PDF file containing illustrations.

/Check the recipient address if you reply to this message. For security 
reasons, it will be rejected if it is sent to 
/worldwidewords at listserv.linguistlist.org 
<mailto:worldwidewords at listserv.linguistlist.org>/. Either use the email 
address from the /Reply-to:/header or — better — create a new message to 
the most appropriate of the addresses listed at the end of this newsletter./

Feedback, Notes and Comments

*Yarely.* Following my piece last time, far too many correspondents to 
name pointed out a famous use of the associated adjective /yare/ by 
Katharine Hepburn in the 1940 film /The Philadelphia Story/. (She 
pronounced it /yar/, as some who responded to my piece spelled it.) She 
said of the sailboat /True Love/, “My, she was yar.” which she explained 
as “Easy to handle, quick to the helm, fast, bright ... everything a 
boat should be ... until she develops dry rot”.

*Snooter.* Leni Verbogen wrote from the Netherlands: “You referred to 
the Germanic origin of /snoot/, and I have to say that to my ears ‘hit 
him on the snoot’ sounds highly amusing. In fact, the word /snoet/ is 
still used in Dutch nowadays, meaning ‘face’, in a cute kind of way. 
Would the word by any chance have arrived via the Dutch?” The evidence 
suggests that /snoot/ was a native English modification, but as its 
precursor /snout/ is Germanic, the Dutch word /snoet /is almost 
certainly a linguistic cousin.

*Update.* I’ve recently updated my piece about the curious British slang 
expression, /Lord love a duck/. You’ll find it online 
<http://bit.ly/29V9KFb>.

*Future newsletters.* Through matters outside my control, issues in 
coming months are likely to be slim and intermittent. The website will 
continue uninterrupted, as will my Wordfile postings to Twitter 
<http://wwwords.org/tw> and Facebook <http://wwwords.org/fb>.

Dope

Q /From From Terhi Riekkola/: I haven't been able to find a satisfactory 
etymology for /dope/ when it’s used in the sense of drugs, either 
recreational or performance-enhancing. I’ve encountered what was given 
as the original sense of /dope/, meaning some kind of liquid preparation 
that helped you with certain tasks, like lubricants and so on. But I 
found no satisfactory links between this “practical sticky stuff” sense 
and the drug-related meaning of the word. I was wondering if you could 
help me?

A /Dope/ has several senses that aren’t obviously linked, though 
investigation shows there are clear connections. Historically, the word 
has had a wide variety of slangy associations. They include not only the 
lubricants and drugs you mention, but also information, a stupid person, 
and a varnish for cloth aircraft parts. Regionally in the US it has also 
meant Coca-Cola (because in its early years the drink was sold as a 
medicinal restorative and included some cocaine) and the sprinkles on 
ice cream (for no obvious reason).

Dictionaries universally say that /dope/ is from the old Dutch /doop/, a 
sauce or dip, from the verb /doopen/, to dip or mix.

The Dutch word appeared briefly in American writing near the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, in a couple of pieces by Washington Irving in 
which he used it in the sense of gravy. In the issue of his satirical 
magazine /Salmagundi/ of 16 May 1807 he included a humorous piece, /The 
Stranger in Pennsylvania/, which state he asserts was founded by one 
Philo Dripping-pan:

Philo Dripping-pan was remarkable for his predilection to eating, and 
his love of what the learned Dutch call /doup/. Our erudite author 
likewise observes that the citizens are to this day noted for their love 
of “a sop in the pan,” and their portly appearance ... he ill-naturedly 
enough attributes to their eating pickles, and drinking vinegar.

(The Pennsylvania Dutch as a group were early immigrants from Germany, 
though Dutch speakers also settled in the state. It was common in 
American English up to Irving’s time to use /Dutch/ as an informal term 
for Germans, which is where our confusing name for the group comes from, 
not from a mishearing of /Deutsch/, the German word for German, or 
/Deitsch/, which is what the Pennsylvania Dutch call their language.)

Somehow — we don’t know the details, but it was presumably at least in 
part the result of Irving’s fame as a writer — /doup/ evolved into the 
slang /dope/. It//appeared first in print as an ill-specified term for 
any thick liquid or glop. The earliest example that I’ve found — 
actually the derived verb — was in a newspaper article that listed 
deceptions practiced by sheep farmers:

/Dope/ the sheep:— that is, put on oil and coloring to make a sheep look 
like the required breed; that is, paint the sheep as a common horse was 
once painted and sold for one of a superior race.
/Sandusky Daily Commercial Register (Sandusky, Ohio), 17 Jun. 1856. You 
may feel that buyers of such sheep were more than a little unobservant./

In later years, /dope/ was recorded for all sorts of stuff — among 
others a slop of mud and water to preserve the roots of trees awaiting 
planting, the chemical on the heads of matches, harness blacking, train 
axle grease, the material that nitroglycerine is absorbed in to make 
dynamite, sugar added to cans of sweetcorn and a lubricant for snowshoes:

There is hardly a man, woman, or child on this side of the continent who 
has not heard of “Snowshoe Thompson”, yet very few persons really know 
anything about him or his exploits. His were the first Norwegian 
snowshoes ever seen in the mountains, and at that time nothing was known 
of the mysterious “dope” — a preparation of pitch, which, being applied 
to the bottom of the shoes, enables the wearer to glide over snow 
softened by the rays of the sun. ... Without “dope” the soft snow stuck 
to, and so clogged his shoes that it was impossible for him to travel in it.
/Albert Lea Enterprise (Albert Lea, Minnesota), 30 Mar. 1876./

It’s also recorded early on in the sense of a drug, either for humans or 
horses:

I learned something of his giving dope to his horses about the time he 
moved from Garrettsville to Chagrin Falls. ... I learned that he was 
giving his horse arsenic and laudanum.
/Ashtabula Weekly Telegraph (Ashtabula, Ohio), 4 Dec. 1858. The owner 
thought giving arsenic to his horses would improve their health./

The “doc” made his own pills — “the real dope,” Camp said.
/Waukesha Freeman (Waukesha, Wisconsin), 29 Mar. 1859./

This drug sense became widespread later in two specific ways, firstly in 
reference to the thick treacle-like preparation used in opium-smoking:

He persistently refuses to give the signs by which admittance may be had 
to the [opium] den, but he says that it is so jealously guarded that 
four doors have to be passed through before the smoking-room is reached, 
where a “dope” for ten cents, requiring about twenty minutes to smoke, 
is obtained, and on the bare floor of which the smokers lie extended 
during their torpor.
/Northern Ohio Journal (Painesville, Ohio), 14 Jun. 1879. /

This gave rise in the early 1880s to the term /dope-fiend/ for an 
habitual user. Later, /dope/ broadened to refer to all sorts of 
recreational narcotics, becoming widely known by the early twentieth 
century.

In the other branch of the drug sense, the term became specifically 
associated with drugging racehorses, either to improve their performance 
or degrade it:

The mare was two lengths ahead the first thirty yards, but suddenly let 
up, and was badly beaten. There is no doubt but that foul play was the 
cause of her losing, the mare having been “doped”.
/Idaho Statesman (Boise, Idaho), 31 Jul. 1873./

Drugs of every name and description are used to “dope” horses so that 
they may win stakes. The poor animals are stuffed with all sorts of 
stimulants from sherry to strychnine. ... Such drugs as Fowler’s 
solution of arsenic, Spanish fly, cocaine, chloral, valerian, and 
belladonna, were employed.
/Galveston Daily News (Galveston, Texas), 4 Jan. 1896./

/Dope/ in the sense of information, particularly information that isn’t 
widely known or easily obtained, came directly from this practice. A 
whisper from the stables or some confederate telling a gambler which 
horses were being drugged was potentially worth a lot of money, so 
/dope/ came to mean knowledge that drugs had been employed. This led to 
its being used for information about racing in general and later 
broadened still further. A publication giving punters background 
information about horses at a track became humorously or sarcastically 
known as a /dope book/, also later a /dope sheet/; both were recorded in 
the 1890s and similarly these generalised later to refer to other 
topics. The phrases /inside dope/, /real dope/, /true dope/ and 
/straight dope/ — asserting the undisputed truth — were appearing in 
print by the early years of the new century:

Referee Bean gave out the following figures and the fight fans who want 
the straight dope will probably not miss it far by accepting them.
/The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City, Utah), 7 Apr. 1904./

The sense that’s least clear in its origins is that of a stupid person. 
It was recorded a couple of times in the Cumberland dialect of northern 
England in the middle of the nineteenth century in the sense of a 
simpleton and in the US from the early twentieth century. We have to 
conclude that the two arose independently, the Cumberland one from some 
unknown source and the American one from the idea of a person under the 
influence of a narcotic. The adjective /dopey/ is also American and is 
recorded earlier than the corresponding noun.

She is very thin now, and has the peculiar clear pallor that marks the 
excessive opium smoker. She looked “dopey,” too, even then. “Dopey,” by 
the way, is the Chinese quarter‘s most brilliant contribution to 
American slang. One hears it from the lips of people who have no idea 
that dope means opium.
/Burlington Gazette/ (Burlington, Iowa), 1 Dec. 1893.

Useful information

*About this newsletter:* World Wide Words is researched, written and 
published by Michael Quinion in the UK. ISSN 1470-1448. Copyediting and 
advice are freely provided by Julane Marx, Robert Waterhouse, John 
Bagnall and Peter Morris, though any residual errors are the fault of 
the author. The linked website is http://www.worldwidewords.org. 
<http://www.worldwidewords.org>

*Email addresses:* Comments on newsletter mailings are always welcome. 
They should be sent to me at michael.quinion at worldwidewords.org 
<mailto:michael.quinion at worldwidewords.org>. I try to respond, but 
pressures of time often prevent me from doing so. Items intended for 
Sic! Should be addressed to sic at worldwidewords.org 
<mailto:sic at worldwidewords.org>. Questions intended for the Q&A section 
should be sent to questions at worldwidewords.org 
<mailto:questions at worldwidewords.org>, not the correspondence address.

*Subscriptions:* To leave the World Wide Words mailing list send an 
email from your subscribed address to 
worldwidewords-leave at listserv.linguistlist.org 
<mailto:worldwidewords-leave at listserv.linguistlist.org>. To join the 
mailing list, send an email from the address at which you want to be 
subscribed to worldwidewords-join at listserv.linguistlist.org 
<mailto:worldwidewords-join at listserv.linguistlist.org>. To change your 
subscribed address, leave the list and rejoin. In every case, the 
subject line and body of your message will be ignored; you will be sent 
a message asking you to confirm your intention. Please don’t contact me 
about changes you can make yourself, though you can email me at 
wordssubs at worldwidewords.org <mailto:wordssubs at worldwidewords.org> if 
any problems arise. Back issues from January 2011 are here 
<http://wwwords.org/bi> and older ones back to 1999 are here 
<http://wwwords.org/bk>. World Wide Words is also on Twitter 
<http://wwwords.org/tw> and Facebook <http://wwwords.org/fb%20>.

*Copyright:* World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 1996-2016. 
All rights reserved. You may reproduce this newsletter in whole or in 
part in free newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists or as educational 
resources provided that you include the copyright notice above and the 
website address, http://www.worldwidewords.org. Reproduction of items in 
printed publications or commercial websites requires permission from the 
author beforehand.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/worldwidewords/attachments/20160806/cbabd6e8/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: World Wide Words 20160806.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 281804 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/worldwidewords/attachments/20160806/cbabd6e8/attachment.pdf>