Jesus Boots

You may have heard someone talk about Jesus boots, Jesus shoes, Jesus sandals, or Jesus slippers at some point in your life, and you may have thought you knew what kind of boots, shoes, sandals, or slippers they meant.  You may have been right.  Jesus boots (or shoes or sandals or slippers) are sandals that resemble the sandals depicted in paintings of Jesus of  Nazareth.

In the New Strait Times of June 28, 2004 — in the Life & Times section — Debra Chong wrote an article entitled, “Straits Sea-crets.”  The article dealt with her week-long experiences onboard a 48-meter floating laboratory along  with what she called a wacky pack of scientists as they journeyed through the Straits of Malacca on the Scientific Expedition to the Seas of Malaysia aka SESMA.  The beginning of the adventure began with frustration and delays, with the cast-off finally happening five hours later than scheduled, and well past high tide.  She wrote this about the situation.

There is disappointment all around, but everybody keeps the peace.  Should our complaints cross the captain, we might have to “pu on (our) Jesus boots and walk to shore,” as warned by Tan Sri Halim Mohammad (boss of the Halim Mazmin Group and kind provider of the “floating lab” he calls his ship) in his stern bon voyage message.

When Felicity Jackson reviewed the most recent book by Sylvia Sherry for the Glasgow Herald on June 22, 1985 her opinion was clearly stated.  The review began with this statement.

Even the title “A Pair Of Desert Wellies” by Sylvia Sherry (£6.95: Jonathan Cape) raised suspicions about how a writer must be tempted to capitalise on the success of an earlier novel, in this case the popular “A Pair Of Jesus Boots.”  The opening chapters tediously rework much of the plot of the first book but it picked up in pace and dialogues.

One of the more humorous comments was found in the Boca Raton News as written by Lillian M. Bradicich in her column, “From Cupcakes To Cocktails” and published on April 11, 1971.  Between Easter and the performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” which the writer had seen on stage, she was more than a little fuzzy warm about all things religious.  Her column included this descriptive tidbit.

Centuries of gold and marble build-up have been chopped away, and the young people accept Jesus for what He really is.  Their desire to identify with Him is manifest everywhere in the “Jesus hair styles”, “Jesus sandals“, “Jesus music”, and “Jesus love.”  

Eating in a pizza parlor these days is like sitting in the ‘upper room’ surrounded by Apostles .. and it had to be as edifying the night we overheard a bearded young man telling his girl that “Jesus didn’t keep quoting scriptures to people.  He went where He was really needed, and said what really needed to be said.”

On July 30, 1968 the Morning Record newspaper carried a story about Evangelist Billy Graham who was in Bern, Switzerland for the week-long Baptist Youth World Conference that was attended by more than 5,000 Baptist youth from 65 countries.  The article was about how, in Billy Graham’s opinion, the youth of the sixties were searching for the meaning of life, and that the solution they were seeking could be found in the Bible.  He was quoted saying:

“The youth of our time does not demonstrate against the church.  This shows they search for the teaching of Jesus.”

“Jesus had long hair.  So have our hippies.  And at least in the United States, they wear Jesus boots (sandals) and this seems to express their hidden longing for God.”

Thirty years earlier, the Free Lance-Star newspaper William T. Ellis’ column “Religion Day By Day” in their March 21, 1938 edition with a story about a child in Sunday school who said that her white sandals were Jesus shoes because they looked like the sandals Jesus wore in pictures she had seen.  The article talked about being shod with the Gospel of peace, being busy about the errands of Jesus, and going only where He led his followers. The title of the article in the column was simply, “Deborah’s Jesus Shoes.”

Although this is the earliest published version Idiomation was able to find that linked modern sandals to Jesus’s sandals, there was one other mention of Jesus boots much earlier in 1902 that referred to bare feet as Jesus boots.  Published in the Toronto Mail and Empire and published in many affiliated newspapers across Canada, “Doukhobors Face Death By Cold: Several Thousand Reach Yorkton Destitute” the events of October 28 were carried in the October 31, 1902 newspapers.

It was reported that sixteen hundred Doukhobors composed of men, women, and children (including infants in arms) had marched on Yorkton (Saskatchewan), camping on October 27 without shelter while the temperature dipped to a frigid eleven degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The story related how some wore rubber boots while others wore coarse sandals fashioned from binder twine while still others were barefooted.  The reference was found in this passage.

Siemon Tcherninkov, who talks little English, and whose bare feet bore witness to his insane zeal, explained tat they were “looking for new light, and looking for Jesus.”  When asked where his boots were, he held up his naked foot and cried, “Jesus boots!” while the light of insanity gleamed fitfully from his eyes.

Dominion immigration agent, C.W. Speers worked hard to get the sick, the women, and the children into immigration sheds and other buildings, and much of his work was made all the harder for him as the sick and the women went to these shelters against their will.  The unrest was so bad that special constables were being sworn in, and it was reported that the Riot Act would undoubtedly have to be read to the Doukhobors.  As a Plan B measure, the government was ready to call in one hundred and fifty Italian laborers who were working on railway construction in the vicinity if the Doukhobors became even more unruly, and violent.

Seven miles away, seven hundred more Doukhobors were camped near Pollock’s Bridge.  Another four hundred were on their way.

While it was acknowledged that the Doukhobors were primarily a peaceful group, there were concerns that they were suffering some sort of collective insanity.  What’s more, they had no troubles letting others know that they had killed and buried five priests of the Russian church, and when infants had died en route to Yorkton, they had thrown them into the bushes by the roadside.

All that being said, while the term Jesus boots was used in the 1902 article, it’s the article from 1938 that is used in the spirit in which Jesus boots, Jesus shoes, Jesus sandals, and Jesus slippers is commonly used.

Jack Canuck

When you hear tell of Jack Canuck, it’s important to realize that he’s not a real person but rather the Canadian counterpart to America’s Uncle Sam.  Yes, Jack Canuck means a Canadian.  Of course, that’s not to mean that there aren’t some Jack Canucks who were named Jack Canuck at birth because there are, but for the most part, Jack Canuck refers to a Canadian.

In the Rome News-Tribune edition of July 22, 1969 the question as to the whereabouts of Jack Canuck was put to readers.   The short news bite was quick to point out that Uncle Sam had been around long enough to be part of American folklore with his top hat, long coat-tail coat and old codger appearance, and to personify America to the rest of the world.  But it wondered where Jack Canuck had gotten to over the years.

Meanwhile, what has become of Canada’s Jack Canuck?  While Uncle Sam can be crafty looking (particularly in Pravda) and England’s John Bull too fat, Canuck used to be beyond reproach as a trim, youthful, vigorous ranger of the wide, open spaces.

Nearly twenty years earlier, the Ottawa Citizen reprinted a brief article from the Edmonton Journal on December 27, 1952 entitled, “Jack Canuck With Wings.”  It reported that the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) bigwigs and the company manufacturing the new all-Canadian CF-100 jet fighter planes were against having them referred to as Canucks.

Hostility to the name is hard to understand.  For nearly a century, Canuck has been the commonest unofficial designation of Canadians.  How it attained that position is obscure.  Most dictionaries suggest that is was originally an Indian word, applied to French-Canadians and later extended to the whole Canadian people.  However that may be, Canadians are familiarly known as Canucks throughout the English-speaking world, and “Jack Canuck” has become the symbol of Canada, as John Bull is of Britain or Uncle Sam of the United States.

In the August 11, 1945 edition of the Toronto Daily Star, Prime Minister King spoke of the “world-shaking and world-changing events” that had happened the previous week that underscored the urgency for reconstruction after World War II.  The article was titled, “Jack Canuck And Uncle Sam To Wage Peace Side By Side.”

Twenty years before the Toronto Daily Star article, the Carp Review newspaper published an article by Beatrice Plumb on June 11, 1925.  It was all about the Dominion Day celebration coming up on July 1, and was aptly titled, “A Dominion Day Jamboree.”  With regards to sending out invitations, the following was suggested by Beatrice Plumb.

Your invitations may be written on white note paper with a small Union Jack or picture of Jack Canuck stuck to the outside page.  On the left-hand inside page of your invitation write a patriotic verse.  On the opposite page write the necessary directions, such as place, time and special events of picnic.

In the next paragraph, Beatrice Plumb continued with this wonderful suggestion.

Coax some dependable man to dress up like Jack Canuck and be master of ceremonies.  Now you are read to plan the program.

Now back in 1915, there was a magazine published titled, “Jack Canuck” and was considered a daring magazine in its time.  It carried articles that reflected on how everyday people saw things and spoke about them, and was said to prod Canadian politicians mercilessly.  The magazine is also said to have been responsible for shaping and framing voters’ ideas with regards to the members of parliament and what they were up to once elected.

The idiom was used in cartoons as well.  Jack Canuck was in a cartoon published by the Toronto World newspaper on January 26, 1916 where he said, “It’s up to us, boys, honest Canadian khaki now — or the Hun’s dirty livery later.”

And Jack Canuck was in a cartoon published in the Daily Mail And Empire newspaper on January 13, 1898 where Jack Canuck asks Sir Wilfrid Laurier, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea for us to refine our own metal?” to which Sir Wilfrid responds, “A good thing for Canada, no doubt, but think how discourteous it would be to our neighbours.”

Just because Jack Canuck was used in cartoons and in newspaper articles, should that mean that the term was understood by most people to mean Canadians?  On March 29, 1899 Sir Wilfrid Laurier is said to have stated this in Parliament in the House of Commons.

It’s hard to think that for twenty years I vowed to woo dear Uncle Sam, and then after clothing him in sealskins from our seas, and sprinkling his hair with gold dust from our mines, he should calmly take my clothes and show me empty-handed out.  How shall I present myself at home to Jack Canuck?  I guess I’ll have to tell Jack to thank God I did not lose my hide.

Nearly a generation earlier, in 1877, author Ella Farman — later known as Ella Farman Pratt — wrote and published, “Good-For-Nothing Polly.” Ella Farman (1 November 1837 – 22 May 1907) was an American author who wrote juvenile literature, and was the editor of “Wide Awake” and “Our Little Men And Women” magazines.

When it came to “Good-For-Nothing Polly” the assumption by many is that this is a story about a girl or woman, the fact of the matter is, the main character was known as Polly Witter away from home and at home was known as Willy Potter.  He was from a family of four, and his sister’s name was Pollie.  The term Canuck was used in this book to describe Canadians.

“You get out,” said another of the young Canadians.  “Thet ar’d be jest the capital to start a newspaper. Ye ain’t wantin’ to hire a first-rate reporter now?”

Willy didn’t get mad at the chaffing.

“Never you mind what I’m going to do with the money.  If you’ve got the stamps you can get that knife mighty cheap.  You Canucks don’t see just such a knife as that every day.  That knife cost the old gentleman two dollars — it needn’t cost a fellow here more’n fifty cents.  That purse goes for fifty cents too. Why, the silk cost more’n that.  And them fish-hooks is five cents.”

Since Canada became a country in 1867, one wonders if the term Canuck was used before Confederation.  The answer to that question is yes, as it appeared in Volume 33 of “Harper’s New Monthly Magazine” published in 1866.

The following comes from very near the Canada line, and was perhaps as fearful to the subject of the story as the great Fenian scare was to the Canucks.

In the book “Acadia, or, A Month With The Blue Noses” written by American humorist Frederic Swartwout Cozzens (5 March 1818 – 23 December 1869) who had previously published “Sparrowgrass Papers.”  This books was published in 1859, the term is used in the story with the expectation that readers will know what is meant by its use.

The mail coach was soon at the door of our inn, and after taking leave of my fellow-traveller with the big hat, I engaged a seat on the stage-box beside Jeangros, a French Canadian, or Canuck — one of the best whips on the line.

Interestingly enough, Cozzens use of the word in 1859 to describe a French-Canadian is in keeping with the claim made by the Edmonton Journal nearly a hundred years later in their December 27, 1952 article.

It should be noted that the first official use of Canada when referring to the country that is now known as Canada was in 1791 when it was known as Upper Canada and Lower Canada.  In 1841, Upper and Lower Canada became known as the Province of Canada.

As a side note, in 1535 Jacques Cartier mistook the Huron-Iroquois word kanata (which means settlement) to mean that was the name for the country as a whole.  Maps in 1547 referred to everything north of the St. Lawrence River as Canada.  As explorers and fur traders expanded their territories to the west and south of what already considered to be Canada, much of the American Midwest as far south as present day Louisiana was known as Canada.

All that cool historical information aside, the first reference Idiomation was able to find for Canuck was in Frederic Swartwout Cozzens’s book published in 1859 and the first reference to Jack Canuck was in 1899.  Somewhere between 1859 and 1899, Jack Canuck was understood to mean everyday Canadians.  Idiomation therefore pegs Jack Canuck to sometime after Confederation in 1867.

Jelly Bean

When the word jelly bean is introduced into a conversation, most people — whether children or adults — think of the candy, but a jelly bean hasn’t always been just a candy.  These days, it’s also slang for someone who appears hard-headed but is really a tender heart.  The term arose from the 2006 coming-of-age movie, “ATL” that tells the story of four recent high school graduates facing different challenges at a turning point in each of their lives.

During the eighties and nineties, jelly beans were also shoes obviously made from plastic and available in jelly bean candy colors.  Of course, you can still get jelly beans today from places such as JBeans and Amazon.

Vincent Joseph Monteleone (18 December 1883 – 18 November 1959) wrote in “Criminal Slang: The Vernacular of the Underground Lingo” published in 1945 (and revised in 1949) that a jelly bean was a weakling and a coward.  Now you might think that Vincent was maybe a member of the underworld, but the fact of the matter was, he was a Captain — a police Captain — and he compiled the list over the course of his law enforcement career from the 1920s through to the 1940s.  As an added bonus, his book included a table of hobo code symbols.

Just a few years before Vincent published his book, in 1941, American educator, scholar, literary critic, essayist, poet, and editor John Crow Ransom (30 April 1888 – 3 July 1974) explained in his book “The New Criticism” that jelly bean referred to soft, sweet music.

In the collection of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald (24 September 1896 – 21 December 1940) entitled, “Tales Of The Jazz Age” published in 1922 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, he described a different kind of jelly bean albeit with more than one flavor in his short story “The Jelly Bean.”  It had been previously published in “The Metropolitan” and according to the author, it had been written “under strange circumstances shortly after my first novel was published.”

Now if you call a Memphis man a Jelly-bean he will quite possibly pull a long sinewy rope from his hip pocket and hang you to a convenient telegraph-pole. If you call a New Orleans man a Jelly-bean he will probably grin and ask you who is taking your girl to the Mardi Gras ball.

A few paragraphs later he adds:

Jelly-bean is the name throughout the undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to idle in the first person singular — I am idling, I have idled, I will idle.

Now, a jelly bean wasn’t just a lazy oaf, according to Chicago Bill Elliot out of New Orleans, Louisiana.  In fact, for the January 1920 edition of the “American Photo-engraver” magazine, he wrote an eloquent description of what a jelly bean was.

There is the jelly bean, a species of the genus homo, whose habits and deportment are as follows:  Dresses in the latest design, razor edge creases in trousers, hat and shoes to match, hair split in the middle, he doesn’t walk, he glides like a turtle up to soda fountain.  The most strenuous work he performs is the consumption of a lollypop or nut sundae with a wash down of grape juice and then the mollycoddle dives in the feathers for his beauty nap.

A jelly bean, according to Volume 5 of “Dialect Notes” was described as an indifferent individual.  The term was listed in the chapter on “Terms of Disparagement in the Dialect Speech of High School Pupils in California and New Mexico” and was the result of a high school assignment from 1914.  High school students were instructed to submit twenty terms of disparagement to their teachers that were used in everyday conversation, and to provide definitions for each term submitted.

Other sources state that a jelly bean can also be an inept or stupid person as seen in Volume 33 of “Everybody’s Magazine” published in 1915.  The term is used to great effect in the article, “A Challenge To Authors” by illustrator James Montgomery Flagg (18 June 1877 – 27 May 1960).  You may not recognize his name, but Idiomation is certain that you would recognize his portrait of “Uncle Sam” as over four million copies were printed on posters between 1917 and 1918 as the U.S. sent troops off to war.

In any case, in his challenge he included the idiom in this passage:

An unknown authorine — and this is straight goods — had the hardihood, when she had been told that I was going to illustrate her woolly little stories — she belongs to the jelly-bean school of literature — to ask the art editor to tell me not to make her heroine FAT!

The illustrator turned writer seems intent on making a point which, upon reading the entire article, seems to illustrate that he has a bee in his bonnet.  In appeared to have reserved particular ire for Wallace Irwin, Rex Beach, Jack Hines and Rupert Hughes.  And he ends his rant with this:

While I would particularly enjoy seeing one of the foregoing authors flounder on this job, I am not bigoted — it is absolutely open to all story-tellers whose stories I have illustrated.  Positively no discrimination against any one!  Whether my illustrations have ruined their stories or  not!  Get in touch with EVERYBODY’s at once!  This is on the level!

In a story in “La Cope de Orc (the Cup of Gold): A Collection of California Poems, Sketches, And Stories by the Members of the Pacific Coast Women’s Press Association” edited by Mrs. Abbie E. Krebs, and published in 1905. The candy known as a jelly bean was used in the story “Miss Kid” by Ruth Comfort Mitchell (21 July 1883 – 17 February 1954).  Ruth went on to write “Of Human Kindness” published in 1940 as a counterpoint to the John Steinbeck (27 February 1902 – 20 December 1968) novel, “The Grapes Of Wrath” published in 1939.

“Then,” he said, fishing in his pocket, “you may as well have this, too:” he drew out the bag of candy.  “I tried to get a juvenile assortment — a hasty recollection of my pinafore days.  Do have a jelly bean.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather have a ju-jube baby.  I haven’t seen one for six years.”  Six years!  The light faded from her face, and she looked out across the sun-baked plain with eyes in which quick tears had gathered, and a wistful droop of the lips.

Jelly beans, as a candy, were well-known in America even as early as the 1880s and 1890s and were subject to duties according to the United States Department of Treasury as well as the Customs and Excise Department Statistical Office of Great Britain.

While some candy makers insist that jelly beans were created by an unknown American candy maker in the 1800s, none of these candy makers has been able to identify who that unknown candy maker was or where he lived.  Without a doubt, there are newspaper advertisements suggesting that consumers buy and send jelly beans to Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War.  That was the marketing idea of Boston confectioner William Schrafft (15 June 1823 – 9 February 1906). So we know that jelly beans were around in the U.S. from at least 1861 onwards.

That being said, it’s also a fact that the French invented a process called panning in the early 1800s which is an integral part of the process used to make jelly beans.  By the mid-1800s, England had banned the use of thorium, copper, mercury, and arsenic extracts for coloring panned candies based on an article published in “The Lancet” in 1850.  This means that jelly beans weren’t invented in America, although the name jelly bean may have originated in America.  But was the term jelly beans unknown until it was coined sometime between 1850 and 1861?

Imagine the surprise when Idiomation found jelly bean trees mentioned on page 15 of Volume 3 of “The Public Documents of Massachusetts” published in 1835!

Unfortunately, Idiomation was unable to learn more about jelly bean trees despite the most ardent efforts to find any information on them.  Perhaps one of Idiomation’s readers or visitors knows something about jelly bean trees and is willing to share that information with us in the Comments section below.

Calling Shotgun

Calling shotgun is, in many ways, no different than calling first dibs.

In the January 17, 2006 edition of the Reading Eagle, Devin Cremer (who, at the time, was a junior at Twin Valley High School in Reading, Pennsylvania) discussed what the article called, “Rules Of Engagement: Calling Shotgun.”  He made it clear that calling shotgun was one of those split-second decisions that we sometimes have to make, and then he made sure he explained what the rules were for calling shotgun.

First and foremost:  You must have complete, 100 percent clear visibility of the vehicle in order to call shotgun.  It is not acceptable to call shotgun while inside of a building, or when an object obscures the view of the vehicle that is to be driven.

Terry Marotta wrote mentioned calling shotgun in an article in the Bangor Daily News on January 31, 1995.  He wrote about the three principles that made a family functional, which, he wrote, were the same three principles that made living in society functional.  The article was entitled, “Sacrifice, Restraint, Affection Important Virtues Of Family Life.”  Part way through the article, calling shotgun was mentioned.

Often you become most aware of sacrifice in its absence.  Take the custom of kids calling shotgun as they race toward the family car.  I hated this custom when I was 6 and I hated it at 36. And I made sure, once I had kids of my own, that whatever goody was awarded, it sure didn’t go to the one who, in a froth of self-interest, was braying for it the loudest.

Based on the writer’s statement, calling shotgun has been around since at least the mid-seventies.  But where did it really come from, and when did it start?

In the book “Poorboy At The Party” by American journalist and author Robert Gover (2 November 1929 – 12 January 2015) and published in 1966 by Simon and Schuster, the author referred to the seat next to the driver of a car as the shotgun seat.

He got up and staggered to the shotgun seat and tossed me the keys.

SIDE NOTE:  Robert Gover was friends with musician Jim Morrison (8 December 8 1943 – 3 July 1971) and in 1968, the two were arrested for causing a disturbance at the Pussycat A Go Go in Las Vegas.

The expression actually has its roots in the days of stagecoach travel when two people were riding upfront:  the driver, and the express messenger.  The express messenger was colloquially referred to as the shotgun messenger.

American investigative journalist, lawyer, novelist, editor, and short story writer Alfred Henry Lewis ( 20 January 20 1855 – 23 December 1914) published his book “Faro Nell and Her Friends: Wolfville Stories” and in this book, the author included a passage about riding shotgun in Chapter IV titled, “Old Monte, Official Drunkard.”

That lack of war instinct in Monte ain’t no speecific drawback.  Him drivin’ stage that a-way-, he ain’t expected none to fight.  The hold-ups onderstands it, the company onderstands it, everybody onderstands it.  It’s the law of the trail.  That’s why, when the stage is stopped, the driver’s never downed.  Which if thar’s money aboard, an’ the express outfit wants it defended, they slams on some sport to ride shotgun that trip.  It’s for this shotgun speshulist to give the route agents an argyooment.  Which they’re licensed to go bombardin’ each other ontil the goin’ down of the sun.

The book had beautiful illustrations created by W. Herbert Dunton (28 August 1878 – 18 March 1936) and John Norval (J.N.) Marchand (1875-1921), and was published in 1913 by G.W. Dillingham Company.

The expression was used in an earlier book by Alfred Henry Lewis entitled, “The Sunset Trail” which was published in April 1905 by A.S. Barnes & Co.  It’s found in the short story titled, “The Worries Of Mr. Holiday.”

Wyatt and Morgan Earp were in the service of the Express Company.  They went often as guards — “riding shotgun,” it was called — when the stage bore unusual treasure.

But riding shotgun and calling shotgun are two different expressions.  It was in the popular TV series, “Gunsmoke” with James Arness (26 May 1923 – 3 June 2011) which ran from 1955 to 1975 that expressions from the television version of the Wild West era were transplanted and superimposed on popular culture of the day.

In Season 2 (1957), Ira Pucket (played by Edgar Stehli) got a job riding shotgun on the stagecoach.  In Season 4 (May 1959) Marshal Matt Dillon (played by James Arness) helped a gunman get a job riding shotgun on a stagecoach.  In Season 7 (1962), Harvey Easter (played by Abraham Sofaer) convinced Charlie Fess (played by Harry Bartell) to quit riding shotgun on the stagecoach.  In Season 8 (1963), Quint Asper (played by Burt Reynolds) agreed to ride shotgun for Sam Gordon (played by Glenn Strange), the driver on the morning stagecoach.  Nearly every season of the show had someone riding shotgun on the stagecoach.

What does this mean for the idiom?  It means that sometime during the late 1950s, the passenger seat in a car became known as the shotgun seat, and if you wanted that prized seat (complete with extra leg room), you had to call it or lose it hence the idiom calling shotgun.

Dibs (as in “first dibs”)

The well-used word dibs (as in first dibs) means to lay claim.  In other words, when someone says they have first dibs on something, they are laying claim of first rights or choice on whatever the something happens to be.  In other words, it’s a claim to the right to use or enjoy something exclusively or before anyone else … a sort of reservation, if you will.

The Wall Street Journal published a news article on January 14, 2001 that talked about how Chicagoans marked their claim for a parking spot after snow was shoveled out of the way.  The article discussed how lawn furniture, plastic milk crates, vacuum cleaners, lamps, fans, paint cans, step ladders, and other sundry items were used to lay claim to parking spots to prevent others from parking their vehicles in available cleared spots.

It’s called the dibs system — as in, “I got dibs on that space.”  And many here find it deplorable.

Even Jimmy Buffett has called first dibs, to Margaritaville no less, according to a news story in the Rome News-Tribune of January 7, 1998.  The story was about Emma and Neil Mathews who had run a restaurant by the name of Margaritaville in Kingman, Arizona for more than ten years.  The restaurant owners received a letter from the singer-songwriter advising them that he owned the name Margaritaville as a trademark, and that it was used to promote his own restaurants in Key West and New Orleans.  The article was entitled, “Buffet Says He Has Dibs On Name.”

The Daily Reporter of February 8, 1984 used the word not only in a story headline but in the story as well.  Jim Mayer of the Iowa News Service wrote about the regulations in Iowa that addressed the issue of deer killed by vehicles.  In fact, for the most part, the headline was the first sentence of the article.

Driver Has First Dibs On Deer Killed In Vehicular Accident, But Obey Rules. 

One of the helpful hints included this:

Oden said if a driver hits a deer and the deer is either killed or injured so badly that it has to be killed, the driver, or someone he designates, should notify officers, “preferably a conservation officer, highway patrol trooper, or sheriff.”  These officers can complete the paperwork, Oden said.  The form includes a tear-off portion that is given to the person claiming the deer.

During the Depression era, the word dibs was part of a much longer idiom and when someone was seen eating a piece of fruit, someone would inevitably shout out that they had dibs on the core, meaning the core of the fruit in case the first person had left anything on the core to be had.

In the poem, “I Got Dibs” by L.J. Wright and published in “Our Boys” magazine in October 1915, the sense of the word is clear.  The magazine was published quarterly by the Wisconsin Home and Farm School Association, with W.J.C. Ralph as Editor and Business Manager, and R.M. Bradford as Association Editor.  The fact that the poem was included in this issue demonstrates that the word was understood by children and adults alike.  The poem included these two stanzas.

When a morsel is left
In a cooking dish,
This short little sentence
will voice a boy’s wish.

Each boy cries out
As quick as he can,
“I got first dibs
On the baking pan.

The book, “A General Dictionary of Provincialisms” by William Holloway of Rye in Sussex, and published in 1888, gave a definition for dibs as well as provided an example.  It should be noted that his book was based upon previously published books from the late 1700s and early 1800s, which the author mentioned in the Preface.  With regards to dibs, he wrote the following commentary.

The small bones in the knees of a sheep or lamb, uniting the bones above and below the joint.  Five of these bones are used by boys, with which they play a game called “Dibs” in West Sussex.

The term is an abbreviation of a children’s game called dibstones that dates back to the 17th century, with first mention of the game being in 1690.   Here’s how the game was played:  Children would spread knucklebones from sheep on the ground and these became known as dibs.  The game was played much the way jacks is played these days.  The goal of the game was to capture as many knucklebones aka dibs as possible over the course of the game.  Each time a knucklebone was taken, the child shouted “Dibs!”  The game had an effect on these children, and as they became adults, they would continue to use the word dibs when they claimed something before anyone else had a chance to lay claim to it

Idiomation therefore pegs dibs to 1690 (and possibly earlier when the game first became popular among children) when the game of dibstones was played and the word dibs was shouted during the course of the game.

Now while Americans are busy calling first dibs, Canadians call shotgun.  Idiomation wonders how things went from knucklebones (or dibs) to shotguns.  Watch for the explanation next week on Idiomation.

Smof

It’s as important to keep abreast of the new idioms, sayings, and acronyms as it is to know what the more aged ones mean and where they come from, and today’s entry is simply this word:  SMOF.

SMOF is an acronym for “Secret Master Of Fandom” and is a well-known phrase in science fiction circles.  According to scifi enthusiasts, the word was coined by American science fiction author, Jack Laurence Chalker (17 December 1944 – 11 February 2005) who retired from teaching in his mid-thirties (after teaching in Baltimore for twelve years) to write novels and short stories full-time.

He is best known for the Well World series of books, however, Amazon lists several of his books available for sale, however, he was far more prolific than just the listed novels.  The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (www.isfdb.org) has a comprehensive list of the author’s works.  But even that list isn’t exhaustive as he wrote 205 works according to the Online Computer Library Center.

The details as to what the acronym means and who coined it is great, however, the acronym has come into its own as a word and is applied to the idea that there is a secret conspiracy group that controls the masses of scifi fandom.  These SMOFs are allegedly responsible for trends in scifi genres and subgenres, media, authors, films, and television series, as well as changes to the aforementioned.

Those who are recognized within the specific scifi fandoms are sometimes referred to as SMOFs due to the work they put into fandoms, thereby causing waves of changes within the scifi fandom community.  The acronym has also become a verb in that when convention organizers or scifi gurus talk among themselves out fandoms, they are said to be smoffing.

Now while it’s true that scifi fans insist that Jack L. Chalker coined the phrase, the term appears in the New York Times on September 6, 1971 which is five years before Jack L. Chalker’s first book, “A Jungle Of Stars” was published.  The article stated:

Except for those who wanted to gafiat, the fen of science fiction fandom for whom fiawol descended on Boston this weekend for their annual worldcon to smof and to buy old fanzines.

Three years prior to that in the November 1968 edition of the Proper Boskonian — science fiction fanzine published by the New England Science Fiction Association — an article appeared entitled, “Smoffing Is A Way Of Life.”

And three years before that, in 1965, American science fiction and horror author and critic, Theodore Sturgeon (26 February 1918 – 8 May 1985) was mentioned in “D. Eney Proceedings: Discon 1962” and when another American science fiction author and critic, Peter Schuyler (P.S.) Miller (21 February 1912 – 13 October 1974) spoke about Sturgeon.

He [i.e. Theodore Sturgeon] is also, in case he is willing … no, not in case he is willing; anyway, whether he likes it or not .. an Honorary Member of SMOF.

Theodore Sturgeon (who was born Edward Hamilton Waldo, and who was a distant relative of US writer Ralph Waldo Emerson) was considered to be one of the most influential writers of the Golden Age of science fiction.   He was responsible for writing the back story for Spock and the Vulcans in the original series episode, “Amok Time” for which he received a Hugo Award nomination.

Peter Schuyler Miller was also a technical writer, amateur historian, and amateur archaeologist who was a descendant of Colonel Philip Peter Schuyler (1736 – 1808) who defended Fort Schoharie (NY) during the Revolutionary War, and the colonial governor of New York and first mayor of Albany, Colonel Peter F. Schuyler (1657 – 1724)

What this means is that the word smof and the acronym SMOF existed before Jack Laurence Chalker is credited for coining the term in 1971.  How far back it goes, however, is unknown to Idiomation.

Perhaps one of our avid fans who is knowledgeable in the area of science fiction history has the answer.  If so, please feel free to share the information along with a link in the Comments Section below.

Comstockery

Comstockery is a word not often heard these days, but it’s a word that has had a serious impact on the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century.  What is comstockery?  It’s censorship on the basis that there’s perceived obscenity or immorality in a piece of art, whether it’s literature, visual arts, song, photography, or any other related domain.

While one might think that the word is an offshoot of the concept of sending someone to the stockades for public shaming after having committed a crime, the history is actually less complicated than that.  It is interesting, however, to note that both sending someone to the stockades and comstockery had to do with public shaming.

The word is directly related to Anthony Comstock.   And who was Anthony Comstock?

In 1872, using a pseudonym rather than his real name, Anthony Comstock (7 March 1844 – 21 September 1915) sent away for a copy of Victoria Woodhull’s book.  She was a women’s right activist and her book told the story of an affair between American preacher and reformer Henry Ward Beecher (24 June 1813 – 8 March 1887) — referred to in the press as America’s most famous preacher — and one of his parishioners.  It should be noted that Pastor Beecher was alleged to have strayed with three different women during his marriage to wife, Eunice Bullard White (3 August 1837 – 1897) with whom he had ten children.  He had an affair with poet, Edna Dean Proctor, and was accused of having affairs with Elizabeth Tilton (her husband, Theodore Tilton leveled the accusation in 1874), and Chloe Beach.

When he received the book, using a 1864 law that prohibited the distribution of obscene publications and images (where said definition was vague), he filed legal action against Victoria California Claflin Woodhull (23 September 1838 – 9 June 1927) and her sister Tennessee “Tennie” Claflin (26 October 1844 – 18 January 1823), who later became Lady Francis Cook by marriage.

SIDE NOTE 1:  Victoria Woodhull was the first female candidate for President of the United States, running for office in 1872.  She ran on the Equal Rights Party ticket, fifty years before American women had the right to vote.

SIDE NOTE 2:  While Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennessee “Tennie” Claflin were arrested, jailed, and prosecuted on obscenity charges leveled against them by Anthony Comstock.  They were acquitted of the charge.

SIDE NOTE 3:  Tennessee “Tennie” Claflin was the mistress of American capitalist Cornelius Vanderbilt (27 May 1794 – 4 January 1877) when she and her sister Victoria lived in New York City in the early 1870s.

Anthony Comstock founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, and the year after the filing his unsuccessful action against Victoria Woodhull and her sister, Tennie, the U.S. Congress passed the “Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use” on March 3, 1873 which became colloquially referred to as the Comstock Laws.

The Act criminalized the sale and/or distribution of materials that were allegedly obscene or immoral, and made it a criminal offense to mail said materials through the federal postal system or to import said materials into the United States from abroad, whether by way of the federal postal system or any other means.  Once the Act was passed, Anthony Comstock was named a Special Agent and was made a Postal Inspector for the United States Post Office, a position he held until 1915 (forty-two years).

The Comstock Laws suppressed the works of authors such as D.H. Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) and George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) as well as medical texts.  Some say that George Bernard Shaw coined the term comstockery in 1905 to mock the rampant censorship that was an ingrained aspect of society.

SIDE NOTE 4:  When George Bernard Shaw was prosecuted for his 1905 play, “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” he was acquitted on all charges.  The negative publicity received in the press only made the play more successful, and theater patron flocked to performances.

However, the term is found in an editorial in the New York Times dating back to 12 December 1895.  The editorial read in part:

Our esteemed contemporary the Courrier des Etats-Unis relates the melancholy sequel of Mr. COMSTOCK’S latest raid, or latest but one, in the interest of … … what will be readily understood if classified as Comstockery Justice Jerome has expressed the opinion of sane persons; and with pain that his colleagues on the bench have outnumbered him.

It didn’t take long for the word to take hold (less than a year), as the Los Angeles Herald of February 28, 1897 (just over a year after the New York Times editorial was published) used it on page 20 of that edition.  The news bite originated with the New York Times, and was reprinted in the West Coast newspaper.  The news article was part of a larger column titled,”Books And Those Who Make Them” and the column was edited by Enoch Knight.  The snippet in question had to do with the Boston Bacchante at the Boston Public Library in Massachusetts.

But such a disposition is incompatible with the Puritan conscience, which refuses to be at rest until its doubts are finally laid.  When the Puritan conscience is complicated by culture, and questions arise touching the relation of art and morals, the result is very serious.  Were the trustees, after all, guilty of Philletinism and Comstockery?  Had they confounded immorality with morality, and assigned a work of art to a wrong jurisdiction?  Was there not some fourth dimension in which the postulates of the sculptor and the police can be reconciled?

Idiomation thereby pegs the word to the New York Times editorial staff on December 12, 1895 and the rest, as they say, is history.