Sell Like Hotcakes

When something sells well due to popular demand, you may hear people say the item is selling like hotcakes. Hotcakes (also known as pancakes or griddlecakes) have been around for centuries but the expression came about much later.

The story goes that back in the 17th century, cornmeal based pancakes were made and sold after church on Sundays, and the demand was so great that as soon as they were made, they were sold and still very hot indeed.

The Smith & Hemenway Company of New York City took out advertising space in a number of magazines in Spring of 1905 to promote their Red Devil Nail Clippers which, they said would trim, clip, and manicure nails perfectly and promised to sell like hotcakes. This image is from The Iron Age: A Review of the Hardware, Iron, Machinery, and Metal Trades.

The 25 November 1903 edition of American Hardware Market ran an ad placed by the Chicago Flexible Shaft Company for hand clippers that cost slightly more than hand clippers that were on the market at the time, but did the job 100 times faster. They claimed their clippers were “packed in a small box” and that these clippers “will sell like hot cakes” mostly because the “extremely low price brings it within the reach of every man owning a horse.”

Usher Ferguson Linder (20 March 1809 – 5 June 1876) served as Illinois Attorney General from 1837 until 1839, and prior to that, he practiced law. Linder and (Abraham) Lincoln practiced law in affiliation with each other but they were never legal partners. Linder wrote a book, published in 1879, titled, “Reminiscences of the Early Bench and Bar of Illinois.”

He wrote about many things, including the railroad schemes in 1836 and 1837 at a time when there was no railroad to be found in the entire State of Illinois, and no roads in Indiana that reached Illlinois. On page 59 of his book, he wrote this:

The enthusiastic friends of the measure, such as John Hogan, one of the members from Alton, an Irishman who had been a Methodist preacher, and who was quite a fluet and interesting speaker, maintained that instead of their being any difficulty in obtaining a loan of fifteen or twenty million authorized to be borrowed, our bonds would go like hot cakes, and be sought for by the Rothschilds and Baring Brothers, and others of that stamp, and that the premium which we would obtain upon them would range from fifty to one hundred per cent, and that the premium itself would be sufficient to construct most of the important works, leaving the principal sum to into our treasury, and leave the people free from taxation for years to come.

In “The History, Civil, Political and Military of the Southern Rebellion” by American writer, biographer, historian, and editor, Orville James (O.J.) Victor (23 October 1827 – 14 March 1910) published in the autumn of 1861 the expression was used in Chapter VI titled, “Progress of the Rebellion in South Carolina.”

Secession badges were worn by men, women, and children. A reporter present said – “All classes are arming for the contingency of coercion. Revolvers and patent fire-arms are selling like hot cakes.”

The reference for this expression was November 1860.

The 17 July 1839 edition of The Evening Post reported on various swindling offences that had made it to the police blotter. Among them was a report made by a Mr. George Welton of Waterbury (NY) who received a letter dated 29 June 1839 wherein the sender, M.H.C., wrote most insistently:

You had better send soon, as they will be all gone, for they go like hot cakes, and then there will be no more of them.

The scam was that similar to the Nigerian scam we hear about so often these days, where Mr. Welton was advised to forward an additional $27 in order to be refunded $300 for an item — an item that did not exist made by a company known as the Mechanics’ Exchange Company which also did not exist.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites American author and journalist Charles Frederick (C.F.) Briggs (30 December 1804 – 20 June 1877) as the first author to publish the idiom in his July 1839 book , “The Adventures of Harry Franco: A Tale of the Great Panic” which was written in two volumes, and where readers found this passage:

“You had better buy ’em, Colonel,” said Mr. Lummucks, “they will sell like hot cakes.”

Idiomation disagrees that this is the earliest published version of the idiom after finding this published piece that mentions hotcakes!

In the 24 February 1836 edition of the Cleveland (OH) Whig, on page 2, in column 5, the following was written:

While in a book-store in Albany, a few days since, we noticed a large number of Holland’s Life of Van Buren lying up on the counter. ‘These sell like hot cakes in this region, I suppose?’ we observed to the bookseller.

So there you have it: The expression was used and understood — and published in a newspaper — three years before the date the OED sets for its first publication.

In German, the expression is weggehen wie warme Semmein which means to go like warm rolls, and in French the expression is se vendre comme des petits pains which means to sell like small buns. Now this is important because Idiomation found a variation of the expression that dates back to 1735 and to Grimm as Darbennime, a pseudonym of Biedermann.

For, I thought, it would go away like hotcakes, and be a very big profit from it.

Idiomation pegs the expression to at least the mid-1820s based on the ease with which it was used in the Cleveland Whig newspaper of 1836 with a nod to the variation found that dates back to 1735.

As a side note, Bloomberg reported that the sale of pancake or hot cake mix has been on the decline for well over a decade now. Maybe having a product that sells like hot cakes means the manufacturer should rethink the product or how it’s being sold.

Sam Hill

From time to time, you might hear some of the older folk wonder what in Sam Hill is going on with the younger generation. So who is this Sam Hill they mention, and how is it any of his business what’s going on with anyone?

Sam Hill saw widespread use from the mid 1830s onward, and is a 19th century euphemism (in other words, a minced oath) for Hell. It is used to express extreme confusion, surprise, or agitation.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 1:  This is what is commonly known as a bowdlerization (meaning it was censored because it was deemed by adults to be inappropriate for children to exposed to the actual word or expression) and coined after English physician Thomas Bowdler (11 July 1754 – 24 February 1825) whose best known published efforts was a version of Shakespeare that would not offend or corrupt 19th century women and children).

But getting back to Sam Hill and what the hubbub is all about, who in the world was Sam Hill in the first place, and why is he associated with swearing?

No, it was not from a surveyor named Samuel W. Hill (1819 – 1889) who swore a blue streak.

No, it was not from a lawyer named Samuel Hill (13 May 1857 – 26 February 1931) who also was said to swear up a storm.

No, it was not from the investigator and adjutant-general of Kentucky, Sam Hill (30 January 1844 – 30 May 1904) who was sent by Governor Simon Buckner (1 April 1823 – 8 January 1914) to figure out what was going on with the Hatfield and McCoy feud.

No, it was not from the Connecticut legislator named Sam Hill (he represented Guilford from 1727 through to 1752) who was a force to be reckoned with if you went up against him.

Many claim that one of those four people is the Sam Hill in the expression, and every single one of them would be mistaken.

Interestingly enough, in “Roughing It In The Busy: Or, Life In Canada” by Susanna Moodie (6 December 1803 – 8 April 1885) published in two volumes in 1852 by Richard Bentley publishers in London, England, she uses the expression in a passage of her book.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 2: Susanna Moodie was the sister of English historical writer and poet Agnes Strickland (18 July 1796 – 8 July 1874) who wrote “Lives of the Queens of England” and Susanna dedicated her book to Agnes.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 3: Susanna Moodie was primarily known in the 1850s for her volumes of poetry published in 1831 under her maiden name of Susanna Strickland. In the foreword to her book, the publisher states that Susanna Moodie’s lyrical composition, “Sleigh Song” was extremely popular in Canada.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 4: Susanna Moodie was the wife of Scottish-born army officer, farmer, civil servant, and author John Wedderburn Dunbar Moodie (7 October 1797 – 22 October 1869), author of “Ten Years In South Africa: Including a Particular Description of the Wild Sports of that Country.” As husband and wife, they settled in Belleville, Ontario, Canada.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 5: Susanna Moodie was also the sister of author, teacher, botanist, and naturalist Catharine Parr Traill (9 January 1802 – 29 August 1899), and of Samuel Strickland (1804 – 3 January 1867) author of “Twenty Seven Years In Canada West” among other books.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 6: All the Stricklands mentioned in this entry were siblings of English author Jane Margaret Strickland (18 April 1800 – 14 June 1888) who published her first book in 1854, published a biography about her sister Agnes Strickland in 1887, and cared for their mother Elizabeth Homer Strickland (1772 – 10 September 1864).

In Susanna Moodie’s book, she uses the expression Sam Hill in such a way that there’s no doubt Sam Hill was considered swearing back in the mid 1800s.

“Do you swear?”

“Swear? What harm? It eases one’s mind when one’s vexed. Everybody swears in this country. My boys all swear like Sam Hill; and I used to swear mighty bit oaths till about a month ago, when the Methody parson told me that if I did not leave it off I should go to tarnation bad place; so I dropped some of the worst of them.”

“You would do wisely to drop the rest; women never wear in my country.”

“Well, you don’t say! I always heer’d that were very ignorant. Will you lend me the tea?”

In Volume 15 of the 1841 edition of “The Ladies’ Companion and Literary Expositor” there was an article titled, “Memoirs of Mr. Samuel Hill” that was based on a Cape Cod Annual poem of the same name. Tongue in cheek, the take found in this 1841 publication by an unnamed author states that Sam Hill was a New Englander by virtue of the following facts:

Barkhemsted folks believe Mr. Hill to have been born there, merely because wooden-dishes were first fabricated within the precincts … Wethersfield seems to be quite certain that a man of Sam’s sensibilities must necessarily first have learned to weep among the onion patches of Piquaug. Hebron puts in her claim upon the principle of the pump; merely resting it upon the traditionary testimony as to his having frequently been subjected to involuntary ablution under the spout of that losel engine.

The author then goes on to dash the hopes of Barkhemsted, Wethersfield, Hebron, and a great many other locations with the deft sweep of his pen.

Sam Hill‘s history — and the extended history of the women he courted and what happened to the beaus who had previously courted those same women — is examined with the same attention to detail.

Mention is made of his legendary singing voice which is said to be “famous for his vocal (or rather his nasal excellence, for Sam’s melody was always most conspicuous through the nose)” in the neighboring parishes of Upper Schreechington, and East Gruntingburgh.

When all was said and done, the claim was that Sam Hill was a household name from Rye to Passamaquaddy, and yet no one knew Sam Hill, even though he clearly “possessed more attributes than anybody else in creation.” It was said that “no other individual was ever celebrated and sworn by for so great a diversity of opposite qualities” as Sam Hill was.

No true-blooded yankee ever had the toothache without ascribing to his ailment an intensity compared with my hero. His tooth aches “like Sam Hill.” If a fellow is swift of foot, the New-Englanders are unanimous in the opinion that he “runs like Sam Hill,” and if a cripple gets along leisurely in the world it is said of him at once that he limps like the same personage, and poor old Broom’s cattle on the Colchester turnpike always had the name of being “slow as Sam Hill.”

“What the Sam Hill is the matter with you?” is a common expression, whenever any thing extraordinary is discernible in a man’s deportment, and you “lie like Sam Hill,” if a neighbor’s word is distrusted. “True as Sam Hill” is equally in the mouths of those who would swear to the veracity of a favorite statement.

A man is said to be as smart, and he is said to be as dull as “Sam Hill” — and if he is very bold or very timourous, “Sam Hill” is still the standard by which his good and bad qualities are measured. Of course, as I have already remarked, my hero must have been possessed of all sorts of qualities, and have been gifted with more versatility of powers than even the admirable Chrichton himself.

In the end, the author of this piece writes this about himself as an author, and the piece he has published in this magazine:

This biography will be looked upon in various lights by the reader. One class will call it “stupid as Sam Hill,” and another will pronounce it “smart as Sam Hill.” This latter body of citizens are very sensible people, and my heart warms to them like — SAM HILL.

Sam Hill shows up in the August 21, 1839 issue of the Havana Republican newspaper of New York state in an article titled, “Majorjack On A Whaler.”

What in sam hill is that feller ballin’ about?

INTERESTING SIDE NOTE 7: Majorjack refers to Gump-link character Major Jack Downing by American humorist Seba Smith (14 September 1791 – 28 July 1868). Seba Smith was among the first to use American vernacular in his humorous writings, and his style led the way for other American humorists such as Will Rogers (4 November 1879 – 15 August 1935).

Oddly enough, the expression Sam on its own without the addition of Hill as a last name referred to a know-nothing person. Need more be said about how people felt about Sam in general with or without a last name?

Idiomation takes this to mean that the expression Sam Hill was around since at least the turn of the 19th century, and most likely long before then although Idiomation was unable to find an earlier published version than the 1839 newspaper account.  It was, however, understood by the general public to have been included in that 1839 article so it was already in use among the people.

Dead Duck

The phrase “dead duck” is a funny sounding phrase.  It brings to light an interesting visual and questions about how a dead duck became synonymous with the concept of being ineffectual.

The Irish Canadian newspaper of May 20, 1886 reported on Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Gladstone of the Liberal Party by stating that

Protests are even now coming home to him, charging him with having almost accomplished the ruin of the Liberal party, and declaring that his usefulness as a leader is gone.  His vanity has destroyed all chances to the succession and his treachery of his chief has made it painfully manifest that he can no longer be trusted.  Come what may, one this is certain: Mr. Chamberlain is a dead duck politically.  Not so, however, with Mr. Gladstone.  He is cheered by many voices all over the land, urging him, in the event of an adverse vote upon his bill, not to resign, but to appeal to the people.  It is thought that this course will be adopted, provided her Majesty consents to a dissolution.

The term “dead duck” referring to politicians wasn’t something new in 1886.  History shows that in 1866, Andrew Johnson referred to John W. Forney, publisher of Philadelphia and Washington newspapers, as a dead duck.  In fact, when the New York Times reported on it on February 28, 1866, it came with the headline “Degree Conferred” and read in part:

On Thursday last, President, ANDREW JOHNSON, of the Union College, Washington City, conferred the honorary title of “dead duck” upon JOHN W. FORNEY, Esq. This exaltation creates some surprise, since it is not known that the recipient was ever in holy orders, and some go so far as to say that the President is making game of him.

Back on May, 15, 1829 the Glasgow Herald reported a very strange thing indeed.  It stated that the following had been published in the Dublin Morning Register:

In opposition to the dictum of Judge Littledale, that a dead duck was not a duck, Mr. Serjeant Adams has decided that a dead rabbit is a rabbit.  The vitality of a duck is one vitality, and the vitality of a rabbit is another vitality.

The phrase “dead duck” is an Americanism from the 1830s, originally it was political slang referring to a person who has lost influence or power and was therefore useless.  In fact, it was used in conversation without hesitation by the 1840s. 

There are even Letters to the Editor such as the one dated August 29, 1839 and published in the Hartford (CT) Courant newspaper.  The editor prefaced its publication by stating, “The following communication was received two or three weeks since.  The subject of it was considered rather small game for the writer, and it was laid on the table.  Other considerations now induce us to give it a place.” 

The author of the Letter to the Editor describes the accusations made by another party with regards to the next General Election in this way:

Respecting this accusation, he let off his popgun at the dead duck.

So somewhere between 1829 a dead duck that was not a duck came to mean — within a decade — an ineffectual person.  How that happened is something Idiomation could not track down.

What Idiomation did learn is that the word dead comes from the Old English word dead which hails from the Germanic word *dauthaz” from the 13th century.  Somewhere between “dead drunk” of 1599 and “dead on” of 1889, the phrase “dead duck” came into existence and has been around ever since.