![]() It felt unnecessary because of the flow of those classes and the feedback I was receiving from students. Some semesters, I didn’t utter the word once. He’s a Black man from South Carolina, just as I am. I briefly studied under Kennedy at Harvard Law during my year in Boston as a Nieman Fellow. I had assigned Randall Kennedy’s Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. After those six letters slipped from between his lips, his body ever so subtly melted into the plastic chair, his complexion transforming into an odd mixture of ghost white and red, with a touch of purple and blue. He had uttered the word not as a slur but at my urging. Bugged-eyes of surprised students looked for comfort in the bugged-eyes of other surprised students. There was no outrage, no cries of harm, though shock hovered like a dark cloud. ![]() ![]() 15, 1842.“ Nigger,” one of my white students uttered in the most unoffensive way possible.Ī stunned silence fell over the classroom. "So I went on a regular wake snakes sort of a spree, and I went here and there turnin', twistin' and doublin' about until I didn't know where or who I was," a man testified in court as to why he was intoxicated, according to the New Orleans, La., Times Picayune of Aug. " Reminiscences of the Turf by William Day, 1891.ġ2) W ake snakes - get into mischief. ![]() "When anyone told a thumper more palpably outrageous than usual, it was sufficiently understood. 20, 1882, wrote, "was such an infernal idiot, that he swam across the river to get a drink."ġ1) Tell a thumper - construct a clever lie. "Thompson's colt," a reporter in the Saint Paul, Minn., Globe of Nov. flattered himself he was decidedly 'some pumpkins,' it was a horse-trade."ġ0) Like Thompson's colt - doing something unnecessarily, like jumping a fence when the rails have been removed. "If there was any kind of trading," noted the Grant County Herald in Wisconsin on July 17, 1847, "in which Simon B. "A lady of the shoddyocracy of Des Moines found, on returning from a walk, some call cards on her table," observed the Harrisburg, Pa., Telegraph of June 30, 1870.ĩ) Some pumpkins - a big deal. Ĩ) Shoddyocracy - people who get rich selling shoddy merchandise or services. "It is shinning around corners to avoid meeting creditors that is sapping the energies of this generation," opined the Dallas, Texas, Daily Herald on Oct. 4, 1890, Salina, Kan., Republican noted.ħ) Shinning around - moving about quickly. "That north show window of Shute & Haskell's is a 'lally-cooler,' " the Jan. Describing an illustration, a reporter in the Gettysburg, Pa., People's Press of May 22, 1835, wrote: "A gentleman a little 'how came you so' with his hat on the back of his head, is staggering about in the presence of Miss Fanny, who appears to be quite shocked."Ħ) Lally-cooler - a real success. Also sometimes used by members of the military to describe going to war.ĥ) How came you so - inebriated. He was told there was no game of that kind there, but that if he wanted to see the elephant he was on the right track," the Lawrence, Kan., Daily Journal reported on Sept. said he was going to Chicago to hunt buffalo. "A young Sioux Indian from Haskell Institute. if the clergy only keep to that topic, Lincoln will be Chicagoed!" from the Plymouth, Ind., Weekly Democrat of June 7, 1860.Ĥ) See the elephant - to see all the sights of a town, especially the edgier aspects. ![]() 31, 1871.ģ) To be Chicagoed - to be beaten soundly, as in a baseball shutout. "Notwithstanding all the calculations of the political economists, the great bottom fact is that one man's honest, steady work, rightly applied, especially if aided by machinery and improved modes of conveyance and distribution, suffices to supply the actual needs of a dozen burdensome loafers," according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Jan. 12, 1885.Ģ) Bottom fact - an undisputed fact. "That clay-bank hog wants the same pay as a Senator he's getting too high for his nut," according to a grammar-corrected version of the Oakland, Calif., Tribune on Jan. Here are an even dozen, pretty much forgotten slanglike words or sayings from the 19th century, rediscovered while delving in the archives - and with added guidance from James Maitman's 1891 American Slang Dictionary :ġ) Too high for his nut - beyond someone's reach. ![]()
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