Pollywogs and Golliwogs
Hartley Patterson
Pollywog
I have been looking into the history and useage of this interesting word
and would like to solicit the aid of this esteemed newsgroup in
progressing further.
Let me first describe how far I've got.
Middle English 'polwygle' (literally 'wiggle-head') was an alternate
word for the tadpole, the larval stage of the frog.
In his Dictionary (1755) Samuel Johnson cross-references tadpole and
'porwigle'.
This word eventually settled down to its present spelling 'pollywog' - a
rare failure for Dr Johnson! In American English it is still used for
tadpole, though it seems to have died out in British English in the 19th
century.
At some point 'pollywog' seems to have aquired a second meaning: a slang
term for an inexperienced young sailor. The US and Royal Navies have a
ceremony of some antiquity performed when a ship crosses the Equator.
King Neptune comes on board and subjects 'pollywogs', those who have not
met him before, to unpleasant ordeals.
Naval Terminology, Jargon and Slang FAQ:
http://www.netwalk.com/~popev/bg/FAQ/slang.html
So much for pollywog. Now for a very similar word, 'golliwog'.
According to the International Golliwog Collectors Club
http://columbia.digiweb.com/~brehm/golli/4gw3a.html
In 1895 Florence Kate Upton's children's book "The Adventures of Two
Dutch Dolls" was published in London (her illustrations, verse by her
mother). It featured the 'Golliwogg', a black rag doll which became
instantly popular - Miss Upton produced twelve more books.
As a child Florence (b.1873) had lived in Flushing, New York where she
had played with her Golliwogg doll. For those who have never seen a
golliwog it has a fancy waistcoat with long tails.
The golliwog became a nursery favorite in England second only to the
Teddy bear. I myself had one as a child. Later writers however cast
golliwogs as villains, and 'wog' was and is used as a demeaning racial
term for Arabs, which suggests it started within the British Army in
Egypt. Curiously it is not applied to persons of West African descent,
for whom American racist terms are used in England.
As a final oddity, 'wog' is used within the Church of Scientology as a
demeaning term for non-members. This could come from either direction,
since on the one hand Scientology's American founder and guru L Ron
Hubbard was a junior naval officer during WWII whilst on the other he
and Scientology's HQ were resident in England during the 1960s.
Now for my questions:
(1) To have reached America 'pollywog' must have come over with
pre-revolutionary colonists. So how come Dr Johnson picked up the older
form as late as 1755?
(2) How old is the 'Crossing the Line' naval ceremony?
(3) Is there a pollywog/golliwog connection?
Our hypothesis is that young male freed slaves after the Civil War
(1765) were buying flash clothes which their elders and betters mocked
by dubbing them pollywogs, from the long tails. When the Uptons bought
the doll they were told it was a pollywog, which Florence either
misheard or changed. By the time they came to tell their story twenty or
more years later, they genuinely believed that Florence had _invented_ a
nonsense name for her doll.
To substantiate this we obviously need to find reference to pollywog as
a slang term for stylishly dressed Afro-Americans in the 1870's.
Please E-mail comments as well as post as I am not a regular reader of
a.u.e.
Thanks!
--
Hartley Patterson
Home Page: http://village.vossnet.co.uk/h/hpttrsn/
featuring News from Bree, medieval economics
and an elderly universe
Reid_Coleman
Hartley Patterson wrote:
An Egyptian friend told me a story his grandfather told him. Those Egyptians
"employed" in building the Suez canal wore shirts indicating that they were
"W"orking "O"n "G"overnment "S"ervice. I have no idea if this has any
truth.
Brian J Goggin
On Sun, 01 Mar 1998 17:16:58 +0000, Hartley Patterson
<hpt...@vossnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Pollywog
[...]
>This word eventually settled down to its present spelling 'pollywog' - a
>rare failure for Dr Johnson! In American English it is still used for
>tadpole, though it seems to have died out in British English in the 19th
>century.
I don't think that's right. Hilaire Belloc (1870 - 1953) wrote a poem
called *The Frog*, which begins
"Be kind and tender to the Frog,
And do not call him names,
As 'Slimy skin'. or 'Polly-wog',
Or likewise 'Ugly James', [...]"
That's from *The Bad Child's Book of Beasts*. Admittedly it was
published in 1896, but the continuing popularity of Belloc's
Cautionary Verses has kept the word before generations of children.
(They do read Belloc still, don't they?)
The word is still to be found in Chambers, COD9, Longman and Collins,
although not in Chambers C21. However, several of the dictionaries
regard it as a dialect word in BrE.
Here is the OED entry, which you may already have seen:
===begins=====
polliwog, pollywog (________). dial. and U.S. Forms: _. 5 polwygle, 7
porwig(g)le, 9 porriwiggle, purwiggy, pollywiggle, pollywoggle. _. 6
polwigge, 7 polewigge, po(o)lwig, 9 polliwig, polly-wig, polliwog,
pollywog.
[ME. polwygle, f. poll n.1 + wiggle v. The forms polwig, etc., are
either shortened from polwygle, or formed with the dial. wig vb. to
wag.]
a. A tadpole.
_._1440 Promp. Parv. 408/1 Polwygle, wyrme.
1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 329 The spawne is white, contracting by
degrees a blacknesse, answerable_unto the porwigle or Tadpole, that
is, that animall which first proceedeth from it.
1823 E. Moor Suffolk Words & Phrases 288 Pollywiggle, the
tad-pole---in Norfolk called potladle.
_1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Purwiggy, a tadpole.
1855 Robinson Whitby Gloss., Porriwiggles, tadpoles and other tortuous
animalcula in water.
1881 S. Evans Evans's Leicestershire Words (new ed.) 216 Pollywig, or
pollywiggle,_a tadpole. _Poddywig' is, I think, the commoner form.
1933 H. G. Wells Bulpington of Blup ii. 45 These things you call
pollywiggles and pollywoggles.
1965 East Anglian May 242/1 Tadpoles were_pollywiggles.
_.1592 Nashe 4 Lett. Confut. (1593) 63 Thou hast a prety polwigge
sparrows taile peake.
1601 Holland Pliny I. 265 Some little mites of blackish flesh, which
they call Tadpoles or Polwigs.
_1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Polliwigs.
1835_40 Haliburton Clockm. (1862) 321 Little ponds_nothing but
pollywogs, tadpoles, and minims in them.
1862 Lowell Biglow P. Ser. ii. 80 _Lord knows', protest the polliwogs,
_We're anxious to be grown-up frogs'.
1892 Working Men's Coll. Jrnl. Oct. 124 In this pond dwells the
pollywog, loggerhead, or tadpole.
b. U.S. As a political nickname.
1854 L. Oliphant Episodes (1887) 47 Filibusters, polly_wogs, and a
host of other nicknames.
1864 Sala in Daily Tel. 27 Sept., _The slimy machinations of the
pollywog politicians have usurped the government of our city', said
Poer.
===ends=====
[...]
>(1) To have reached America 'pollywog' must have come over with
>pre-revolutionary colonists. So how come Dr Johnson picked up the older
>form as late as 1755?
Chambers still lists pollywog, polliwog, pollywig, polliwig and
porwiggle. And the OED entries suggest that variants were in use long
after Dr Johnson chose one.
>(2) How old is the 'Crossing the Line' naval ceremony?
The OED has an 1815 citation: 1815 Chron. in Ann. Reg. 104 "At the
usual ceremony of passing the Line,_Buonaparte made a present to old
Neptune of one hundred Napoleons."
The *Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea* says
"The ceremony undoubtedly owes its origin to ancient pagan rites
connected with the propitiation of the sea god Poseidon or Neptune.
Before ocean navigation began in earnest in the middle of the 16th
century, it was the custom to mark the successful rounding of
prominent headlands by making a sacrifice ....
"The earliest accounts of visits to ships from an imaginary King
Neptune appear in Aubin's *Dictionnaire Nautique* (1702) and in Woodes
Rogers's book *A Cruising Voyage round the World* (1712), in which is
desribed the performance of a ceremony on passing the tropic of Cancer
which is similar to that performed today on crossing the equator. Jal,
in his *Glossaire nautique*, claims that in the middle of the 17th
century it was the custom in French ships on crossing the Line for the
second mate to impersonate Neptune ...."
That book, by the way, does not mention the seafaring meaning of
"pollywog"; nor does the OED; the word is not in Partridge's
*Historical Slang*. It is, however, mentioned in some other of my
dictionaries.
>(3) Is there a pollywog/golliwog connection?
[...]
The OED "political nickname" might suggest a way forward.
bjg [post & mail]
Markus Laker
Reid_Coleman <rcol...@tiac.net>:
> An Egyptian friend told me a story his grandfather told him. Those Egyptians
> "employed" in building the Suez canal wore shirts indicating that they were
> "W"orking "O"n "G"overnment "S"ervice. I have no idea if this has any
> truth.
According to the FAQ -- which you can find at my Web site -- it hasn't.
# "Wog", a chiefly British, derogatory word for someone from the
# Middle or Far East, does NOT stand for "wealthy/Western/wily/
# wonderful/worthy Oriental gentleman", or for "worker on Government
# service". It may be a shortening of "golliwog".
Incidentally, many perfectly reasonable people who wouldn't bat an
eyelid at a golliwog would get quite cross if you started referring to
coloured people as wogs. It's not a word I'd use, in polite company or
otherwise.
Markus
--
a.u.e resources: http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~laker/aue/
My real email address doesn't include a Christian name.
Sean Holland
Markus Laker <fredd...@tcp.co.uk> wrote:
> # "Wog", a chiefly British, derogatory word for someone from the
> # Middle or Far East, does NOT stand for "wealthy/Western/wily/
> # wonderful/worthy Oriental gentleman", or for "worker on Government
> # service". It may be a shortening of "golliwog".
>
I've always thought that "golliwog" derived from "wog", not the other
way around. The doll is an exaggerated version of a "wog", so it gets
the childish "golly" attached.
A childhood friend of mine left Canada as an almost normal Canadian
and went to study at Oxford. A few years later back to Canada he came
with an Oxfordian drawl, uttering things like "Wogs begin at Calais".
--
Sean
To e-mail me, take out the garbage.
Markus Laker
seho...@garbageislandnet.com (Sean Holland):
> Markus Laker <fredd...@tcp.co.uk> wrote:
[Quoting Mark Israel's FAQ:]
> > # "Wog", a chiefly British, derogatory word for someone from the
> > # Middle or Far East, does NOT stand for "wealthy/Western/wily/
> > # wonderful/worthy Oriental gentleman", or for "worker on Government
> > # service". It may be a shortening of "golliwog".
> I've always thought that "golliwog" derived from "wog", not the other
> way around. The doll is an exaggerated version of a "wog", so it gets
> the childish "golly" attached.
OED2 says that 'golliwog' may be derived from 'golly', which is says is
a euphemism for 'God', and 'pollywog'/'polliwog', which it says is an
American dialectal word for a tadpole.
> A childhood friend of mine left Canada as an almost normal Canadian
> and went to study at Oxford. A few years later back to Canada he came
> with an Oxfordian drawl, uttering things like "Wogs begin at Calais".
'Wogs begin at Calais' is always a parody of extreme nationalist views.
No one says it intending to be taken seriously. The usual epithet for
the French is 'frog', not 'wog'. Actually, that's the *only* common
epithet for them I can think of. Compare that with the wide range of
names that have been given to people with darker skin than the French.
Now, '*frogs* begin at Calais' -- that's harder to argue with.
Michael Cargal
fredd...@tcp.co.uk (Markus Laker) wrote:
>'Wogs begin at Calais' is always a parody of extreme nationalist views.
>No one says it intending to be taken seriously.
I vaguely recollect that the first use of this was by a member of
parliament, and I think he was censured. Anybody know if it's true?
Michael Cargal car...@cts.com
If posting a reply, please do not email the same reply to me--it just confuses me.
Lee Rudolph
fredd...@tcp.co.uk (Markus Laker) writes:
>'Wogs begin at Calais' is always a parody of extreme nationalist views.
>No one says it intending to be taken seriously. The usual epithet for
>the French is 'frog', not 'wog'. Actually, that's the *only* common
>epithet for them I can think of. Compare that with the wide range of
>names that have been given to people with darker skin than the French.
Isn't the point that (in the view being expressed, or parodied, or
--likeliest to me--expressed with "plausible deniability" by a speaker
whose ever so slightly mote-blinded eye is turned resolutely outward)
the French are...what was the antonym of "Oreo" someone came up with?
...well, anyway, white on the outside but really darkies underneath?
They are, as we know, a funny race, who fight with their feet.
Lee Rudolph
John Nurick
On Tue, 03 Mar 1998 20:52:30 GMT, car...@cts.com (Michael
Cargal) wrote:
>fredd...@tcp.co.uk (Markus Laker) wrote:
>>'Wogs begin at Calais' is always a parody of extreme nationalist views.
>>No one says it intending to be taken seriously.
>I vaguely recollect that the first use of this was by a member of
>parliament, and I think he was censured. Anybody know if it's true?
This seems unlikely. Comfort's _Brewer's Politics_ (not an
account of links between the licensed trade and the political
parties but a dictionary of phrase and fable) says only that "it
is a common British expression that ultra-nationalists believe
*Wogs begin at Calais*".
Comfort, by the way, says *wog* "originated in the 1920s; it is
believed to stand for 'Westernized Oriental Gentleman'". The
only example he gives of the use of the word in Parliament is by
Julian Amery in 1956, during the Suez affair: "Wogs have Migs";
with no mention of whether or not Amery was censured.
John
To e-mail me, drop clanger from address.
sho...@gmail.com
Athel Cornish-Bowden
--
athel
Default User
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.usage.english/pF1miSYC31A/wBbbNTeDhpcJ
Brian
Peter Moylan
question". There were certainly informative responses.
Still, it seems to be common for drive-by posters not to read any of the
responses.
--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Default User
Brian
pe...@pmoylan.org
Peter Moylan
is that it's a consequence of how Google displays the results of a
search. It shows that the web site is groups.google.com, and
"alt.usage.english" is also displayed, but that might not be a
sufficient clue to someone who does not know what Usenet is. To reply,
you have to log in to a Google account (which is not specific to this
newsgroup). Does the reply go to Google or the original poster? That's
not clear.
If you scroll far enough you can see that the original post is part of a
thread, but it's not completely clear that the following messages are
part of a thread, rather than just being other search results.
Peter Moylan
> This is my test reply. From what I see on my phone screen the reply will go to a web site groups.google.com. There is no indication of how anyone can get back to me. Perhaps an email from the original poster?
>
quoted text. I also couldn't see any way to insert line terminators to
avoid having one very long line.
Snidely
>> This is my test reply. From what I see on my phone screen the reply will go
>> to a web site groups.google.com. There is no indication of how anyone can
>> get back to me. Perhaps an email from the original poster?
>>
> Note: no quoted text. I couldn't see any way, in this test, to include
> quoted text. I also couldn't see any way to insert line terminators to
> avoid having one very long line.
change again by next, even if the overall impression is the same. But
the words that are searched for will live forever.
/dps
--
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain
Peter T. Daniels
Why are you unable to comprehend that "drive-by posters" DO NOT SEE
responses and ARE NOT AWARE that they are participating in a thread
(that in this case goes back just over 21 years)?
Default User
> > Which raises the question, why reply in the first place?
>
> My understanding, based on past discussions on the drive-by
What does any of that have to do with why you replied? You correctly
identified it as a "Google drive-by" and could pretty well guess that
this person will never participate again.
Brian
Default User
confusion). Replies will be in the thread. However, on a mobile device
the replies you make won't include quotes.
It also created a new thread in your case.
Brian
Snidely
current revival thread, and the In-Reply-To header is set.
/dps
--
"What do you think of my cart, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it?
Well hung: curricle-hung in fact. Come sit by me and we'll test the
springs."
(Speculative fiction by H.Lacedaemonian.)
Snidely
encourage us to share in the same. Or so I impute his motives.
/dps
--
Killing a mouse was hardly a Nobel Prize-worthy exercise, and Lawrence
went apopleptic when he learned a lousy rodent had peed away all his
precious heavy water.
_The Disappearing Spoon_, Sam Kean
Steve Hayes
It seems that on GoogleGroups you can either reply to the poster or
follow-up to the group. If you follow-up, it does proper reply quoting,
but if you choose to reply to the original sender, it's hard to say what
is happening. You can type stuff and see it on the screen, but what is
actually sent is anybody's guess.
--
Steve Hayes http://khanya.wordpress.com
Default User
> It seems that on GoogleGroups you can either reply to the poster or
> follow-up to the group. If you follow-up, it does proper reply
> quoting, but if you choose to reply to the original sender, it's hard
> to say what is happening. You can type stuff and see it on the
> screen, but what is actually sent is anybody's guess.
automatically quote, it provides no option for quoting. The best you
can do is copy the previous message and paste into the reply, but it
won't have proper quote marking.
I don't know why.
I used GG for a number of years for occasional usenet posting. The PC
version doesn't do much strange. Pretty much what I would type would be
sent.
Brian
Default User
> Default User formulated the question :
> > pe...@pmoylan.org wrote:
> >
> > > This is my test reply. From what I see on my phone screen the
> > > reply will go to a web site groups.google.com. There is no
> > > indication of how anyone can get back to me. Perhaps an email
> > > from the original poster?
> >
> > Google Groups is a usenet reader (with some other groups thrown in
> > for confusion). Replies will be in the thread. However, on a mobile
> > device the replies you make won't include quotes.
> >
> > It also created a new thread in your case.
>
> Are you sure? Both mesnews and GG indicate that it's in-tree for
> the current revival thread, and the In-Reply-To header is set.
subject line.
Brian
Mark Brader
> ...it provides no option for quoting. The best you
> won't have proper quote marking.
--
Mark Brader | "Every year this part of our job gets easier.
Toronto | Between Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr, people are
m...@vex.net | surveilling *themselves*." --Phil Coulson (Jeffrey Bell)
Default User
> "Brian":
> > ...it provides no option for quoting. The best you
> > can do is copy the previous message and paste into the reply, but it
> > won't have proper quote marking.
>
> Until you add it! Why do people have so much trouble understanding
> that?
could. That would be annoying, especially if you're using a
touch-screen.
Brian
Madhu
Wrote on Fri, 29 Mar 2019 01:16:23 -0000 (UTC):
> You mean go down each line and add a > or other marker? I guess you
> could. That would be annoying, especially if you're using a
> touch-screen.
they are from the older generation. You can hardly expect the
generation using the devices fitted for destruction to do that