etymological moment

[fflo]

Our new lj user maffick got me to thinking again, with a comment of hers, about the word "shebang." Googling "shebang etymology," I found this site:

ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY
I like its fundraising approach: "Sponsor 'peace.' Give your boyfriend 'lust.' Show your appreciation for 'candy.' Sponsor a word, and help keep the Online Etymology Dictionary free and open."

The entry for the word in question:

shebang - 1862, "hut, shed, shelter," perhaps an alteration of shebeen. Phrase the whole shebang first recorded 1869, but relation to the earlier use of the word is obscure. Either or both senses may also be mangled pronunciations of Fr. char-�-banc, a bus-like wagon with many seats.

Comments

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

Oh I remember this one. Was intrigued and slightly amused by the whole host of conjectures emerging from this discussion (http://www.livejournal.com/community/denglish/193383.html).

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Thanks, rekraft! Aber so much of it ist auf Deutsch, methinks I'll be heading over to babelfish...

[groovesinorbit]

Cool site.

The wonderful world of etymology

[maffick.livejournal.com]

Fascinating!
Thanks for doing the legwork for all of us. You know a word I've been curious about is 'fag'. I know that it means burning materials or smoke stacks or something like that, but it is also another word for cigarette and I just wonder how it ended up also becoming a synonym for 'homosexual'? I wonder if it's derrogatory? I'm going to look it up on that site, but I doubt it will mention anything about the last connotation. Do you have any insights?

That website is the bomb!

[maffick.livejournal.com]

Great! Now using that expression makes me want to look up the word bomb, but I am impressed...check it out:

fag (n.) - British slang for "cigarette" (originally, especially, the butt of a smoked cigarette), 1888, probably from fag-end "extreme end, loose piece" (1613), from fag "loose piece" (1486), perhaps related to fag (v.).
faggot (1) - 1279, "bundle of twigs bound up," from O.Fr. fagot "bundle of sticks," from It. faggotto, dim. of V.L. *facus, from L. fascis "bundle of wood" (see fasces). Esp. used for burning heretics (a sense attested from 1555), so that phrase fire and faggot was used to mean "punishment of a heretic." Heretics who recanted were required to wear an embroidered figure of a faggot on their sleeve, as an emblem and reminder of what they deserved.
faggot (2) - "male homosexual," 1914, Amer.Eng. slang (shortened form fag is from 1921), probably from earlier contemptuous term for "woman" (1591), especially an old and unpleasant one, in reference to faggot (1) "bundle of sticks," as something awkward that has to be carried (cf. baggage). It was used in this sense in 20c. by D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce, among others. It may also be reinforced by Yiddish faygele "homosexual," lit. "little bird." It also may have roots in Brit. public school slang fag "a junior who does certain duties for a senior" (1785), with suggestions of "catamite," from fag (v.). This was also used as a verb.

"He [the prefect] used to fag me to blow the chapel organ for him." ["Boy's Own Paper," 1889]

Other obsolete senses of faggot were "man hired into military service simply to fill out the ranks at muster" (1700) and "vote manufactured for party purposes" (1817). The oft-heard statement that male homosexuals were called faggots in reference to their being burned at the stake is an etymological urban legend. Burning was sometimes a punishment meted out to homosexuals in Christian Europe (on the suggestion of the Biblical fate of Sodom and Gomorah), but in England, where parliament had made homosexuality a capital offense in 1533, hanging was the method proscribed. Any use of faggot in connection with public executions had long become an English historical obscurity by the time the word began to be used for "male homosexual" in 20th century American slang, whereas the contemptuous slang word for "woman" (and the other possible sources or influences listed here) was in active use.

Re: That website is the bomb!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Fascinating.

I have a feeling I'm going to be tempted to consult the site rather frequently. You may remember: in the broad e-discussion w/Tracy about new dictionaries and online unabridged subscription, I was hardpressed to find a reason we needed access to the etymologies, thinking only that the translators might be able to justify it. M. subsequently made a good case, but we DO work for a non-profit, so we shall see. (Meantime I guess I'll steer M. to this site.)