February 2010 « The Word Detective

Scallywag

Too cute to shoot.

Dear Word Detective: I was watching an old pirate movie the other night while drifting off to sleep, and I heard the term “scallywag.” Was that just made up for Hollywood or does it actually have a history behind it? — Not losing sleep, but curious, Scott.

Good question. I love pirate movies, especially the old “Treasure Island” starring Robert Newton, who singlehandedly invented the “Arrgh” brand of pirate talk we’re encouraged to imitate every year on “Talk Like a Pirate Day” (September 19).

“Scallywag” (also spelled “scallawag,””scalawag,” and several other ways) is indeed a real word and not a Hollywood invention. Its use in a pirate movie may, however, have been an anachronism. The “golden age” of piracy in the Caribbean, for instance, is generally considered to have been from the mid-17th until the mid-18th century, but “scallywag” didn’t appear in print until the mid-19th century.

Today we use “scallywag” to mean a “scamp,” a “rascal” or a “lovable rogue,” a person (usually a man) who may be less than perfectly honest, but whose crimes are fairly minor and lack malice. At various points in its history, however, “scallywag” has been a term of more serious condemnation.

Interestingly, the first “scallywags” may not have been human. In the US in the first half of the 19th century, “scallywag” was a term used for undersized or sick cattle (“… ‘scalawag’ was the name applied by drovers to lean and ill-favoured kine,” 1868). Apparently extending the idea of “scrawny, useless cow” to people, “scallywag” then came into use meaning “a good-for-nothing fellow” or “a disreputable man; a villain.” After the American Civil War, “scallywag” was applied as a term of contempt to Southern whites who cooperated with, and profited from, the harsh measures of Reconstruction. Later on, in the late 19th and early 20th century labor struggles, “scallywag” was used as a slur against union activists. But by the mid-20th century, “scallywag” had settled down to its modern meaning of “charming scoundrel.”

There are several theories about the origins of “scallywag,” but most dictionaries still label the word “origin uncertain.” Several of more the plausible theories about “scallywag” point to Scotland as the source of the word. The old Scots dialect word “scallag,” for instance, means “servant” or “rustic,” making it a possible source. Then again, one of Scotland’s Shetland Islands is named Scalloway, and since these islands are world famous for their diminutive Shetland ponies, there may well be a connection between “Scalloway” and “scallywag” meaning a small, useless horse. Yet another Scots word, “scurryvaig,” may be even a better bet. Derived from the Latin “scurra vagas,” meaning roughly “wandering fool or buffoon,” this “scurryvaig” means “a vagabond or wanderer.” Of course, it’s entirely possible that two or more of these words influenced the development of “scallywag,” so we may never be able to trace its precise family tree.

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Commercial

Fill ‘er up.

Dear Word Detective: We have just returned from a visit to Minnesota where my husband’s family live. No mosquitoes and no day over 80 degrees! Fantastic! On a visit to a favorite local restaurant the special was a beef or turkey “commercial.” It is very much like a hot roast beef or turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy then poured over all. Is this a Midwest thing or a Minnesota thing? I had never heard this before and I grew up in Illinois. Any ideas on this epicurean conundrum? — Marsha in AZ.

Good question, and yet more evidence that I shouldn’t write this column when I’m hungry. I think it was the mention of mashed potatoes that attracted me to this question.

“Gravy on everything” is definitely a Midwest thing. Sometimes, in fact, gravy itself is the dish. I vividly remember the first time I encountered “sausage gravy” in Ohio. It’s just what it sounds like, cream gravy with bits of sausage mixed in. People often eat the stuff with a spoon straight from the bowl, although pouring it over home fries is also popular. Terrifying. I suspect it was invented by a lonely cardiologist.

“Commercial” as a name for a hot roast beef or turkey sandwich platter with all the fixings, however, is a new one on me, and if the term is used in Ohio I haven’t run across it. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t appear in any of the lexicons of regional American slang I have, or any other source I have access to (which is a lot of sources). But my motto is “If you can’t find the answer, stare harder at the question,” and, after following that method for a few hours, I believe that I have the answer. I’m not certain, but I’m at least 90% sure I’m right.

“Commercial,” of course, is primarily used as an adjective meaning, generally, “pertaining to or engaged in commerce.” (“Commerce,” meaning broadly “buying and selling,” comes from the Latin “com,” meaning “together,” plus “mercis,” meaning “merchandise, goods.”) But “commercial” can also be used as a noun, as we use it to mean “paid advertising broadcast by a radio or TV network.” In this sense, which first appeared in the 1930s, “commercial” is short for “commercial announcement.”

A much older use of “commercial,” however, dating back at least to the mid-1800s (when it was used by Charles Dickens), is as a short form of “commercial traveler,” what we would also call either a “traveling manufacturer’s representative” or “traveling salesman” (“Do you know anything about a commercial called Slater?”, Dorothy Sayers, “In the Teeth of the Evidence,” 1939).

I believe that this is the same sense of “commercial” you saw on that restaurant menu. For most of the 20th century to be a “commercial” was to spend weeks or months on the road, driving from town to town and, more importantly, eating exclusively in restaurants, most often small roadside diners. These travelers were an important source of business to diner owners, and they were well aware that a man (as “commercials” almost always were) spending all day driving would want a full meal for lunch or dinner when he took the time to stop to eat. Naming a filling meal of meat, gravy, bread, potatoes, etc., “the commercial” would be the equivalent of calling it “the Salesman’s Special,” and sure to catch the eye of a hungry “commercial.”

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