End of ADS-L Digest - 15 Apr 1998 to 16 Apr 1998
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<br>From: Automatic digest processor (4/16/98)
<br>To: Recipients of ADS-L digests
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<br>         ADS-L Digest - 14 Apr 1998 to 15 Apr 1998             98-04-16 00:01:14
<br>There are 4 messages totalling 260 lines in this issue.
<br>
<br>Topics of the day:
<br>
<br>  1. raunchy [long]
<br>  2. IAWE for Creolist and ADS
<br>  3. Swallows & Amazons (for ever) (2)
<br>
<br>----------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>
<br>Date:    Wed, 15 Apr 1998 09:53:01 +0000
<br>From:    Jim Rader <jrader[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]M-W.COM>
<br>Subject: Re: raunchy [long]
<br>
<br>Ms. Gibbens--
<br>
<br>The theories on the source of _raunchy_ that you have collected are,
<br>as I'm sure you can see, somewhat contradictory.  Below I give an
<br>account of the data available to me on the word.
<br>
<br>The earliest attestations of _raunchy_ associate it with the U.S.
<br>Army Air Force.  You mention the cite from _Forum & Century_, July,
<br>1939, 45/1 (an article by one R.B. Hubler):  "Depending on how good
<br>or how 'raunchy' we [Air Force cadets at Randolph Field, Texas] were,
<br>we drilled fron one to three hours in the torrid heat."  This is in
<br>Wentworth/Flexner and Chapman, and is also the earliest cite in the
<br>OED (I haven't seen the original text).  The next evidence is
<br>glossarial, from a "Glossary of Army Slang" issued by the Public
<br>Relations Division of the U.S. Army:  _raunchy_ "a name applied to
<br>anything that is in bad shape or dirty (Air Corps)" (reproduced in
<br>_American Speech_, v. 16, no. 2, Oct., 1941).  This definition
<br>reappears in glossaries and dictionaries of U.S. armed forces slang
<br>into the '50's.  _AAF:  The Official Guide to the Army Air Forces_
<br>(N.Y.: Pocket Books, 1944) defined _raunchy_ as "sloppy flying
<br>technique--AAF vernacular" (p. 369/1) (presumably the editors didn't
<br>realize an adjective should be defined with an adjective).
<br>
<br>The next textual cites we have for _raunchy_ are from 1944:  "The
<br>boys all liked him, said he was a 'raunchy guy'"  (John McCrary & D.
<br>Sherman, _First of the Many: A Journal of Action with Men of the
<br>Eighth Air Force_, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, 1944, p. 103) [interpret
<br>this as you will]; "You could hear instructors muttering to those
<br>raunchy draftees: 'Look at them cadets; why can't you march like
<br>that?'" (Michael Straight in _The New Republic_, Apr. 24, 1944, p.
<br>558).
<br>
<br>Some later cites with military associations:  "These elegant
<br>appointments contrasted with the shirt, and with his garrison cap,
<br>'raunchy' as it was then called, to a degree hardly exceeded by any
<br>new air cadet's carefully soiled and broken headgear" (James Gould
<br>Cozzens, _Guard of Honor_, Harcourt, Brace, 1948); "This was a good
<br>gutty U.S. Army Eighth Air Force Field in World War II. Its young
<br>men, or at least those who survived their tour of duty, were mainly
<br>gay guys [sic!], lived life to the full, were less 'military' than
<br>any other branch of the service, wore 'raunchy' caps and sometimes
<br>silk scarves and, between missions, were in the oat-sowing business
<br>in London" (article with byline of Bob Considine, International News
<br>Service, printed in the _Springfield [Mass.] Union_, July 16, 1951,
<br>p. 6); "...--one of the bitter, washed-out pilot type, or the raunchy
<br>go-to-hell type..." (Hugh Fosburgh, _View from the Air_, Scribner,
<br>1953, p. 50).
<br>
<br>Our non-military cites begin with _Time_, Sept. 26, 1955, p. 98:
<br>"Father Lion does not indulge in such violent exertions.  The king of
<br>beasts reclines in raunchy grandeur, and hardly ever does anything
<br>more than raise his head to peer weakly through a cloud of flies at
<br>the antelope who pass disdainfully a few feet from where he lies...";
<br>and _Time_, Apr. 9, 1956, p. 53:  "Her dubious distinction:  she gave
<br>up fancy footwork to become a sleep-in secretary for Argentina's
<br>raunchy ex-Dictator Juan Peron, 60."  [Do the _Time_ authors really
<br>grasp what the word means?]
<br>
<br>Finally, a couple of others from the '50's:  "...clad in a raunchy
<br>sweatshirt and a pair of khaki jeans filthier than Mr. Cleary's
<br>buckskins" (Leslie Waller, _Phoenix Island_, Lippincott, 1958, p.
<br>173); "...the nice raunchy tide-smell of the lake water..." (Jack
<br>Kerouac, _The Dharma Bums_, Viking, 1958, p. 91).
<br>
<br>Not until the mid-'60's does _raunchy_ become, at least in print,
<br>something of a vogue word with thereafter dozens of cites from many
<br>sources, and with senses ranging from "seedy" to "smutty,
<br>pornographic" to "foul-smelling."  At least in journalism, this word
<br>is still very much alive on both sides of the Atlantic; Nexis produced
<br>mountains of cites, 923 for 1998 alone.  The usual sense seems to be
<br>"indecent, off-color."
<br>
<br>I am curious where you found the hypothesis that _raunchy_ was "RAF
<br>slang that originated during the time that British soldiers were
<br>getting killed in large numbers" [World War I?, but there is no early
<br>British evidence for the word as far as I know--in fact, no evidence
<br>outside North America before the '70's].  I can find only one
<br>possible echo of such a notion.  The Merriam publication _Word Study_
<br>(v. 28, no. 1, Oct., 1952, p. 5) has the following note:
<br>
<br>- A. H. Roberts, a student in the classes of William J. Griffin at
<br>- George Peabody College, noted in a description of cowboy riding
<br>- [unfortunately the actual cite is not given--JLR] a word that
<br>- recalled Chaucer to him.  The writer remarked that sometimes the
<br>- _raunchiest_ looking horses buck off the best riders.  The word
<br>- reminded him of _rouncy_ as it appears in the _Canterbury Tales_
<br>- (1.390) [Middle English _rouncy_, referring to a horse, has no
<br>- etymological bearing on _raunchy_--JLR]  As employed by cowboys and
<br>- others in the South, it means anything or anyone substandard.  The
<br>- term does not appear in Ramon F. Adams's _Western Words_.
<br>
<br>This note elicited a letter from one J. Buckminster Ranney, Dept. of
<br>Speech, Ohio Northern University, dated Dec. 16, 1952:
<br>
<br>- Re page five of the October 1952 WORD STUDY and the word
<br>- _raunchiest_, a comment is herewith noted.
<br>- The most common form of the word, to my knowledge, is the simple
<br>- adjective, _raunchy_.  I suspect that the word was introduced by the
<br>- British Air Force Cadets [sic] at the Southern U.S. Air Force Bases
<br>- in 1942.  _Raunchy_ was adopted by the then USAAF and applied to all
<br>- US Cadets who were, as stated by Roberts, 'substandard' in uniform or
<br>- manner.
<br>
<br>This portion of the letter was published as a note in the April,
<br>1953, issue of _Word Study_, but no one at Merriam seems to have
<br>followed up the matter by inquiring of Mr. Ranney how he came to the
<br>conclusion he did.  Pending further evidence, the British hypothesis
<br>is groundless.
<br>
<br>OED2 has an entry for _ranchy_ that seems to equate the word with
<br>_raunchy_.  It labels the word "U.S. Slang" and illustrates it with
<br>two quotes from British authors:  Arthur Morris Binstead (1861-1914),
<br>a humorist cited dozens of times in the OED, and Lord Kinross.  The
<br>Binstead cite appears to be a hapax that I don't know how to
<br>interpret; the Kinross cite is a quote ("A bit ranchy, that") that
<br>from the syntax hardly seems to be coming from the mouth of an
<br>American, though the book in question (_Innocents at Home_, 1959)
<br>deals with the U.S.  What the Oxford editor who wrote this entry had in mind
<br>I can't imagine.
<br>
<br>Pace Chapman it is extremely unlikely that Italian _rancio_ is the
<br>source of _raunchy_.  The Italian word in the approximate sense
<br>"rancid" is attested predominantly in the 16th century and seems to
<br>be obsolete in Modern Italian, to judge by the cites in Battaglia,
<br>_Grande dizionario della lingua italiana_.  Modern Italian has
<br>_rancido_, but I don't see any persuasive reason to connect it with
<br>_raunchy_--any more than I can see a persuasive reason to connect
<br>_rancid_ to _raunchy_.  Nothing in the history of the word sketched
<br>above suggests a connection with Italy or Italian-Americans.  Though
<br>there are outcomes of Latin _rancidus_ in Italian dialects, they are
<br>too distant phonetically to fall under consideration in any case.
<br>Both Italian _rancido_ and English _rancid_ mean "having an offensive
<br>smell or taste usually from chemical change or decompostion."  There
<br>is only a loose semantic connection between this and _raunchy_,
<br>which at least in early attestations, as we see above, means "sloppy"
<br>or "performing in a sloppy manner," not "rancid."
<br>
<br>Perhaps DARE and RHHDAS, when they reach R, will produce new data
<br>that will suggest new etymological hypotheses.  For now, if pressed,
<br>I would have to stick with "origin unknown."
<br>
<br>Jim Rader
<br>