Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rtech.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!nsc!amdahl!rtech!jeff From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Boontling Message-ID: <752@rtech.UUCP> Date: Tue, 19-Nov-85 01:20:43 EST Article-I.D.: rtech.752 Posted: Tue Nov 19 01:20:43 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 20-Nov-85 01:02:39 EST Distribution: net Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA Lines: 116 Boontling is a lingo developed in the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, California. In the lingo, "Boontling" literally means "Boonville language". Boonville is the largest town in the valley, and "Boont" is the Boontling word for it (many Boontling words are truncations of normal English words). "Ling", from "lingo", is the Boontling word for language. Boontling was most popular in the first decade of this century. Its basic vocabulary consisted of more than one thousand words and phrases and almost three hundred proper names (of local people and places). It was spoken by most of the ca. 500 residents of the Anderson valley. Today, not everyone in the valley speaks Boontling, but residents are making an effort to keep it alive. There is more than one theory about how Boontling originated. One says that the lingo was developed by children who used it as a secret language to keep things from their elders. Another theory claims the reverse: that adults started it so they could talk about things that children shouldn't be exposed to. Another says that it was developed by young men in their late teens and early twenties who worked together as sheepshearers and played on the same baseball team, and that the younger siblings of these men brought the lingo into the school and made it popular there. After it became popular in the valley, Boontling became sort of a social game among Anderson valley residents, and a way to confound outsiders. One of the most interesting things about Boontling is its community flavor. That is, there are many words and phrases that are derived from commonly known events or personality characteristics. For example, there was a Boonter named Zachariah Clifton (a Boonter is a resident of Boonville). His initials were Z.C., so people called him "Zeese". He was the person whose job it was to brew coffee on hunting trips. He made it very strong (people said "it would float an egg"), especially on the last day of the trip when he would use up all of the ground coffee he had left on the last pot. Thus, the word for coffee is "zeese". Here are some more definitions from "Boontling, An Anerican Lingo" by Charles C. Adams, University of Texas Press, 1971. Most of the information in the above paragraphs comes from this book. I have chosen the definitions which are the most amusing to me. Please don't ascribe any sexism or racism you find in these definitions to me; I am quoting them verbatim. Besides which, they come from an earlier time when people were less enlightened in some ways than we are today, but more enlightened in other ways. airtight - A sawmill. [Anecdotal. There are two suggested origins. One asserts that a millworker involved in the construction of a mill answered inquiries as to how things were going by saying, "Airtight," by which he apparently meant, "No problems." Another suggests the term was ironically applied to a mill whose steam system was so leaky that workers were said to have shut down all the equipment when they wanted to blow the signal whistle.] apple-head - A girl, esp. one's girlfriend. [This is rooted in an incident in which someone used the term derisively to refer to a Boonter's girlfriend who allegedly had a noticeably small head.] barney - To embrace or hug; to kiss; to "smooch." [An affectionate Boonter named Barney addressed women he knew with such names as "darlin'" and often kissed them in greeting them and in saying goodbye.] beartrack - Berry cobbler; berry pie. [Waggish analogy between the appearance of berries in pastry and berries in bear manure. The purple color and seeds were present in both.] bilg moshe - A trail scooter. This is a recent coinage reflecting the rise in the use of trail bikes and scooters and jeeps. [Combination of "bilg" (billy goat) and "moshe" (machine). This is an adaptation of the commercial name Tote Gote, which was given a popular brand of trail scooter.] blevins - A carpenter, esp. an amateur one given to error. [Several members of a local Blevins family tried, or had to engage in, carpentry without notable success.] bohoik - To laugh loudly and energetically. [Imitative of such a laugh. Also related to a lower-valley man nicknamed Bohoik, whose uninhibited laugh allegedly could be heard at a distance of three miles when atmospheric conditions were amenable to such a phenomenon.] briney - To hit a home run; to make a home run by hitting the ball out of the Albion field into the ocean (Albion was a nearby coastal town). [Functional shift from noun "briney" (ocean). The Albion field was so situated that one method of hitting a home run was to hit the ball into the surf. Boonters began saying, "He really brinied her." Eventually, the expression meant to hit a home run anywhere under any circumstances.] buckey - A nickel. [An allusion to the Indian head on the obverse of the "buffalo nickel" of the Boontling heyday. The term combines "buck" (male Indian) and noun suffix "-ey".] buckey walter - A pay telephone. [Combination of "buckey" (nickel) and "Walter." A man named Walter Levi owned the first phone in the valley; as a result, a "walter levi" is a telephone. Early pay phones required only a nickel. Some informants say a local Indian ("buck injun") once made a phone call which could be heard all over the valley. He apparently thought he had to project his voice in a shout in order for it to carry. Hence, the "buckey" is said to be allusion to the Indian in the celebrated story.] burlap - To have sexual intercourse; to engage another in intercourse. [Anecdotal. A young Boonter is said to have surprised a store clerk having intercourse with a girl lying on a bale of burlap bags in the storeroom. He emerged exclaiming to his companions, "They're burlapin' in there."] That's all for now. Please send me mail to let me know whether or not you want me to post more definitions. If a majority of responders votes yes (and enough people respond to warrant the cost of sending more definitions), I will post another batch. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..." {amdahl, sun}!rtech!jeff {ucbvax, decvax}!mtxinu!rtech!jeff