Comments on Etymology, Volume 53, Issue 1

Authors

Language(s)

English

Content

1. Background information, with OED3 cheese entries .................... 2

2. American Dialect Society's big cheese messages ........................ 4

a. Stanton McCandlish: ' ... share my honour as a Big Highland Cheese' (1 815) ...............................................................4

b. Ben Zimmer's bibliographic clarification for the 1815 quote ........ 5

c. Ben Zimmer adds Michael Quinion's 1912 cite ........................ 5

d. Garson O'Toole antedates OED3's main cheese by two years (1899 to 18 .............................................................. 5

e. Garson O'Toole antedates OED3's the big cheese by 33 years (1934to1901) ............................................................... 6

f. Steven Losie: Green's Dictionary of Slang already noticed 1885 'that big cheese', New Zealand ..................................... 7

3. 'Big cheese' sometimes refers literally to a big cheese food item ...... 8

a. Jonathan Lighter: three examples .................................. 8

b. Peter Reitan: 'Mammoth Cheese,' 1801, 1802 and President Jefferson......... 8

c. 'Mammoth Cheese' article ............................................... 9

d. Second 'mammoth cheese' article .................................... 11

e. Thomas Kennedy: 1802 poem 'Ode To The Mammoth Cheese'................... 14

4. 1913 The whole cheese 'the whole shebang' and cheese 'big, clumsy ineffective boxer' seem inspired by the huge cheeses ........ .16

5. Reprint of Peter Tamony's 1939 article 'The allusion in cheese it', followed by 1981 letter from Eric Hamp .................................. 17

6. Cheese at meal's end-welcome as a signal to set formality aside ... 21

7. Incidentally: OED3 derivation of t the cheese 'something genuine/first rate' from Urdu and Persian cfz is unlikely ............... 22

8. References ..................................................................... 23

9. Index ........................................................................... 27

Abstract

No abstract available

Recommended Citation

(2023) "Comments on Etymology, Volume 53, Issue 1," Comments on Etymology: Vol. 53: Iss. 1, Article 1.
Available at: https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/coe/vol53/iss1/1