The term seems to have been in use as early as 1835, where it was used in
Nathaniel Ames's _An Old Sailor's Yarns_, with the implication that it refers to
the galley on a ship.
"Captain Williams, here is one of that bloody Don Dego's shot gone right
through the galley-door, and through the side of the big copper, and knocked
all the beef and hot water galley-west" (308).
Perhaps it is a term Twain picked up in his steamboat days? My favorite use of
it is in Chapter 37 of _Huckleberry Finn_, when the boys are tormenting Aunt
Sally by "smouching" her spoons, putting them back, and making her think she
cannot count or that she is going mad. And the passage seems to lend credence
to it as a nautical term, as Huck talks of getting his "sailing orders" from
Aunt Sally:
"So I smouched one, and they come out nine same as the other time.
Well, she was in a tearing way — just a trembling all over, she was so mad.
But she counted and counted, till she got that addled she’d start to countin
the basket for a spoon, sometimes; and so, three times they come out right,
and three times they come out wrong. Then she grabbed up the basket and
slammed it across the house and knocked the cat galley-west; and she said
cle’r out and let her have some peace, and if we come bothering around her
again betwixt that and dinner, she’d skin us. So we had the odd spoon; and
dropped it in her apron pocket whilst she was a giving us our sailing-orders,
and Jim got it all right, along with her shingle-nail, before noon."
Cheers,
Sharon (also happily and busily avoiding work)
----- Original Message ----
From: Gregg Camfield <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thu, March 17, 2011 4:56:00 PM
Subject: Re: M-W WOTD: "galley-west"
Yes, in _Tramp Abroad_, specifically in the "Blue-Jay Yarn." "Of course that
knocked the mystery galley-west in a second." "Askew" and "awry" don't really
work in this context, do they? Nor do they really work in _LOM_, in which Twain
has a pilot, Uncle Mumford, deride efforts to "tame" the lower Mississippi:
"They have started in here with big confidence, and the best intentions in the
world; but they are going to get left. What does Ecclesiastes vii. 13 say?
Says enough to knock THEIR little game galley-west, don't it?"
(Ecc 7:13 Consider what God has done:
Who can straighten
what he has made crooked? )
Here, too, the word seems to mean "destroy" or "end" or something to that
effect. Does this cast doubt on Merriam's definition and etymology?
As for the OED listing 1883 as the first use, _Tramp Abroad_ (1880), knocks that
date galley-west, too. Last time I checked, the OED doesn't even list the use
of "brat" as slang for "bastard," either, and Leontes' use of the term in _The
Winter's Tale_ and Anne Bradstreet's use of the term in "The Author to Her Book"
show that at least some writers used the term that way. Dictionaries to me are
addictive drugs that too often give bad trips. Or maybe, because they too often
trip me up, I want to avenge myself by tripping them up.
And that is why I would never want to become a lexicographer, even to illuminate
Mark Twain.
Gregg (busily avoiding work) Camfield
----- Original Message -----
From: Kevin Mac Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, March 17, 2011 9:36 am
Subject: Re: M-W WOTD: "galley-west"
To: [log in to unmask]
> He used it in A Tramp Abroad and Life on the Mississippi, and in a
> letter in
> 1875. OED cites earliest use as 1883.
>
> See Ramsay & Emberson, A MARK TWAIN LEXICON (1938, rep 1963).
>
> They list 7,802 words, of which 4,342 are apparently new words
> invented by
> Mark Twain.
>
> They checked their entries against OED, Webster, etc. It's a
> complicated
> subject but you can read their 119pp. introduction to get a good idea
> of
> their approach and how to treat their results.
>
> With so many new Mark Twain works appearing since 1938, it's time for
> a
> revised edition of this extremely useful but outdated work, and it
> seems to
> me the perfect sort of project for an online database. Any
> lexicographers
> lurking out there?
>
> Kevin
> @
> Mac Donnell Rare Books
> 9307 Glenlake Drive
> Austin TX 78730
> 512-345-4139
> Member: ABAA, ILAB
> *************************
> You may browse our books at
> www.macdonnellrarebooks.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "David Davis" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 8:02 AM
> Subject: M-W WOTD: "galley-west"
>
>
> > http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/
> >
> > The Word of the Day for March 17 is:=20
> >
> > galley-west \gal-ee-WEST\ adverb
> > : into destruction or confusion
> >
> >
> > "American author Mark Twain is on record as one of the first to use
> > "galley-west" in his writing. Etymologists believe the word is a
> > corruption of dialectal English "colleywest" or "collyweston." The
> > earliest appearance of those words, used with the meaning "askew or
> > awry," dates from the late 16th century. The ultimate source of
> > "colleywest" and "collyweston" is not known but is suspected to be
> from
> > a personal name. When "galley-west" is used in speech or writing, the
> > verb "knock" usually precedes it."
> >
> > [Interesting. I don't know that he made-up many words - Shakespeare
> a
> > far greater coiners of neologisms than our boy. Does anyone recall
> where
> > he used this one? /DDD ]
> >
> >
> >
> > -----
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> >
>
>
>
> -----
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