{"id":6068,"date":"2012-03-12T22:25:29","date_gmt":"2012-03-13T02:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/?p=6068"},"modified":"2015-08-30T13:24:16","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T17:24:16","slug":"by-jingo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/archives\/6068","title":{"rendered":"by jingo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

A corruption of St. Gengoulph, a word often used in a vulgar oath, \u201cBy the living jingo.\u201d \u2014 Webster, 1882<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cBy jingo, that plow can handle the work by itself,\u201d he said. \u201cWith all these new inventions nowadays, there\u2019s no use for a man\u2019s muscle. One of these nights that plow\u2019ll take a notion to keep on going, and we\u2019ll look out in the morning and see that it\u2019s turned over an acre or two after the team and I quit for the night.\u201d \u2013 Little Town on the Prairie, Chapter 2, \u201cSpringtime on the Claim\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

     
\nI<\/span>n Little Town on the Prairie<\/em>, Laura Ingalls Wilder writes about Pa\u2019s new breaking plow. It was so easy for the horses to pull and made such quick work of plowing that at the end of the day, the horses weren\u2019t too tired to frolic and even Pa wasn\u2019t too tired to joke.<\/p>\n

This is the only time the expression “by Jingo” appears in the Little House books; it\u2019s not used in Pioneer Girl<\/em> or the Little Town<\/em> manuscript. Whether it was added by Rose or was an expression often used by Charles Ingalls is unknown. It is used in Rose\u2019s Free Land<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Definitely, \u201cby jingo\u201d was in common usage by the 1880s, or the time of Little Town on the Prairie<\/em>. It had recently been used in the chorus of a popular song of the late 1870s, \u201cMacDermott\u2019s War Song:\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t want to fight but by jingo if we do,
\nWe\u2019ve got the ships, we\u2019ve got the men, and got the money too.
\nWe\u2019ve fought the Bear before\u2026 and while we\u2019re Britons true,
\nThe Russians shall not have Constantinople.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMacDermott\u2019s War Song\u201d was written by George W. Hunt and sold to Gilbert Hastings MacDermott (known as \u201cThe Great MacDermott\u201d), one of the brightest stars of the Victorian English music hall. The song was about the threat posed to Britain\u2019s Mediterranean interests by Russia\u2019s declaration of war against Turkey in 1877. It became known as \u201cThe Jingo Song\u201d and introduced the word jingoism <\/em>into the English language. A jingo was said to be anyone who professed their patriotism strongly and loudly, one who was in favor of a strong foreign policy and always being prepared for war.
\nWebster\u2019s 1882 dictionary (the edition purchased for use in the early De Smet schools) defines jingo as a corruption of St. Gingoulph [sic], a word often used in a vulgar oath, \u201cBy the living jingo.\u201d <\/p>\n

It may have been used as a cry in adoration of St. Gengulphus\u2026 or \u201cJingo!\u201d By the 17th century, it was used as an exclamation when performing magic. \u201cHey jingo\u201d was said instead of, for example, \u201cAbracadabra!\u201d Earlier, \u201cby jingo\u201d had been a euphemism for \u201cby Jesus!\u201d It may also have meant \u201cby God,\u201d as the Basque word for God was Jainko. <\/p>\n

One wonders why Caroline Ingalls didn\u2019t gently reprimand Pa for his wooden swearing.<\/p>\n

     
\n
\njingo<\/strong>
\n     by jingo (LTP 2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A corruption of St. Gengoulph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[637],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6068"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8387,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6068\/revisions\/8387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}