Codswallop it is
I was watching TV tonight and someone said that the word ‘codswallop’ had soft drink origins. “Ooh,” sez I, “Food history.” I raced to the super-ginormous version of the Oxford English Dictionary to find out what data they had collected about it.
Alas, we have no food history. What we have is folk etymology. Or it looks like folk etymology.
When a word is similar to another word, all sorts of exciting origins can be invented to explain it. Unless those origins can be attested (someone finding uses of a word with the right spelling and the right context and all) then creativity and wishful thinking and simple false attribution are all possibilities. So are tall tales.
I teach all this when I teach writing, because understanding the actual roots of a word can give some powerful tools for playing with language, but I guess that’s not relevant here. What is relevant here is that the earliest attestation for ‘codswallop’ in the super-ginormous version of the Oxford English Dictionary is 1959. This doesn’t mean it didn’t exist earlier (the OED is more complete than other dictionaries, but it often misses the earliest introduction of words, simply because those earliest introductions are hard to find) but it does mean that we can’t assume it existed earlier. Does that make sense? Lack of evidence doesn’t mean no evidence, but it does mean any conclusions drawn about the food history nature of ‘codswallop’ can’t be solid.
The OED points out that the word is supposed to refer to Hiram Codd, a British manufacturer who patented some really interesting bottle designs. It also points out that the spelling of codswallop doesn’t support this theory and nor does anything else.
All my hopes are blighted. I so wanted ‘codswallop’ to be in my food history lexicon! Maybe next time I’ll have more luck. Or maybe your words will be luckier for me. I’m happy to explore the food history links and the etymology of words you send in – why should my writing students get all the fun?
Leave a Reply