Where did that phrase come from?
The news last week that Quaker decided to retire the Aunt Jemima syrup brand sparked a quick and heated conversation on social media. While many declared the move positive on face-value, others dug into the history of the models who portrayed her, and still others posed some version of the question, “If I was innocent to the meaning, then has that meaning changed enough for it not to matter?”
Leaving the specific conversation of Aunt Jemima aside, the question posed is applicable to statuary, art and even such seemingly innocent items as nursery rhymes and children’s songs. Is there a statute of limitations on the backstory of an item or concept?
One common phrase used in society today is “basket case.” As in, “I’m a basket case,” or “That made me feel like a basket case,” when people are feeling particularly stressed or stretched in their emotional capacity and unable to cope. By itself, it’s just a saying that rolls off our tongues and we know what the other person means when the phrase is used in casual conversation. We don’t think much of the origins of the phrase.
Rewind with me back to World War I. There were rumors that when soldiers received wounds bad enough to have all four limbs amputated, caregivers placed them in baskets. Merritte Ireland, the surgeon general, said he personally verified through medical records that there were no surviving U.S. quadruple amputees in World War I, thus refuting the very existence of “basket cases” in 1919. But that’s where the phrase originated.
The phrase didn’t catch on with the public until WWII, when it expanded to include people with a disability unable to get around well on their own. It has morphed into the slang term we use today to denote a feeling of mental instability.
Feel different about the phrase now that you know? I certainly did. Downright squeamish. Until I heard this context, I didn’t give the words a thought and used them all the time. Now I can’t say them without a vivid mental picture clamming up my mouth.
How about the ice cream truck song? In 2014 NPR published an article tracking the catchy tune that beckoned children for blocks to a song entitled, “N**** Love A Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!” released in 1916 by Columbia Records. According to the article, the writer, Harry C. Browne, borrowed the tune from “Turkey in the Straw,” which had been co-opted by the minstrels in blackface in the early 1800s. Many articles have run since then continuing the conversation.
From my own childhood, the song we always sang to make big decisions and settle arguments went like this:
“Eenie Meenie Miney Mo/Catch a Tiger by the Toe/If he hollers make him pay/$50 every day/My mother said pick this one/Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo.”
It never made sense, I didn’t care. Why would tigers have money and why EVER would I catch one by the toe? Just HOW? But it solved our problems, and it was all good through elementary school.
Oh, wait. There was that one time I overheard my grandpa singing the other version:
“Eeny Meeny miny mo/Catch a n**** by the toe!/If he hollers let him go!/Eeny Meeny miny mo.”
It didn’t sink in as a child. I thought he had changed the words to my song, not the other way around. After a bit of poking around some old books many years later, I discovered one entitled, “The Counting-out Rhymes of Children: Their Antiquity, Origin, and Wide Distribution; a Study in Folk-Lore” published in 1888 that spends no less than 148 pages working through the evolution of counting rhymes. Of those that referenced people of color in unsavory terms, the rhyme showed some variations in the last syllable of the first line, but always captured the running slave, returned them to the plantation, and in some cases the owner “hit him dead” or “used a leather gun.” In some the slave is being returned for money or “put in the caboose for fun.” They’re all difficult to read.
I posed these examples to my family while we dug into our chicken and rice. In the span of a few minutes, my husband and I listed several other phrases like “Indian giver,” “gyp” and “paddy wagon” that have their roots in cultural slander. My 19-year-old hadn’t heard any of them. I invite you to examine the language you grew up with, what you use now and what the young people in your life know and add to this conversation. Is the usage generational (like the nickname for Brazil nuts) or geographical? Is it innocent (Minnesota vs. Iowa) or detrimental? How does it affect the conversations we’re having now about race and history? Please let us know your thoughts at the Anoka County Historical Society (rebecca@anokacountyhistory.org).
Rebecca Ebnet-Desens is the executive director of the Anoka County Historical Society.