google ngrams

[MrBarnett]

hi Gary
from the example you provided it looks like it might have meant to move about randomly/erratically-like on the waves? maybe kind of similar to a bumblebee motion? IDK, just thinking out loud. Im fascinated by word origins.

Hi Abby,

I think you’re right. I posted the second nautical example (1956) as it seems to complement the earlier one (1906). There are also examples from the 1930s referring to a man walking and someone travelling by car.

So it’s a slightly comic, slightly pejorative description of ungainly or aimless movement.

And as a B word it begs to be linked to another B word to increase its comic effect.

But not in the 1880s, you understand, that is totally out of the question.

[MrBarnett]

Hi RJ,
Summed that up well. Good post. Unless the phrase turns up at some point, the matter is pretty much put to bed. Good spot from The Baron.

Abe,

Do you believe that every turn of phrase ever used has been captured electronically and is able to be found online?

Gary

[MrBarnett]

Here’s an example from The Field of 19th March, 1887, describing recent fox-hunting activities of the Master of the Essex Union Hounds:

‘True the pace was never brilliant, even on the grass, still he kept bumbling along for three hours and covered a vast tract of land.’

Bumbling was out and about in the 1880s, as was buffoon. Bungling buffoon had its precedents at that time, but we are supposed to accept the utter impossibility of someone using the term ‘bumbling buffoon’?

Sorry, BB just doesn’t meet the criteria of the thread title.

[Abby Normal]

Here’s an example from The Field of 19th March, 1887, describing recent fox-hunting activities of the Master of the Essex Union Hounds:

‘True the pace was never brilliant, even on the grass, still he kept bumbling along for three hours and covered a vast tract of land.’

Bumbling was out and about in the 1880s, as was buffoon. Bungling buffoon had its precedents at that time, but we are supposed to accept the utter impossibility of someone using the term ‘bumbling buffoon’?

Sorry, BB just doesn’t meet the criteria of the thread title.

dosnt meet the meet the criteria of "google ngrams"? ; )

[MrBarnett]

dosnt meet the meet the criteria of "google ngrams"? ; )

Right again, Abby!

But Google ngrams doesn’t even seem to pick up all printed material. It sure as hell isn't a record of every unwritten example of language. And it’s not as if the juxtaposition of the words bumbling and buffoon is so odd that it could only have been done after some genius of scriptwriter had first thought of doing so in the 1940s. The same Victorians who thought of combining bungling and buffoon might just as easily have used bumbling instead of bungling.

This is a bit like ‘one-off’. It’s a good spot and the excellent research strongly supports a modern origin. But it’s not proof positive.

And just to be 100% clear, if being a ‘diary defender’ means you are convinced that it was written in the 1880s, then I’m certainly not one. I’d be extremely surprised if it turned out not to have been written in the late 20th century.

[MrBarnett]

‘The Buffoon’ was one of the most popular songs of 1889. ‘A Private Buffoon’ was another. And for those with equine interests, Captain Middleton’s steeplechaser ‘Buffoon’ earned frequent mentions in the sporting press that year. There was even a steamer named Buffoon at the time.

And in the press in 1889, we find the expressions:

‘Boosing buffoon’

‘Stammering buffoon’

‘Brilliant buffoon’

‘Burnt Cork Buffoons’

‘Capering buffoon’

‘Dull buffoon’

‘Licensed buffoon’

‘Political buffoon’

‘Old buffoon’

‘Hired buffoon’

‘Village buffoon’

‘Fanatical buffoon’

‘Favourite buffoon’

‘Cynical buffoon’

‘Human buffoon’

‘Local buffoon’

‘Clever buffoon’

‘Pityable buffoon’

‘Family buffoon’

‘American buffoon’

‘Parliamentary buffoon’

‘French buffoon’

‘Weak buffoon(s)’

‘Blatant buffoon’

‘Coarse buffoon’

‘Mr Punch’s buffoon’

‘Deformed buffoon’

‘Temperance buffoon’

‘Ragged buffoon’

‘Entertaining buffoon’

‘Bedizened buffoon’

‘Babaic(?) buffoon’

‘Greatest buffoon’

‘Lying buffoon’

‘Ponderous buffoon’

‘Veterinary buffoon’

‘Ponderous buffoon’

’Musical buffoon(s)’

’Clerical buffoon(s)’

And there were many more references to buffoons in the 1889 papers.

But because ‘2020 Google says no’ we are supposed to believe that it would have been impossible for someone in the 1880s to have written ‘bumbling buffoon’ in a private journal.

[MrBarnett]

And just look at the telegraphic address of a London bookmaker in 1888:

[MrBarnett]

I wonder how keen on horse racing James Maybrick was. He may have been in regular contact with ‘Buffoon’.

[MrBarnett]

I have to say, Ngrams is good for a laugh if nothing else.

[caz]

Well, it's your digestive tract, Caz, and you can decide what you are willing to swallow, but I'm not having any of it.

Language doesn't work in the way that you (and Al?) are suggesting.

Yes, it's plastic, and we have the ability to uniquely link words together. ("Indefatigable penguin"---but who ever heard of that?).

I think you are making my argument for me, RJ. So I thank you for that.

If the diarist had done what you just did so easily, with 'indefatigable penguin', would this also have pointed inexorably to Mike Barrett?

And how many hits do you get in 1888 with 'pointed inexorably'?

Any two words existing in 1888 and 1988, could be put together by anyone with reasonable literacy, and it would tell us precisely nothing about the writer or the date.

But, in the grand scheme of things, when someone uses a phrase -- "bumbling buffoon" --it isn't because they are having an independent and spontaneous brainstorm, is it?

Absolutely. Both words were in existence long before 1888, and there is therefore no way of telling when they were first used together in a sentence. I don't believe for one moment that it was an individual in the 1940s who first thought of putting those words together in some published work, which then led to an 'explosion' of examples. As I think you said yourself, it would have been heard somewhere else and repeated to a larger audience, which means it had been used before, by unknown numbers of ordinary people, whose private words and thoughts were simply not recorded or documented.

People repeat word patterns and the sounds of word patterns. They aren't reinventing language every time they open their mouths; they are aping combinations they have heard before--and, as is now increasingly obvious, the combination of "bumbling buffoon" only made its way into popular culture in the 1940s.

Yes, only 'made its way into popular culture in the 1940s'. So how long might it have taken to 'make its way' there? It's a phrase almost anyone could have thought to use and at any time, so it wasn't particularly inventive. It was just not in general use until a sufficient number of influential writers or speakers spread it abroad - in both senses. Popular culture itself exploded with the birth of film and television. They weren't new words to anyone in the 1940s, so they weren't suddenly coined by someone in the media, inventing a new catchphrase.

The example that Harry uses of "bumbling fellow" is in an essay about bees called "The Wasp" that actually first appeared in the St. James Gazette on 22 April 1887. I had already noticed it, but it was just another rare example of "bumbling" being used in the context of bumble bees. If you read the whole essay, the author meant "fussy." The essay was popular enough that it was reprinted in other newspapers, and thus it almost single-handedly accounts for the hits for "bumbling" in the Victorian press. It was a 'one-off' and WAS an independent creation by a clever writer.

Did you see what you just did there? You gave an example of the word being used to mean 'fussy' in 1887, in a 'popular' essay, which is nigh on perfect in the context of a Victorian family doctor fussing around his patients. I wonder if bumbling Bongo Barrett read this charming essay from the St. James Gazette and imagined Sir Jim might have described Hopper as a bumbling fellow, fussing and buzzing around the place like a busy bee?

But it is not used in the sense of 'bungling' that we get in bumbling buffoon. And thus you're still not finding anyone --except for 'Maybrick'--having thought to use the combination of bumbling + buffoon before 1949.

So you do believe that nobody on the planet could have thought to combine those two words before 1949, when it suddenly appeared in the popular culture? And how do you know it was used in the diary in the sense of 'bungling', and not in the sense of 'bumbling' - as in fussing? If the diarist had meant 'bungling' he could have written 'bungling', and you'd have been right, but then your main argument would have been that much weaker. What if the diarist had written 'bumbling fellow', instead of 'buffoon'? I suspect you're rather glad he didn't.

And is that surprising? In 1887 we have James A. H. Murray, and his fellow Oxford scholars, stating that the adjective "bumbling" is obscure...ie., not in wide use. They are the ones that invented the OED, and were alive at the moment, so I'm guessing they knew what they were talking about.

But anyone who had read that essay, which proved popular enough to be reprinted in other newspapers, could have found it amusing to think of a person as a bumbling fellow, just as the author thought of the humble bumble bee as a person.

You can believe that Maybrick/the old hoaxer independently invented an insult "bumbling buffoon," and that it just happened to become popular and widely used 70 years later...

Well no, I don't believe that. The word 'bumbling' had been around for centuries, and that essay from 1887 made it a popular concept at the time Sir Jim was meant to be writing his diary. Lucky old Bongo. I don't see the obvious connection you do with the way it began to be used again in conjunction with 'buffoon', all those years later. Sir Jim liked his word games, so Hopper could just as easily have been 'a fusspot and fool' but he was instead 'a bumbling buffoon'.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Here’s an example from The Field of 19th March, 1887, describing recent fox-hunting activities of the Master of the Essex Union Hounds:

‘True the pace was never brilliant, even on the grass, still he kept bumbling along for three hours and covered a vast tract of land.'

Bumbling was out and about in the 1880s, as was buffoon. Bungling buffoon had its precedents at that time, but we are supposed to accept the utter impossibility of someone using the term ‘bumbling buffoon’?

Sorry, BB just doesn’t meet the criteria of the thread title.

From Mike Barrett's diary:

'The whore has informed the bumbling buffoon I am in the habit of taking strong medicine.'

'I have visited Hopper too often this month. I will have to stop, for I fear he may begin to suspect, I talk to him like no other.'

'Did not the whore see her whore master in front of all, true the race was the fastest I have seen...'

Love,

Caz
X

[MrBarnett]

Word combinations go in and out of fashion. The fact that post war script writers picked up on old colloquialisms and they became more generally widespread doesn’t tell us when they were first coined. ‘Top myself’ was popular in Z-cars, the Sweeney, Minder etc, but it had been in use without leaving much of a paper trail for a century or more.

I just don’t understand why some feel that if you can’t Google an 19th century example of a particular word combination then it simply couldn’t have been used in the 19th century.

And as for ‘one-off’, if it appeared in a technical journal in the 1900s, then it may well have been used years - decades - before. And for someone familiar with its technical use to apply it more generally is no great stretch at all.


Two Victorian engineers at a funeral:

It’s sad to see old Fred pass on.

Yes, he was a real character.

They broke the mould when they made him.

Yes, he was a true one-off.


Such a conversation is absolutely impossible, apparently. It’s been Googled.

[John Wheat]

From Mike Barrett's diary:

'The whore has informed the bumbling buffoon I am in the habit of taking strong medicine.'

'I have visited Hopper too often this month. I will have to stop, for I fear he may begin to suspect, I talk to him like no other.'

'Did not the whore see her whore master in front of all, true the race was the fastest I have seen...'

Love,

Caz
X

So Mike Barrett did write the diary then?

[caz]

‘The Buffoon’ was one of the most popular songs of 1889. ‘A Private Buffoon’ was another. And for those with equine interests, Captain Middleton’s steeplechaser ‘Buffoon’ earned frequent mentions in the sporting press that year. There was even a steamer named Buffoon at the time.

And in the press in 1889, we find the expressions:

‘Boosing buffoon’

‘Stammering buffoon’

‘Brilliant buffoon’

‘Burnt Cork Buffoons’

‘Capering buffoon’

‘Dull buffoon’

‘Licensed buffoon’

‘Political buffoon’

‘Old buffoon’

‘Hired buffoon’

‘Village buffoon’

‘Fanatical buffoon’

‘Favourite buffoon’

‘Cynical buffoon’

‘Human buffoon’

‘Local buffoon’

‘Clever buffoon’

‘Pityable buffoon’

‘Family buffoon’

‘American buffoon’

‘Parliamentary buffoon’

‘French buffoon’

‘Weak buffoon(s)’

‘Blatant buffoon’

‘Coarse buffoon’

‘Mr Punch’s buffoon’

‘Deformed buffoon’

‘Temperance buffoon’

‘Ragged buffoon’

‘Entertaining buffoon’

‘Bedizened buffoon’

‘Babaic(?) buffoon’

‘Greatest buffoon’

‘Lying buffoon’

‘Ponderous buffoon’

‘Veterinary buffoon’

‘Ponderous buffoon’

’Musical buffoon(s)’

’Clerical buffoon(s)’

And there were many more references to buffoons in the 1889 papers.

But because ‘2020 Google says no’ we are supposed to believe that it would have been impossible for someone in the 1880s to have written ‘bumbling buffoon’ in a private journal.

Hi Gary,

Gilbert & Sullivan featured a few buffoons in The Mikado, which enjoyed a very popular rerun at the Savoy from March to June 1888, and the song 'Oh! a private buffoon is a light-hearted loon...' is from The Yeomen of the Guard, which was first performed at the Savoy on 3rd October 1888.

I'm not sure the Barretts knew that, but the hoaxer's timing in Mike's "old book" is pretty spot on, if we assume the brothers Maybrick would have frequented the theatre that year.

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

I also just found 'blithering buffoons' from 1889, and this modern description of Dan Leno:

'He generally portrayed a bumbling buffoon who struggles to carry out everyday tasks, such as riding a bicycle.'

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Songs,_sketches_and_monologues_of_Dan_Leno

Love,

Caz
X