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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST Date: 19 Apr 12 - 12:30 PM Hogeye..although in somecases can be a barge in fact was the slang term for a female sexual organ....while the dead eye was a persons anus. So for example the name Deadeye Dick meant the man was an asshole... not a marksman. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Lighter Date: 19 Apr 12 - 01:18 PM > Terry (hypothetically) would *have* to find some explainable meaning for "hogeye" and just as many of us have (including me at first), he suspected veiled sexuality. It seems not to have been Terry himself but his shantying friend Morley Roberts who disclosed to him (along with "the benefit of his ripe nautical experience") the meaning of "hogeye." It "veiled the coarse intimacy of the term which it represented." As Terry writes, "As a boy [i.e., before 1885] my curiosity was piqued by reticence, evasions, or declarations of ignorance, whenever I asked the meaning of the term." And concerning making shanties dirtier than they generally were: "The 'longshore' mariner of to-day...not only wants to explain to me, as a landsman, the exact meaning of terms...which the old type of sailor, with his natural delicacy, avoided discussing, but he tries, where possible, to work them into his shanty, a thing the sailor of old time never did." To sum up: "hog's-eye" and "hogeye" had a both clean and dirty meanings. The various Mudcat minds that have discussed the matter over many years are essentially unanimous in their belief as to what the dirty meaning was. I'm inclined to agree with Gibb's suspicion that at the moment of its creation, "The Hogeye Man" (or just a line about the "hogeye man") simply referred to a barge sailor. (If that meaning had not been both natural and probable, I can't imagine the strait-laced Whall publishing the shanty in any form.) Dirty interpretations presumably didn't take hold for some singers till at least ten minutes later. If a sexual "hog's-eye" actually predated the shanty, that would only make reinterpretation inevitable. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST Date: 22 Apr 12 - 02:18 PM Anything to do with one-eyed trouser snakes, perhaps? Or maybe the allusion is to being greedy in the sense of lustful - maybe 'Hawkeye' is somebody who doesn't miss a trick. Just musing. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST Date: 18 Jun 12 - 05:27 PM About 40 years ago I learnt a version with 'hogs' plural in the chorus. "On the Hogs-eye Row the boat ashore On the Hogs-eye Steady on the jigger With the Hogs-eye man She wants the Hogs-eye man" Through all the posts above I never spotted the term "Hogs-eye" Am I the only one singing this? |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Big Al Whittle Date: 18 Jun 12 - 06:00 PM Then there was Hogseye and the last of the Mohicans |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Lighter Date: 18 Jun 12 - 07:05 PM For "hog's eye," see Apr. 19, 2012, 1:18 PM. |
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Subject: Lyr Add Navvy On The Line From: Bob Bolton Date: 19 Jun 12 - 12:02 AM G'day all, I was trolling though this thread ... and all the variant derivations of "navvy" ... which we, in Australia understand to derive from its original meaning "(builder of ) inland navigations. I got to wondering if I had ever posted a little ditty ... that survived into the mid 20th century as the core of a popular dance tune. Collector John Meredith, who grew up in Holbrook ... a largish 'bush' town in the Australian Riverina ... claimed the blokes would ask for it ( ... or else ... Ivan Skavinsky Kavar "... and dance around with silly smirks on their faces!". Anyway, this is the lyric: Navvy on the Line I'm a nipper, I'm a ripper, I'm a navvy on the line, I get four and twenty bob a week Besides me overtime. All the ladies love the navvies And the navvies love the fun, There'll be plenty little babies When the railway's done. Some like the girls Who are slender in the waist, Others like the girl Who are pretty in the face. But give me the girl Who'll take it in her fist And shove it right home Into the cuckoo's nest. I do have a music program setting on my drive ... but not a MIDI. I can run one off at home ... and post it ... or supply the PDF of the music setting ... Regard(les)s, Bob Click to play (joeweb) |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Hootenanny Date: 19 Jun 12 - 05:01 AM Is this sung to the tune of "The Cuckoo's Nest" ? The last line would suggest it and it fits. Hoot |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Bob Bolton Date: 19 Jun 12 - 09:52 PM G'day Hoots, I think it all depends on which cuckoo you are nesting with. The only Australian-collected examples to I could find on my travelling hard drive seem to be pretty brisk 'double jigs' (6/8 time). The Cuckoos' nest tune, which we play for a Barn Dance ... is of course, basically a Schottische. Somehow or other ... a French idea what a German version of a Polka would sound like ... danced by Scots! Any way, I have submitted a MIDI file ( ... to Joe Offer and/or Leo Pola 'MMario' ) so that may appear ... and, even may ... clear things up! Regards, Bob |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST Date: 23 Jun 12 - 12:06 AM hello bob!!! well i think it is you - the bob i knew with his sail boat :) was going through some old poetry notes and emails and there you were - hope you are well carole nelson phillips |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Joe Offer Date: 30 Jul 12 - 05:01 AM Bob Bolton submitted a MIDI for Navvy On the Line. Here are his notes: This is a MIDI of the basic tune, in G, of an Australian dance tune, Navvy On The Line ... to which some mildly risque lyrics clung ... collected in the late days of hand-built 'bush' ('country' ... 'backblocks' ...) railway lines. Click to play (joeweb) |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Bob Bolton Date: 31 Jul 12 - 01:09 AM G'day GUEST of 23 Jun 12 - 16.06 AM, I'm afraid that's another Bob Bolton ... definitely no sailing boat! I'm afraid my name's by no means unique ... indeed I used to run into another Bob Bolton at major Photographic Trade Shows ... a photographer like myself ...but from ~ Cairns, Queensland - and son of the Cairns printer who printed many of the more 'commercial' Australian Folk -Song, - Music & - Lore books of the prodigious collector and artist Ron Edwards (now, sadly, lost to this Earthly vale! Regards, Bob Bolton |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,DD Date: 10 Dec 12 - 10:41 PM As for the "railroad navvy" bit. There was a time when boats were towed down canals by many means, including horses and, yes, steam rail engines. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Oz Childs Date: 02 Mar 14 - 01:04 AM The early English canals were sometimes called "navigations" and indeed some still are, especially those that improved on an existing stream, thus making it navigable. Hence, the people who built the canals were called "navigators", soon shortened to "navvies". Most of the navvies were from Ireland, I think. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST Date: 05 Mar 14 - 05:20 PM Just to tie the "navvie" end up: the work cutting the canals was fiendishly hard - up to ten tons of soil being shifted per man each day was not untypical - and could only be done by the huge intake of calories, mostly by eating and drinking hard. I have seen estimates comparing these workers with top athletes and weightlifters today. The result was that they were generally as pissed as newts on a permanent basis, only sleeping when exhaustion overtook them. As such, they were feared by the communities they came past, but thankfully they were rarely around for long. Many were Scottish emigrés of the Clearances, and Irish from the famines. As the loads created in the Industrial Revolution increased both in weight and frequency, the roads broke up, in some cases becoming up to half a mile wide as carriers tried to find a way past the mud pits created by previous loads. Zigzagging in search of a way through could massively increase the milage and slow the loads, and so the first work found was in creating the turnpike network of built toll roads. That was soon supplanted by the canal network, as despite the sloth by which one might think the horse hauling a barge portrays, it was both far faster and far more productive: a wagon might be hauled by far more horses and cover a far shorter distance each day, and a canal barge and buttie carries the same as a dozen wagons or more. However, the creation of the railways made a far more rapid transport system, and killed canal construction: the navvies followed. Although the explanation of them as canal navigators is factually correct, there was also a subtext that many were formerly navy, sailors discharged from the Navy in 1815. When the UK railways were saliently constructed, many emigrated to build the railway networks of the US and British Empire. Many of those who remained in the UK became the Didekoi, the Irish Travellers despised by the Rom Gypsies. Others became dockers, as they were experienced in handling huge weights, and eased back gradually as cranes took over unloading ships. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Hastings Pirate Date: 05 Apr 14 - 05:14 AM I've been singing this song for the past five years. I first heard it sung by Waterson, Carthy on the Rogues Gallery CD. I have Hugill's book and I've trawled the net and read the entire postings here. All leaving me none the wiser to the original meanings behind the song. Shanty's were work songs, sung to help pass the time, and keep the rhythm, for long arduous tasks. If you have ever been in a rugby club after a game, the songs that are sung are all explicit and are versions of some well known songs. There are as many versions of rugby songs as there are of shanty's. Where the song comes from, I have no idea. That the hogeye is a word for a vagina, makes sense. Nigger wasn't considered offensive, to whites at least, in the 1800's. That many black seamen worked on railways and had liaisons with white girls from small villages is entirely plausible. I think it is possible to imagine the original bawdy words. If you don't get them quite right I don't think it matters. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST Date: 07 Dec 19 - 07:07 AM I Think a hog's-eye was the hole in a shop's bulwark through which rope was drawn. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: EBarnacle Date: 07 Dec 19 - 06:01 PM Nice try, but that's a hawse pipe. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 08 Dec 19 - 01:48 AM I've never heard of a 'hog eye' vessel type or the other naughty bits. Re: Appalachia, minstresly, camp town races &c - “Hoga, hogu, hige, hyge [Icel. hagr dexter, hagsynn prudens] Prudent, careful, anxious; prudens:–Hogo prudentes, C. R. Mt. 10, 16. Hoga wosan sollicitus, esse, C. R. Lk.12, 11. Hoga, hoge anxiety of mind, care, fear, R. Ben. 53, v. hige, oga. Hogan to take heed, v. hogian. [A Dictionary of the Anglo Saxon Language, Bosworth, 1838] “Among all the mis-awards at the late State fair we were scarecly more dissatisfied, than to find a crippled, hog-eyed, Eclipse colt, 2 years old, from Clinton county, taking a first premium over a fine little Bellfounder exhibited by Mr. Sullivant.” [Bellfounder Horses in Ohio, The Ohio Cultivator, Vol.IX, No.6, March 15, 1853, p.1 “...a queer looking, long-legged, short bodied, small-headed, white haired, hog-eyed, funny sort of a genius...” [Sut Lovegood's [sic] Daddy “Acting Horse,” The Mariposa Chronicle, No.47, Vol.1, December 8, 1854, p.1] Note: Harris describes the rider as he would the horse. “A horse with pig eye has a small eye, primarily an aesthetic issue, but claimed by some to be linked to stubbornness or nervousness.... There is actually a scientific explanation for this analysis. Most people think that a pig eye means the horse’s eye is smaller, but in actuality it’s the eye socket that is smaller. The size of the horse’s eyeball doesn’t change, just the skeletal structure surrounding it, dictating how much of the eye you see. It is thought that this limits the animal’s peripheral vision, which makes him more likely to be flighty or to bolt with very little provocation.” |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 04 Jun 20 - 09:12 AM From Samuel L. Bayard, "Hill Country Tunes" (1944), p. 75: "Hog-Eye an' a 'Tater. "Played by Irvin Yaugher Jr, Mt Independence, Pa., Oct. 19 ,1943. As played by his great-uncle. ... "This is not the melody which accompanies the well known and often recorded sea shanty called 'Hog Eye' nor is it the play party song tune with a similar name known farther south (see Sharp-Karpeles, 'English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians,' II, No.250). A somewhat different version, with the parts in reverse order, is in Bayard Coll., No.288, from Greene County, where the title is simply 'Hog Eye,' and has an indecent meaning. "In Fayette County, this tune has the following associated rhyme: I went down to Sally's house, 'Bout ten o'clock or later; All she had to give to me Was a hog-eye and a 'tater. "The rhyme accompanying the set known in Greene County is: As I was going down the street, A pretty little girl I chanced to meet; I stepped right up and kissed her sweet, And asked her for some hog-eye meat. "No other sets of the tune are known to the editor." That pretty much says it. Terry is vindicated. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: The Sandman Date: 04 Jun 20 - 04:58 PM A Hog-Eye was distinctive flat-bottom boat or barge used in the shallow waters surrounding San Francisco Bay during the California Gold Rush, named from the dismissive name 'ditch-hog' applied to rivermen by deep-water sailors. The term "hog-eye" was used in early blues songs as a euphemism for the female genitalia. he was a fellow who enjoyed female gentilia on a flat bottmed barge. So it takes all sorts, relatively harmless |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Thompson Date: 06 Jun 20 - 03:05 PM Navvy was indeed sourced from navigator: the same people who built the canals built the railways (the first railways often following the canals because there was no need of wayleaves, and the telephone lines ditto. They were neither common nor unskilled. In America, these working people were often Chinese; I've heard it said that a Chinese man died for every yard of railroad built. Irish people are still working in construction across Europe, whether as the engineers and architects designing projects or the skilled crane and drill and spade men and women fulfilling them. In fact, as recently as during the building of the Channel Tunnel it was said that there was more Connemara Irish spoken in the depths under the seas than there was English or any other language. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: EBarnacle Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:06 PM There was mention above of deadeyes as a rigging part on sailing vessels. They are largely replaced by turnbuckles on smaller vessels but some training ships still use them. In the Germanic languages, including Danish and Norwegian, a deadeye is known as a Jungfrau or young woman/maiden. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: EBarnacle Date: 06 Jun 20 - 06:13 PM Also, going back to Irish porcine reference, one of the tools that a navvie would use was an elongated pin or spike called a fid or, if a full length crowbar, known colloquially as a bulls prick. The relationship between a bulls prick and the Irish meaning of Hogeye would be a simple shift in usage. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: r.padgett Date: 07 Jun 20 - 09:45 AM A Hog-Eye was distinctive flat-bottom boat or barge used in the shallow waters surrounding San Francisco Bay during the California Gold Rush, named from the dismissive name 'ditch-hog' applied to rivermen by deep-water sailors[citation needed] The term "hog-eye" was used in early blues songs as a euphemism for the female genitalia from Wikipedia Ray |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 07 Jun 20 - 12:37 PM "Euphemism" is hardly the right word. "Dysphemism" is more like it. Concerning the minstrel song, at least: 19th century databases show that "hog-eyed" was a southern (American) term for "having small or squinting eyes." One newspaper contrasts it with "buck-eyed" (modern "bug-eyed"). The simplest explanation is that the original "Hog-Eyed Man" in both the minstrel song and the popular fiddle tune, was simply a squint-eyed or small-eyed fellow. As a kind of barge in use in San Francisco Bay, "hogeye" must have been a pretty local term. It doesn't appear in either the American "Century Dictionary" of 1889 or the "Oxford English Dictionary" of any date. The original squinty guy must have been reinterpreted by those familiar with the sexual sense of "hogeye." Few of them could have been thinking of California barges, in either case. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: r.padgett Date: 07 Jun 20 - 01:56 PM My post was as I state a copy/paste from Wikipedia ~ there are other statements if anyone cares to look Thanks Ray |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Thompson Date: 07 Jun 20 - 03:24 PM Men's creativity in their synonyms for women's… túdalíní… never cease to become more weird. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: leeneia Date: 08 Jun 20 - 07:50 PM I believe there is a whirlpool(s) in the ocean off New England which is referred to as a hog-eye. I encountered it in detective fiction, and to my amazement it actually exists. Up to that point, I had thought whirlpools were myth. You can see whirlpools in motion in YouTube videos. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 09 Jun 20 - 03:33 AM Another pre-minstrelsy equine conformation reference: “Byron, you know, said the hand was the true test of blood. Why did he not include the eye, the ear, the mouth, the nostril? Who ever saw the thoroughbred mare, or horse, with the hog eye – sole-leather ear – African mouth, and chunk-bottle nose?” [Spirit of the Times, NY, 8 April 1837, p.60] |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 09 Jun 20 - 03:37 AM “Harry and Rodrigo followed, and soon found themselves under a portico, in company with the cloaked stranger, and three or four of his comrades. An angry crowd of Mexicans were yelling and shouting at no great distance, a furious mob of one of the most vindictive races on the continent of America—cowardly and brutish. “Be ready!” said the commanding voice of the officer of the “Sea King.” At , the same moment he gave a shrill whistle, louder than of a boatswain's in a storm, and next instant a large body of men came rushing with drawn cutlasses and singing, in seaman twang, some doggrel lines then popular— Sally in the garden, sifting sand, Jenny talking with a hog-eyed man; In a hog eye, In a hog eye, For all she wants is a hog-eyed man, With a heave oh, heave oh! Heave oh in a hog eye. Either the unearthly sound of the forecastle ditty, or the sight of the cutlasses, had a magic effect. The Mexicans drew back to a respectful distance, shouting, but making no attempt to attack either officers or men.” [St.John, Percy B., The Scourge of the Seas, Ch.V, Vera Cruz, (British Boys' Paper, 30 June 1888, p.284)] Is this is Hog-Eye's earliest brush with pirate opera, a 'forebitter war cry?' |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 09 Jun 20 - 03:44 AM First mention of a vessel/crew type (?) and first n-bomb attached to the lyric. Also some of the hokum/bowdlerization - authorship/copyrights context running through other threads at the moment: “Now, seamen who spent their time in cargo-carrying sailing ships never heard a decent Shanty; the words which sailor John put to them when unrestrained were the veriest filth. But another state of things obtained in passenger and troop ships; here sailor John was given to understand very forcibly that his words were to be decent or that he was not to shanty at all. (As a rule, when the passengers were landed and this prohibition was removed, the notorious "Hog-Eye Man" at once made its appearance.) The consequence was that in those ships the old-time Shanties were sung to their proper words, and most of the good ones had a story in verse that never varied, though in a long hoist if the regulation words did not suffice, a good shanty-man would improvise to spin out. It was in these vessels—and these only—that a collector of songs was wanted, and it was only in such vessels that a collection could have been made. Such a collection was made, both of Songs and Shanties, by me. Other compilers of collections of songs have in some cases taken songs from this book without acknowledgment. It must be understood that all rights are rigidly reserved both as to words and music....” “THIS shanty dates from 1849-50. At that time gold was found in California. There was no road across the continent, and all who rushed to the goldfields (with few exceptions) went in sailing-ships round the Horn, San Francisco being the port they made for.This influx of people and increase of trade brought railway building to the front ; most of the " navvies" were negroes. But until the roads were made there was a great business carried on by water, the chief vehicles being barges, called "hog-eyes." The derivation of the name is unknown to me. The sailor in a new trade was bound to have a new shanty, and this song was the result: Oh, go fetch me down my riding cane, For I'm goin' to see my darlin' Jane! And a hog-eye rail road nigger, with his hog-eye! O the hog-eye men are all the go, When they come down to San-Fran-cis-co, In a hog-eye, etc. Now, it's "who's been here since I been gone?" A railroad nigger with his sea boots on, And a hog-eye, etc. O Sally in the garden picking peas, Her golden hair hanging down to her knees, And a hog-eye, etc.” [Ships, Sea Songs and Shanties, 2nd ed, Whall, 1913] |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 09 Jun 20 - 03:45 AM Yank Carl Sandburg has Whall's 'hog-eye' barges rounding Cape Horn proper. By 1966 they're all over the place: “As a matter of fact Whall, 'Seaman of the Old School,' gives an explanation of the word 'Hog-eye' without any obscene entanglements. He plainly states that it was a type of barge invented for the newly formed overland trade which used the canals and rivers of America at the time of the Gold Rush (1850) onwards). A 'Ditch-Hog' was a sarcastic phrase used by American deepwatermen to denote sailors of inland waterways such as the Mississippi and Missouri as opposed to foreign-going Johns. [Hugill] |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 09 Jun 20 - 03:48 AM A little San Francisco naval science: 31 July 1846 – Population of Yerba Buena, Alta California doubled on arrival of the Brooklyn and 240 Mormon migrants. 30 January 1847 – Yerba Buena officially renamed San Francisco. 24 January 1848 – Gold discovered at Sutter's Mill, Coloma, California. California entered the Union not so much as a “Free” state but an anti-slavery one. It was practiced as a crime, not an institution. That said, the place was in no way welcoming to free African-American migrants. About half the 300.000 migrants came overland. The others either via Panama or around the Horn. No barges either way. With the exception of the bar at the mouth of the Sacramento River, it was steamboat draft all the inland way to Sacramento. On paper, the United States had just taken the port from Mexico. In practice in was a South American managed facility. USN Lt. W.A. Bartlett, the first U.S. citizen Alcalde, was chosen partly for his fluency in Spanish. The various waterfronts that replaced the earlier lighter scows and barges are still called embarcadero today. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 09 Jun 20 - 03:52 AM Slight drift but relevant: The Charles Hare Lighter “The Nature of the Boat Sand was still banked firmly around the lighter's hull, helping to hold it together. The hull, spanned by one deck beam well aft of midship, remained intact. Overall, the boat is roughly 23 ft. long by 9 ft. wide by 3 ft. deep. I immediately confirmed that it was a lighter?—Gary had been right. We recognized these little barges from panoramic photographs of Yerba Buena Cove in the 1850s, showing its shallow waters filled with ships in various states of abandonment. The lighters were used during a brief period from 1849 to 1854 as the only means to carry people or goods ashore, and the several dozen lighters in operation would have been much in demand. As privately-built piers jutted into deeper water to accommodate large ships, the utility of lighters diminished, rendering them obsolete by the mid-1850s. From subsequent laboratory testing, we found that the Hare lighter was built from a species of beech native to Chile and parts of Argentina. In the earliest days of the Gold Rush, Chilean entrepreneurs owned many of the storage ships and early port infrastructure. The boat was almost certainly shipped from Chile to be nailed together on the muddy shoreline of Yerba Buena Cove.” |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Mike Yates Date: 09 Jun 20 - 04:34 AM I cannot see any reference to two short songs recorded in the Bahamas in 1935 by Alan Lomax and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, which have been issued on the CD Deep River of Songs - Bahamas 1935. Ring Games and Round Dances (Rounder CD1832). These are: SAND GONE IN MY CUCKOO-EYE Oh, Sand Gone in My Cuckoo-Eye Who says so? I say so, I say so WASP BITE NOBI ON HER CONCH-EYE A wasp bite Nobi on her conch-eye A wasp bite Nobi on her conch-eye Oh, run here, Mama, come hold the light See these Germans gone fight tonight Wasp bite Nobi on her conch-eye A note to the first song says, 'Note that 'cuckoo-eye' is sometimes replaced by 'neat-eye'. According to Nicolette Bethel, it is probable that these are old-fashioned regional expressions that refer to infidelity. A similar note to the second song says, 'Here 'conch-eye' may refer to the female genitals'. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Fiddlecraig Date: 23 Mar 21 - 03:30 PM Just read through this thread- interesting to note that the ONLY source of information regarding the supposed “SanFrancisco barges/sloops and their crews is Captain Whall. If you read through carefully you’ll see that every detailed reference uses some form of his language. In fact, I have never seen this reference anywhere from any other source, and the seeming ubiquity is entirely based on Whall’s assertion. If anyone has an earlier or independent reference to “hog eye barges,” I’d like to see it. This single-source origin should make us skeptical of definitive statements that there were boats or barges called “hog eyes” on San Francisco Bay in the Gold Rush era. Whall may simply have been spinning a yarn to cover the sexual reference. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,# Date: 23 Mar 21 - 03:58 PM It might help if someone with access to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) could see when the term hogeye, hog eye, or hog-eye first entered the language. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 23 Mar 21 - 04:19 PM Check out my posts on this thread: /mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=4743#2347020 and upthread here. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,# Date: 23 Mar 21 - 04:45 PM Thanks, Lighter. Anyone checking Lighter's link, it's 'fixed' here thread.cfm?threadid=4743#2347020 |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch Date: 24 Mar 21 - 05:21 AM The term came into usage as an equine conformation reference (see my previous.) We use "pig eye" today. The first nautical usage we have so far comes generations later as a pulp fiction ahem... forebitter war cry(?). Whall did not get one thing right about the well documented history of the Califonria gold rush. His sea-booted n*ggers and hog-eye barges are not exceptions to that rule. Hokum is the word you're looking for there. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 24 May 23 - 04:36 PM Daily Evening Item (Lynn, Massachusetts), July 21, 1906: "'Your father cleaned put a whole barnful of hog-eyes in Tenawanda [sic] in '48.' "'What is a hog-eye, Judge?' "'That used to be a tough name for a canal driver.'" (The later form was "hoggie," origin unknown till now.) |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 24 May 23 - 05:24 PM "Cleaned out" |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: and e Date: 26 May 23 - 04:07 PM 35 MARY Song #35, pg 41-42, Hash Music 1986. No tune indicated. I have been *told* that this is The Hog-eye Man, and some of the verses posted above match, but I think this is another song which share some floating verses with The Hogeye Man. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: and e Date: 26 May 23 - 04:53 PM I Have A Dog Called Rover Transcribed from the LP The Irish Sing Rugby Songs, ca 1968. The tune is "Gathering Nots in May". |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: ripov Date: 27 May 23 - 09:09 PM as a guess, "hog-eyed means 'high on opium see<'https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/opium-war-1839-1842> the chinese lighters used for unloading cargo(in this case opium) have eyes painted o them,sd a hogeye man might be a master of one of these vessels or maybe the"bumboats" which ferried working girls(who nay well have sold opium as a sideline) out to large ships for the crews recreation.Navvies were commonly not just"niggers" but Irish, Chinese Kanakas and filipinos, certainly poorly paid labourers-although they seem to have had sufficient pay to spend on recreation in the bars plentiful in ports |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 31 Dec 23 - 04:14 AM The Charleston Daily News, 17 April 1868: // The North Carolina Convention adjourned with an uproarious dance to the indecent negro corn-shucking song of “Hog Eye.” // |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 02 Jan 24 - 03:05 AM Here's "hog eye" again in the context of a corn shucking song: "I can't get along with a hog-eye gal." Folsom, M. M. “A Corn-Shucking.” Kanabec County Times [Minnesota], 24 November 1887: 4. (It appears to be reprinted from the Chicago Tribune from at least a half-year earlier.) The description—here necessarily remembered, since corn shucking bees died out with slavery—is much like dozens of others. The narrator offers two songs in sequence before getting to this third example led by the captain (song-leader) while the shucking competition continued. "Jay bird died wid de whoopin’ cough, Sparrer died wid de colic; ‘Long come er frog wid a fiddle on ‘is back, ‘Quiring de way to de frolic. [refrain] O, can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye gal, An’ I can’t git erlong wid er hog eye. Ca’led Miss Sue to de ball las’ night, Sot ‘er down to suppah, She fainted ‘n’ ovah de table fell An’ stuck ‘er nose in the buttah. Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye gal, An’ I can’t git erlong wid er hog eye. Sont fo’ de doctah to fotch er to, An’ he wus sump’n latah, She stuck er tu’key bone ‘n’er eye, ‘N’ got choke to deaf on er tatah. Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye, Can’t git erlong wid er hog eye gal, An’ I can’t git erlong wid er hog eye. …The master of the house, and generally the ladies, and some of the neighboring planters would assemble at a little distance and enjoy the corn-shucking and the wild songs quite as much as the negroes." |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Lighter Date: 02 Jan 24 - 10:02 AM Probably unnecessary to say that if the paper's editor had any reason to suspect that the word "hogeye" might be indecent, he'd never have allowed it into print. |
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Subject: RE: I give up. What's a HOGEYE? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 03 Jan 24 - 11:18 AM An anti-Union parody of "Hog Eye" from the Confederacy. The Shreveport Semi-Weekly News, 3 June 1862: 4. “Lincoln’s ‘Hog Eye’ Dream.” AIR – “The Hog Eye.” One night Abe Lincoln had a dream, It was a mighty droll ‘un— He thought he saw Potomac’s stream With big black niggers rollin’. Chorus—Row a boat ashore, de hog eye Row a boat ashore, de hog eye Row a boat ashore! de hog eye Hurrah for Abram’s hog eye! [etc] |
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