Question: I have always wondered about the word "shyster," a word I use playfully with my lawyer sister. Can you tell me where this word came from?
- T.R., Duluth, Minn,
Answer: "Shyster" is an Americanism first used in public in 1843 in the pages of The Subterranean, a New York City weekly that concerned itself with goings-on in and about the Tombs (the city jail) and the local courts. The Subterranean was published and largely written by Mike Walsh, a muckraker and reformer. The connection of Walsh with the word "shyster" has been explored in detail by Gerald L. Cohen, whose findings we summarize here.
Walsh had been attacking a number of corrupt practices in the New York City courts - among them, the carryings-on of various unlicensed men who pretended to be lawyers. After one of these articles appeared, Walsh was approached by one Cornelius Terhune and was asked to name names. Terhune, though an unlicensed "lawyer" himself, prided himself on his ability, and he did not want to be confused with the lesser practitioners - he named two or three - that he called "shiseters" (one of Walsh's spellings). Walsh didn't know the word, so Terhune explained it to him. Walsh's account of this episode makes it clear that "shiseter" had vulgar connotations and that it designated an incompetent operative.
Terhune's "shiseter" was apparently a variation on or a parallel to the British slang "shicer," which was derived ultimately from a vulgar German word.
"Shyster" might have died as a mere curiosity had not Walsh been prosecuted and jailed for libel by a corrupt district attorney later in 1843. In his anger and frustration Walsh increased the level of invective in The Subterranean, and "shyster" was brought forth to do duty. Walsh considerably broadened the meaning of the word by applying it to dishonest public officials and other shady characters as well as to incompetent and fake lawyers. His use gradually caught on in other locales, and "shyster" was established in widespread use as an Americanism by the end of the 19th century.
Question: On a canoe trip in northern Minnesota this summer, I was lucky enough to hear the cry of a loon. It sounded eerily maniacal, and I got to wondering whether "loon" meaning "a crazy person" is related to the name of the bird.
- M. S., Wabash, Ind.
Answer: There are several factors which may have contributed to the development of "loon" meaning "a crazy person." The word is almost certainly based on the earlier phrase "crazy as a loon," with perhaps some influence from "loony." ("Loony," a somewhat older word, is derived from "lunatic.")
The "loon" in the phrases "crazy as a loon" or "drunk as a loon" is generally assumed to refer to the bird, either in reference to its cry or to its distraction display, in which it skitters over the water with its neck crooked. We're not entirely sure about the connection, though, primarily because these two phrases were first attested, in the 1830s, in Kentucky and Virginia. If the phrases originated in this dialect area (known as South Midland), it is extremely unlikely they refer to the bird. The range of the loon, even then, would have been much further north. The phrases would have had to have originated in the northern United States and spread south if they refer to the bird, but we have no evidence that they did originate in the north.
So what does "loon" in these phrases refer to if not the bird? Good question. In Britain, especially Scotland, the word "loon" in reference to a person (in a variety of specific senses, most negative) is widely attested, but there's no evidence of American usage for any of these senses. Given the possibility of Scotch-Irish influence on South Midland speech, however, it's not impossible that some residue of the British use of "loon" lurks behind "crazy as a loon."
In Britain, by the way, the birds we know as loons are called "divers," so we know that the bird has nothing to do with the British senses of "loon."