The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1877-08-27
THE TRUE ORIGIN or "BULLDozE."
Richard Grant whites Able ExpIanat Ion

[Galaxy.1
How unsafe IL Ia TO infer that because
o word, however before apparently I'M
known, suddenly springs into use In
this country, 1t ID therefore ct "Ameri-
can brigham Americanism--is exefn-
plifled by tho strange word 1bulldoze.
This word came up during the late pres
idential canvass. / was at the time ~
England. Before the summer OF 1876 1t
was, / believe, quite unknown, but
when returned / could hardly take up
% newspaper in which did not find 1t.
Since then Ii has continued la common
use, and many have been the accounts
published Of Its origin; but all OF them
are on their face fanciful, and 1t
seems to me deliberately fictitious.
The word made Its appearance at the
South, and 1t was first applied, / be-
live, to secret acts Of violence perpe-
trated against negroes, aud afterward
to all killing, manning and beating by
way OF intimidation. The essential
part OF the compound Ia the last word,
doze; the first, bull, being an intensive
qualification, q description OF the man
ner OF "dozing." / write the word doze
because 1t 10 thus pronounced. and not
dose, as In dose Of medicine. All the
efforts to show that 1t has that mean
ing, and that the whole word means q
bull dose that ID, q big dose of violence
have been, In my opinion, quite
futile. It would seem that IL any word
could be safely assumed to be q genuine
Americanism, II ID this. am not pre-
pared positively to deny that 1t 10 80 !;
but think that / shall ut least show
that 1t is probably OF old English
origin.
Most of my readers know that Sir
Walter Scott prefixed to the chapters Of
his novels, as notices, extracts from
plays. Some OF these were from old
dramas, more or less known to the stu
dents Of old English literature. But
many OF them were written for the nonce
by Scott himself, and these were cred
tied simply "Old Play" or the latter
pears at the head Of chapter ~, vol: ..
OF the original edition ns22) OF 1.-The
Fortunes Of Nigel It introduces u
chapter In which the bully Capt. Cole
pepper figures largely.
S,rash Buckler -Bilbos the wori-
Perrot 1t hath been spoke TO often
The spell hath lost It's charm, tell thee friend.
And snarl against y0up proffsre1 baatinado.
s. BIT Is art shall do 1t. I'll doze the mon
Or, In plain terms, I'll uso the private knife
'stead 81 the brandished fauchon
Here the word "doze" IL plainly used
almost exactly in the sense which 1t
has In bull-doze. The passage is, / be-
lieve, not quotable from any old play
If 1t were, 80 much the better; but
almost surely 1t is Seott's own. Where
did he get the verb doze In that sense
1 confess that do not know. am I'm.
able to trace 1t. But although he
made up the profsss a Ed quotation not. ~
made this word. For to do 30 would
have been at variance with hie
purpose, which was to produce some
thing which would on It's face support
the preteuse that It was from the work
OF some old English dramatist, one oil
the Elizabethan period for that ia the
style OF the passage. At any rate here
we have the word doze used more thar
fifty years ago by British author just
In Che sense In which it has so suddenly
come into use In America" It Ia ai
least another warning s,, not TO assume me
phrases which spring SO suddenly into
use among us.