I was watching one of those guilty pleasure crime shows the other evening, Rizzoli and Iles, if I have to confess, and some forgotten plot point revolved around a stevedore who worked on the docks. By a combination of context and memory, i was able to decipher that a stevedore is some level of union worker, and I think at the moment I understood it pretty well. But I did get curious about the term and more precisely where it had come from. The "-ador" ending is familiar from words like "ambassador" and "matador", and I take it that these have something to do with work or job. But what kind of job is it to be Steve?
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Okay, it was no mystery why a stevedore was someone who works down on the docks, because the role of a stevedore is to load and unload ships. It comes from the Spanish estibador "one who loads cargo", the verb being estibar, "to load cargo", and has its roots in the Latin stipare, "to pack down or press". The online etymology dictionary tells us that this gives it a to me surprising relationship to the word "stiff", where the rigidness and inflexibility we associate with the word apparently comes from being packed or crammed together, at least originally.
Yikes--I have a hard enough time dreaming I'm working at the cash register.
Plus, I really liked the season of The Wire set on the docks, and you'd think I'd have picked up a bit more of the lingo.
Of course, those of you who are practiced in urban slang may have a different definition for the word. The same definition, only, uh, different.
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In the funny way that things flow together, I just caught the end of Moyers and Company, where he was talking about Saul Alinsky, where he said, "Alinsky looked like an accountant and talked like a stevefore."
ReplyDeleteVery cool, and despite the fact that Newt Gingrich seems to have co-oted his work, it's probably time to finally read Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
Uh, stevedore,not stevefore.
ReplyDeleteHmm, does "stevedore" have any etymological relation to "stipulate"?
ReplyDeleteI always pictured a stevedor to wear a velvet suit. It must have been the likeness to the word "toreador" that brought that image to mind. Now I may have a hard time reconciling that image with dock workers. Dock workers in purple velvet suits? Hmmm....
ReplyDeleteHmm, guys waving capes at charging guys named Steve? I have trouble picturing that.
ReplyDeletePeter, no, stipulate stems, pardon the term, from stipula, or straw.
ReplyDeleteHmm--I thought maybe we could come up with a Steve who was also a caped crusader, but although Steve Reeves did play Hercules, it was George Reeves who had any claim to a cape in the early TV version of Superman.
ReplyDeleteAw gotta love the etymology of words...i love looking up odd words in my old oxford. I also am a big fan of urban dictionary...many a laff can be garnered from that site...
ReplyDeletemy uncle was a stevedore and taught me pretty much every swear word i know and the peculiar oz way of really making those profanities stick and sound even more profane....
That's pretty cool about your uncle being a stevedore, Dan. I have heard a lot about the exceptional saltiness of Australian every day speech, though I haven't had much evidence of it from the few Australian's I've come across. I didn't think Americans had much to learn from anyone, but I have a feeling I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I like the idea of a longshoreman/philosopher
ReplyDeleteI believe you will like my next post, then.
ReplyDeleteYou have a natural flair for the promotional tease!
ReplyDeleteYep, and a natural laziness about moving along too fast here as well.
ReplyDelete