Bully ?

[Sharpshooter1]

I see the word "bully" being used on this forum often. What does this mean?

For example:

"Bully Buy"

"You did a Bully of a good job"

Is this a period term?

Thanks in advance for the clarification

[YoungCampaigner]

Re: Bully ?

The word bully is a period term meaning "good" or "well done". There are also several variations on the term bully including "bully for you", which means the same as "good for you". The word bully turns up fairly frequently in period texts.

ex. "The freckles have vanished, bully for you!" (From the Daily Telegraph, Nov. 18, 1864)

In "Drum Taps in Dixie", by Delavan S. Miller, there is a poem that reads:
"Down the picket-guarded lane
Rolled the comfort-laden wain,
Cheered by shouts that shook the plain,
Soldier like and merry;
Phrases such as camps may teach,
Sabre cuts of Saxon speech,
Such as "Bully"

[Silas]

Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

Here's an easy one : the popular song, Jine the Cavalry.

JINE THE CAVALRY

CHORUS:
If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry!
Jine the cavalry! Jine the cavalry!
If you want to catch the Devil, if you want to have fun,
If you want to smell Hell, jine the cavalry!

We're the boys who went around McClellian,
Went around McClellian, went around around McClellian!
We're the boys who went around McClellian,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

CHORUS

We're the boys who crossed the Potomicum,
Crossed the Potomicum, crossed the Potomicum!
We're the boys who crossed the Potomicum,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

CHORUS

Then we went into Pennsylvania,
Into Pennsylvania, into Pennsylvania!
Then we went into Pennsylvania,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

CHORUS

The big fat Dutch gals hand around the breadium,
Hand around the breadium, hand around the breadium!
The big fat Dutch gals hand around the breadium,
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

CHORUS

Ol' Joe Hooker, won't you come out of The Wilderness?
Come out of The Wilderness, come out of The Wilderness?
Ol' Joe Hooker, won't you come out of The Wilderness?
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!

CHORUS

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Bully ?

Hallo!

The DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN SLANG, 3rd Edition, lists "bully" as an expression for excellent or good by the 1840's, but "Bully for you!" by the 1780's.

Curt

[Sharpshooter1]

Re: Bully ?

Thank you for your replies..

[OldKingCrow]

Re: Bully ?

Ol' Joe Hooker, won't you come out of The Wilderness?
Come out of The Wilderness, come out of The Wilderness?
Ol' Joe Hooker, won't you come out of The Wilderness?
Bully boys, hey! Bully boys, ho!


I can close my eyes and envision ole "Beauty" mounted on Highfly singing this out loud......

....And where, riding at the head of and in command of Jackson's veterans, his ringing voice could be heard high, high above the thunder of artillery and the ceaseless roar of musketry, singing, 'Old Joe Hooker, won't you come out the wilderness'?..

Speech of General Fitz. Lee, on General J.E.B. Stuart at A.N.V. Banquet,
October 28th, 1875.

[Longbranch 1]

Re: Bully ?

bully:

(1) a person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people

(2) a hired ruffian or thug

(3) a pimp

(4) ( ARCHAIC ) a fine person

(5) ( ARCHAIC ) a sweetheart

It is interesting to note that divergent usage was used in the WBTS timeframe.

Note a seafarers' song " A Yankee Ship " of the time.
Despite the title, the song has little to do with the war here.

" A Yankee ship comes down the river.
Blow, boys, blow.
Her mast and spars, they shine like silver.
Blow, my bully boys, blow

Well, how do you know she's a Yankee liner?
Blow , boys , Blow.
The Stars and Stripes float out behind her.
Blow, my bully boys, blow

Well, who do you think is the captain of her?
Blow, boys , blow
Why, Bully Hayes is the captain of her.
Blow my bully boys, blow. "

Kind of interesting as" Bully" Hayes ( 1829- 1877 ) was an Ohio born "buccaneer" for lack of a better term in the South Seas in the 1860's. And absolutely fit definition # 1.

Perhaps todays' usage could be ascribed in particular to him?

Regards,
Kevin Ellis,
26th NC

[Hank Trent]

Re: Bully ?

bully:

(1) a person who is habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker people

I'm guessing that's from a modern dictionary? It hasn't changed much.

Our standard meaning of "bully" was also the dictionary meaning in the 19th century. From Webster's 1853 dictionary:

Bully, n.... A noisy, blusering, overbearing fellow, more distinguished for insolence and empty menaces than for courage, and disposed to provoke quarrels.

Bully, v.t. To insult and overbear with noise and blustering menaces.

Bully, v.i. To be noiseand quarrelsome.

Bullying, n. Act of bullying, or state of being bullied.

Bullying, ppr. Insulting with threats.

For example, from The Rhode Island Schoolmaster, 1861:

At night, after supper, down beside the "orchard wall," a group of boys might be seen: in the centre of which, with clenched fists and ugly bearing, stands the "bully" of the school. A little distance off, with shrinking manner and anxious mien, stands the stranger boy, with a chip of wood upon his left shoulder. He is told that if the "bully" "knocks the chip off his shoulder, he must fight!" "I do not want to, I do not know how, I never did fight." But the chip is knocked off, a dastardly blow is struck, and the "bully" of the school remains the "bully" still!

It's just one of those words that had a different, positive meaning in slang. Other example I can think of within my lifetime are "wicked" and "bad.".

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Bully ?

Hallo!

Thanks for posting that Herr Kevin!

I was just reaching for the that song..

Well, a Yankee ship sailed down the river
Blow, boys, blow
Oh, a Yankee ship in the Congo River
Blow, me bully boys, blow

How do you know she's a Yankee clipper?
The Stars and Stripes they fly above her

And who do you think's the skipper of her?
Old Holy Joe the darkie slaver

And what do you think she's got for cargo?
Guns and shot, she runs the embargo

What do you think they'll have for dinner?
Hot water soup, but slightly thinner

Blow today, and blow tomorrow
Blow for all old tars in sorrow

anotehr version:

A Yankee ship comes down the river, Blow boys blow

A Yankee ship with a Yankee skipper Blow, My bully boys, blow

How do you know she's a Yankee clipper Blow boys blow

Because her masts and yards shine like silver Blow, My bully boys, blow

Who do you think is the captain of her? Blow boys blow

Old Holy Joe the mighty lover Blow, My bully boys, blow

What do you think she's got for cargo? Blow boys blow

Why black sheep that have run the embargo Blow, My bully boys, blow

Curt

[Longbranch 1]

Re: Bully ?

And a great thanks to you Mr. Schmidt.

These old folk songs sometimes have a life of their own!
Kinda' like the child's game of whispering a phrase around a room. With a little of "insert a local reference here".

Now the tune is firmly entrenched in my mind.

I guess I'll go out and find a line to pull, an iron to strike , or a boulder to sledge ;)

Regards,
Kevin Ellis,
26th NC

[Drygoods]

Re: Bully ?

For those who wonder what I do most of the time, I sit on my lards and read antique books, and on occasion pontificate on what I find; this is the case today with the expression Bully. Spelling as printed in the book.
From the Ladies Repository, March 1860...Editor's Repository,Notes & Queries...

"BULLY. -- this word, with which we have become of late so familiar, is of doubtful etymology. so many portions of country have unfortunately so much of the thing, that one might naturally be tempted to think the name, too, of American Origin. This, however, would be a mistake: the word is indisputably of transatlantic growth; but the great lexicographers have been puzzled to assign its exact home or precise origin. Dr. Johnson says, "Skinner derives this word from burley, as a corruption in the pronunciation, which is very probably right; or from bulky, or bull-eyed, which is less probable. May it not come from bull, (Latin bulla,) the Pope's letter, implying the insolence of those who came invested with authority from the Papal court?" with the latter conjecture Richardson, who generally differs, when he can, from Johnson, concurs. Dr. Webster propooses to derive the word from "the Swedish bola, to bellow; the Danish bullen, swelled; or, more directly, from the Saxon belgian, to bellow."

The scholars who have proposed these etymologies are evidently not satisfied with them, and have advanced them as probable only in their ignorance of the true origin. I think I have discovered the source of this word in an old Irish term--what natal soil after American more likely for this word than Ireland!--meaning herd of cattle. The following quotation from the poet Spenser shows the original use of the word, and sufficiently justifies the derivation from it of the word bully: "there is one use among the Irish, to keepe their cattle, and to live themselves the most part of the yeare in boolies, pasturing upon the mountains and waste wilde places; and removing still to fresh land as they have depastured the former. The which manner is yet used among all the Tatarians and the people about the Caspian Sea, to live in heards, as they call them, being the very same that the Irish boolies are, driving their cattle continually with them and feeding onely on their milke and white meats,(cheese?) But by this custome of boolying, there grow in the meane time many great enormityes unto that commonwealth. for first, if there be any outlawes, or loose people--as they are never without some--which live upon stealthes and spoyles, they are evermore succored and find releife only in those boolies. Besides, such stealthes of cattle as they make they bring commonly to those boolies, being upon the waste places, where they are readily received and the thief harboured from danger of law. Moreover, the people that thus live in those boolies grow thereby the more barbarous and live more licentiously than they could in townes, using what manners they list, and practizing what mischeifes and villainies they will, either against the government there, by their combynations, or against private men, whom they maligne by stealing their goods or murdering themselves. for there they think themselves halfe exempted from law and obedience, and having once tasted freedome, doe like a steere that hath beene long out of his yoke, grudge and repyne ever after, to come under rule again." (View of the State of Ireland, A. d. 1596, P 518) W. G. W's.

[Michael Shea]

Re: Bully ?

Mrs. Peebles,

That is a bully post! It made me actually go dig up my Oxford English Dictionary - which says that the etymology of "bully" is obscure but may be from some old Dutch word for lover or friend. Shakespeare uses "bully" to mean good friend e.g. in A Midsummer Nights Dream Bottom the weavers friend calls him "O sweet bully Bottom" and in Henry V Pistol calls the Prince a "lovely bully". It seems that using bully to mean an overbearing person did not start until the 17th century.

I am, respectfully, your humble servant,
Michael Shea

[Drygoods]

Re: Bully ?

Mr. Shea,
I'm glad that the post was of interest to you, and hopefully some others here. I confess, I had no interest in the word myself, not one that I would ever use, but when I came across it in a period magazine, I knew that the article would be of interst to someone. Unfortunately, I spend a bit too much time sitting and reading old books and magazines, it wasn't so bad when I was younger and could read while walking on a treadmill, but now my eyesight is going, old age catches up with us fast, but I'll be jiggered if I don't keep up with my reading. I wish more people would put time into reading antique books and magazines, it gives you a better understanding of what our ancestors thought at the time. Plus if you do it long enough, you easily understand the jokes and jabs that the magazines say about each other. Come to think of it, I never looked the word up in any of my antique dictionaries myself!:wink_smil