(urth) "Goodbye Old Buddy" -- Pirate Freedom murder mystery, take two
Dave Tallman
davetallman at msn.com
Tue Dec 2 09:38:38 PST 2008
1. Captain Burt is marked as a time traveler by his anachronistic use of
the racial slur "Dago" (p. 39). According to the Online Etymology
Dictionary <http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=dago> it dates from
1823, and was used of Spanish or Portugese sailors on English or American
ships. But Mark Millman on the urth
list<http://lists.urth.net/pipermail/urth-urth.net/2008-December/010781.html>says
the O.E.D. cites the word as appearing in print before 1725. I checked
the O.E.D. online, and the only early reference it cites is the diary of
Jeremiah Bumstead
(1723)<http://www.mayflowerfamilies.com/diaries/jeremiah_bumstead_diary_1723.htm>,
which says "Ye negro Dago hanged for fiering Mr. Powell's house..." which is
ambiguous since it could be the man's name. The next reference they give is
dated 1832. I stand by my theory that this is a genuine anachronism. (The
age of pirates that Chris visits is circa 1680).
2. To refine the date further, we know Drake sailed around the world in
the *Golden Hind* "almost a hundred years ago" (p .139). That should mean
less than 100 years, and Drake's voyage was from 1577 to 1580. Thalassocrat
on the Urth list<http://lists.urth.net/htdig.cgi/urth-urth.net/2007-December/008418.html>suggested
a date of 1675 based on this.
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