Bangers – Edible, Musical, and Explosive

Hello,

This week’s word is banger, a word which has a multitude of meanings despite it’s apparent simplicity.

For me, because it’s October now, the primary meaning of banger is a loud firework. Technically fireworks are illegal in these parts but it doesn’t stop enthusiasts traveling across the border to Northern Ireland (where they are legal) and stocking up in anticipation of Halloween parties. Inevitably there’s a temptation to let them off early and in some places this can start as early as September. It’s a nightmare for pet-owners and not much better for writers working from home.

The bangers must be cheap as they are in plentiful supply. They don’t make a display in the sky but they’re loud – hence the name. I was sure this was Hiberno-English but I checked my copy of “The Dictionary of Hiberno-English” by Dr Terence Patrick Dolan and the only listing there is one I never heard before – a banger is “someone on, say, a football team who is over the age limit” and presumably thus able to out-play the opposition due to size or skill. Sneaky, eh?

Bangers of the edible variety

The Cambridge dictionary backs me up on the firework definition and adds – sausages, old cars, and popular music with heavy beat and good for dancing. Urban Dictionary adds that a banger can be a party, presumably where such music is played. My teens definitely use banger in the musical sense more than for anything else.

Banger as a term for a sausage has a fun etymology which I found in the excellent “Outlander Kitchen” cookbook and in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Bangers and mash is a traditional British meal of sausages (the bangers) and mashed potatoes, usually served with an onion gravy. Sausages were nicknamed bangers during World War I when meat shortages encouraged sausage makers to be more inventive than usual. After all there are two things you should never see being made – laws and sausages – a motto often attributed to Otto von Bismarck but mythbusted here. Filling them with too much water caused the sausages to explode when cooked – hence bangers.

Bangers as a word pre-dates the old sausage story however and gets back to the whole noise issue. Banger entered English in the 1600s to describe anything which banged. By the end of that century we also had a word which has evaporated since – a bangster – a muscular bully. I could see that one coming back, although perhaps a bangster nowadays would be associated with music?

Banger led me further back to the verb bang (to strike hard with a loud blow). It joined English in the 1500s, possibly from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse banga (pound or hammer). Ever since I launched my “Words the Vikings Gave Us” I’m being haunted with Old Norse!

Since the 1500s bang wriggled its way into a few different meanings and phrases:

1810 – bang-up – meaning something is of top quality – a bang-up meal, for example

1855 – a sudden, loud, explosive noise

1864 – as slang for being very large

1937 – as slang for having intercourse

Bang and bangers are yet another example of thinking you know a modern word and finding a variety of phrases and origins when you go looking. Now I’m feeling hungry for sausages for my lunch, so long as they don’t explode.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. In fun book news – my nearest independent bookshop, Academy Books, will be stocking “Words the Vikings Gave Us” from this week.

p.p.s. This post contains Amazon.com affiliate links which make a small payment to the blog if you choose to purchase through them.

p.p.p.s. The Journal, an Irish online newspaper, had a fun word origin quiz this morning which you might enjoy. One note though – the question about “smashing” is incorrect according to that Hiberno-English dictionary. Shame, it’s a good story.