824-1: Feedback, Notes and Comments

Thanks, as always, to everybody who wrote following the last issue. Many more messages than usual came in and I’ve been able to reply only to a few of them.

Taffy My note in this section last time about a possible origin for the Welshman sense of Taffy brought a cascade of comments from readers who were certain the nickname derives from the River Taff, which flows through Cardiff. The explanation I gave, that it was a modified form of the Welsh personal name Dafydd, is the one that appears in all the reference books that I’ve consulted. They presumably know something the rest of us don’t.

Swanning Anne Umphrey wrote, “Your comment on swanning led me to think about the phrase, now out of common usage, but popular I think in the rural eastern US in the 1800s or early 1900s. I swan was used to mean I know or I believe. Is that correct, and if so what is the origin of the word swan?” The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) has a detailed entry on it, which also appears in other forms, including I swain and which continued to be used beyond the early 1900s. DARE says that it derives from the Scots and northern English dialect I’se wan, a much-modified form of I’ll warrant or I’ll be bound. It could mean to swear to the truth of something or more weakly to declare but it was also an exclamation of surprise:

“There’s a dead woman in the lake.”

“Well, I swan.”
[Trouble is my Business, by Raymond Chandler, 1934.]

Landing Several readers pointed out that landing places in tidal waters were usually built on several levels like steps to cope with changing water levels. Landings would often also have steps up to the quayside or ground level. These associations would have helped give the name to a level area at the top of a staircase.