As one who's read quite a bit about the technique of flint-knapping (though
I regret to say I've never had the opportunity to try it), I too have never
heard of any actual process that could be called flint-skinning in any
literal way. Indeed, my reading leads me to the belief that flints were
considered rather ad hoc tools, struck for a particular purpose when needed.
In other words, the tendency appears to have been to knap an entirely new
hand-axe, rather than to 'refresh' a dulled edge by re-striking.
As to flint being used to skin hides from prey, as Peter suggests, these
seem to have been either hand-axes, or flakes often purpose-struck from a
flint core.
But modern re-enactments have shown that "experimental knappers Kathy Schick
and Ray Dezzani had no difficulty slicing through inch-thick elephant hide
with flakes they struck while making simple Oldowan-style artefacts.". ('As
We Know It', by Marek Kohn.) In other words, the off-cuts were used, though
probably not for reasons of thrift but because they were lying around and
would do the job.
It's a million-plus years from Olduvai Gorge to the modern era -- that's a
helluva long time for a phrase to endure without, dare I say it, a dulled
edge.
joanna
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Walker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 10:50 PM
Subject: Re: etymology question
> <snip>
> I don't believe the skinflint definition. [Peter C]
> <snip>
>
> There is an colourful early citation for flint skinning in Motteux'
> Rabelais: 'May I be broil'd like a Red Herring, if I don't think they are
> wise enough to skin a Flint' (1694). And the two earliest citations for
> 'skinflint' are in dictionaries of thieving slang: E B's *New Dictionary
> ... of the Canting Crew* (1700) and Bailey's *Canting Dictionary* (1721).
>
> Now obviously there is something not quite right about all this. I can
> find
> no citation to justify flint-skinning as a legitimate process along with
> knapping flints, say, or striking them or to justify 'flint' as a verb
> equivalent to 'flay'. So I assume that the phrase was comedic from the
> start. I also assume that the canting dictionaries document usage which
> may
> be somewhat older. So perhaps the origin is in some sort of variant on
> *getting blood out of stones*, which itself goes back to the early 1660s.
>
> One final observation. I rather think that 'skin' in these collocations
> _may_ be being used from the outset in its metaphorical sense of
> 'swindle'
> and not in its literal sense of removing some outer layer. This would
> place
> the emergence of that meaning a good deal earlier than the early 1800s,
> which is the date that is normally given.
>
> CW
> _______________________________________________
>
> 'It was really only in spelling out the decrees of the high
> command that we came to understand ourselves'
> - Kafka
|