Robin wrote:

> Any overlap between badger/cadger and higgler/haggler?  The OED doesn't
seem
> to connect them directly, but they come up together there.
> 

Overlaps are seductive, aren't they? 

Badger/cadger: the badger is either trying to persuade you to sell at a
lower price than you want to, or else to buy at a higher price, and
badgering is the relentless force of persuasion either way; the cadger would
seem to become something other than the normal sense when going to that kind
of length to cadge.

The higgle/haggle one is intriguing because the sense in which 'higgle' was
often used was of someone who bought cheap (like a piglet instead of a pig)
with a view to bringing back to market at a profit later. Presumably they'd
haggle about it then, maybe even with the previous owner!

Both of them have to do with social change: both badger & higgler were
regulated & licenced by act of parliament. In the case of badgers, along
with kidders, laders and couriers, all engaged in moving stuff around the
country; apart from the courier, all three seem to be Teutonic words,
suggesting a class emerging from among the peasantry.

If I can persuade some economic historian that these characters are the
emerging English entrepreneur, then maybe a geographical correlation with
evidence of word-use could be made.

Agricultural produce and intentional fields -- make up your own jokes,
folks! I was meaning to look into Saussure, but got sidetracked a long way
back. Ended up with Peirce instead. Now I suppose Peirce would go with an
explanation along the lines of a Polya urn: you've got two alternatives,
both of which are known in a community, both of which are propagated in
social contact. Given any pair, one will come to be more used than the
other, but how much more used -- whether the more widely-used term gains a
monopoly -- is random. Random events, like some prominent person having a
name that reminds folk of one term or other, tends to have a seeding effect.
So, without the Scottish preacher's name being the reason why people
_started_ using the term 'cant' in that particular way, it may have
contributed to them _continuing_ to use the term.

P

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Robin Hamilton
> Sent: 29 August 2007 04:47
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Rodent's Return
> 
> Peter:
> 
 
> I like the approach via one term replacing the other -- very much what I'm
> suggesting with mort=>blowen.  I'm almost feeling that the way that one
term
> replaces another in a semantic field is more important than etymological
> genesis.  Dunno quite how far I'd carry the argument, but.  It seems to
work
> best in a restricted area, as with morts and blowens both being local to
> thieves' cant.
> 
> Bit like extending Saussure's synchronic moment (and just how long *was
> that?) into a diachronic perspective.  A General Theory of Semantics ...
> 
> (Some things Mark was saying about Intentional Fields seemed to me to link
> into this too.  But my brain's getting soggy this late.  Early. So I might
> be right off-beam there.)
> 
> [Just discovered that it's possible to track all the 237 entries by Harman
> cited in the OED and shove them into a spreadsheet and shuffle them.
> Whee!!!
> 
> Maybe it's time I got a life ...
> 
>         <g>  ]
> 
> 
> > Would be interesting if higgling was derived from
> > a proper name. I guess Higgen is a not-unusual Irish/tinker name,
though?
> 
> Um, maybe, but it often works in reverse.  It seems to not be the case
that
> the shift/extension of "cant"=thieves' speech to "cant"=hypocritical
speech
> because of the name of a Scottish preacher wasn't the case, for example.
> 
> Higgen seems a bit like Hog, or something -- generic term for a rustic?
But
> Mark might have a sharper take than me on this, vis a vis Restoration
> dramatic names.
> 
> Robin