The Etymology of Hobo According to Stand-up Comics

So, as of late, I have taken to listening to comedy audiobooks.  I think this is the best way to take in a comedian's book, especially if that comedian is of the stand-up variety.

Interestingly, the two books I have most recently listened to provide an etymological history of the word "hobo."  More interestingly, these books provide two conflicting origins.

The first book was Patton Oswalt's Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland, a fantastic book, and well worth the time.  In his essay, "Those Old Hobo Songs, They Still Speak to Us," Oswalt describes the roots of this term as follows: “'hobos' (a slang term that combines the words 'hope' and 'bowl of beans given to me for free by a woman who then initiated intercourse').”

Oswalt's essay is a pseudo-academic (or perhaps not so pseudo) analysis of a few short hobo songs.  It's immensely entertaining and impressive.  He surprisingly, but effectively, establishes an ethos of authority and delivers one of the best essays in the book.  However, his ethos is undermined by the fact that he likely pulled all that information out of his arse.  That being said, I bought his story, and as I listened I felt had been edified, gifted with a new piece of etymological knowledge that may one day come in handy if I'm ever on a game show.

Then I listened to Jim Gaffigan's new book, Dad is Fat.  In his book, Gaffigan details the difficulty of raising five kids an a two bedroom apartment in New York City.  He goes on to say, "I should mention this apartment is on the Bowery in Manhattan. For those readers not presently recovering from heroin addiction who are familiar with this area of New York City, consider this: supposedly the term hobo comes from a description of the sketchy characters who were the main inhabitants on the cross streets of HOuston and BOwery. Hey, that’s right where I live. Isn’t that cool, hip, and ironic? The tiny overcrowded apartment where I’m raising my young children is in the same location where they manufacture homeless people. Location, location, location."

Gaffigan does not set himself up as an authority like Oswalt.  He goes so far as to use a qualifier, "supposedly."  Nevertheless, I am now stuck with these conflicting reports.  What am I to do?  Ask Google of course!

The Online Etymology Dictionary furnishes the following clarification  "Hobo (n.): 1889, Western U.S., of unknown origin. Barnhart compares early 19c. English dialectal hawbuck 'lout, clumsy fellow, country bumpkin.' Or possibly from ho, boy, a workers' call on late 19c. western U.S. railroads."

This is completely different from the two aforementioned theories.  I had to search further.

The Word Detective provides some more possible origins, stating, "There’s also a suggestion that 'hobo' is short for 'hopping boxcars,' and some maintain that 'hobo' is short for Hoboken, NJ, where many rail lines converged in the 19th century, making the city a natural gathering point for vagabonds."

Wikipedia, which as far as I am concerned should always be the authority, adds, "Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it could either come from the railroad greeting, 'Ho, beau!' or a syllabic abbreviation of 'homeward bound.'"

Needless to say, there are a lot of different explanations for this word's source. Personally, I like the "Homeward Bound" explanation, but that seems like one of the least likely.  I like Patton's idea, but I think he made it up entirely.  It's funny and seems like the kind of thing he'd say.  I think Gaffigan's source is doubtful too.  It's more likely to be coincidental than causal.

Anyways, that's way more info than anyone needs, but it's kind of cool.

On Presidents and PowerPoints

Recently a group of junior college TESOL students arrived at our school to put into practice the pedagogical knowledge they have so far acquired at their alleged institution of higher learning.  Frankly, I don't mind the disruptions to my schedule.  Who would complain about getting an hour off from work to watch an awkward twenty-something mumble nervously in front of a group of fifty students?  It's much better than being an awkward twenty-something mumbling nervously in front of a group of fifty students, that's for sure.

I'd like to think that I, though patently nervous from time to time, and certainly awkward, engage my students in some form of learning--at least most of the time.   I try, as much as possible, to get my students talking and engaging in other language oriented tasks.  Most of the time I have some measure of success.  These student teachers on the other hand appear to have no pedagogical framework.  Of the teachers I have so far observed, I have seen two mind numbingly inane and somniferous powerpoint presentations delivered without a trace of passion, insight, or even interest.

Abraham Lincoln

George Washington

All of this griping aside, the thing that concerns me most arose about ten minutes into a presentation about American holidays.  The teacher put up a whitewashed slide with the words "Presidents Day" emblazoned in, of course, red and blue comic sans font.  Beneath this insipid heading, our unimaginative lecturer copied and pasted the portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  When she weakly asked the class if they knew who these two men were, the students correctly identified both faces and one student even exuberantly screeched the words "cherry tree."

There's nothing of great concern in this, of course.  I have no bone to pick with the student teacher for her lack of engagement or her overall ineptitude or her horrendous powerpoint aesthetics (if such a seemingly oxymoronical concept exists); I mean, we've all been there.  What I do have a problem with is the students so quickly identifying the former leaders of the United States.  But even that doesn't capture my gripe. I have a problem with my imagined reversal of the whole scenario.

Sun Yat-sen

Chiang Kai-shek

Imagine this: A Taiwanese student teacher visits my seventh grade class in Utah--I'll even grant that this visitor addresses my students in English, since the entire hypothetical situation falls apart if the teacher were to mumble softly in Chinese because, c'mon, we don't have the time to learn other languages in America--and shows them portraits of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek.  Do you suppose that any of the students would be able to identify these men? I know I wouldn't have.  I fear that Alex Jones or some smart-aleck would make some kind of racist remark before anyone even had the chance to answer correctly. How large a group of students would we need to gather before we found a single student who could identify these men?  My hypothesis: we'd need to assemble a large enough group to have at least one Taiwanese exchange student or emigrant before we found a student who could identify them.  Hopefully, I am wrong.

One might invoke the retort that America is/was/has been the major world power for the last sixty years, and so its history is not only important to Americans but to the world, but I am not convinced that this is justifiable.  If there's anything that history has taught us/is teaching us it is that nothing happens in a closed box.  The social/political/economic/environmental dealings in China, India, Russia, Sudan, Brazil, Cambodia, and anywhere else you can point to on the globe impact the rest of us.  I'm not saying that we should memorize the presidents of every foreign nation, I'm just wondering if a little broader historical context might turn us into a more world-conscious, proactive, empathetic  and critically thinking country.  I'm also not saying we should emulate Taiwanese or any other country's education--that's a topic for another day.

To the person who raises the aforementioned retort, I would simply ask if being a world power justifies our ignorance of the rest of the world or our place in the world.  We have a plague in America, which is our naive acceptance of our perceived exceptionalism.  We believe, and are often taught, that America is the greatest country on earth and that God loves and blesses America and that everyone wants to be and American and that those who are Americans should be proud to be Americans.  We are so America-centric that we often forget that anything else exists (unless it is the "other," namely that which is to be feared: Muslims, North Koreans, etc).  What we need is consciousness.  We need to be aware of our neighbors and their histories and how they affects us today.  We need to escape our own egos and learn a little about someone else for a change.

I know there are Americans that do this, and I know that I am not entirely innocent of the biases I mention, but I believe that by expanding our understanding, and teaching our children about the world around us, we will be better equipped to take on the challenges we face as individuals and families, as a nation and as a world.