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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Buc Up!
by jc

Greetings and salutations. Welcome to "Buc Up!" a chronicling of the Pittsburgh Pirates, baseball, and other teams (Penguins, Steelers, whoever else I feel like writing about at that point in time). Why "Buc Up!" and why not some other title, you may find yourself asking? Let us consult the dear Mr. Michael Quinion from World Wide Words:

"BUCK UP"

We use it now to suggest somebody should cheer up, and not be downhearted or oppressed by circumstances. It is a phrase from nineteenth century Britain, derived from those bucks or dandies who were regarded as the acme of snappy dressing in the Regency period. (In its turn, that word came from buck in the sense of the animal, and had a slightly older meaning still that suggested male gaiety or spirit, with unsubtle suggestions of rutting deer.)

In its dandyfied sense buck up first meant to dress smartly, for a man to get out of those comfortable old clothes and into something drop-dead gorgeous. Since to do so was often a fillip to the spirit, the phrase shifted sometime around the 1880s to its modern meaning. It seems to have been public school slang to start with, probably from Winchester College, and rather stiff-upper-lip British. It could suggest that the person being addressed should stop acting like a wuss, ninny or coward, as here from Edith Nesbit’s The Wouldbegoods of 1901: “Be a man! Buck up!”, and was something of a cliché at one time in stories of Englishmen abroad bravely facing adversity.

From the early years of the twentieth century, it could also be an injunction on somebody to get a move on or hurry up; here’s an example, from D H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers of 1913: “ ‘Half-past eight!’ he said. ‘We’d better buck up’ ”.

And there you have it, my dear reader. If you are a Pirate fan, and by reading this blog you must have at least a small interest in the affairs of the Corsairs, then you know that of which I speak. Fifteen years of losing, going on Sweet (Sour?) Sixteen and yet time and time again we are told by management to look on the bright side of things, that hope springs eternal, that this rebuilding will actually work. Perhaps this time it shall, but who are we to know? The only thing we can do is to "buck up" to cheer up, to hope. And meanwhile we in turn ask those in charge of said rebuilding to "buck up" to speed it along, to start winning. Otherwise we risk being witness to another series of Bonifay and Littlefieldesque "buck ups" and mistakes.

So join me, dear reader, as we attempt to explore the lighter side of being a Pirate fan...

Posted on: August 19, 2008 at 08:59 AM EST | |

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