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Friday, 30 December 2022

Where does strapped for cash come from?

Has the phrase "strapped for cash" ever struck you as being an odd phrase? It has me, and so I finally got off my backside to try to find out where it comes from.

A look at the shorter OED (Simpson & Weiner, 1989) says that, while "strapped" may have started in the UK to explain belting (a strapped box), then moved to 'binding' (a coat with strapped seams), the term 'strapped for cash'  appears to be a US slang adjective from the mid-19th century: 

"slang (orig. U.S.). Short of money. Now freq[uently] const[ructed using] for. Also in extended use and cash-strapped adj. 1857 Nat. Intelligencer Oct., (Bartlett) No go. Lowndes is strapped. 1876 Daily News 5 Oct. 6/1 The tramp.. does not awaken sympathy like the ‘strapped’ journeyman in search of a job. 1913 Edith Wharton Custom of Country 1. iv. 44 ‘Fact is,..’ he said, ..‘I’m a little mite strapped just this month.’ 1935 Sun (Baltimore) 13 Mar. 2/6 PWA is not yet ‘strapped’ for funds. 1936 L. C. Douglas White Banners ix. 193 If he had been strapped, the chances were he would have bought a hat to-day. 1936 M. Franklin All that Swagger xlviii. 437 Also she was strapped for ready money" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 850)

What is interesting is that the term is first "strapped" and only later - in 1935 - do we get the first apparent usage of strapped "for funds" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 850) appearing. This is the use that I know here in Aotearoa: we don't tend to turn this around and hyphenate it (i.e. cash-strapped), except in headlines. 

I had always assumed that 'strapped for cash' was to do with strapping, the final stage of grooming a horse, where the horse is 'strapped' with a hay wisp as a massage technique. However, while I could not find this meaning in the dictionary, I did find the following entry for the UK dialect term, 'strapper':

"1777 Terrier in J. P. Briscoe Old Nottinghamsh[ire] (1881) 37 Item: For every Milch Cow a composition of twopence, and for every Strapper (a cow that yields but little milk [Ed.]) one penny halfpenny. 1854 Miss Baker Northampt. Gloss., Strappers, cows that are nearly dry, that yield little milk" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 850).

Perhaps 'strapper' got picked up in the US as a low-yield situation? It is a possibility.

But then, lo! Strapped for cash comes back into UK English with P. G. Wodehouse's character, the Honourable Galahad Threepwood (1952), or Gally, who finds himself:

"1952 WODEHOUSE Pigs Have Wings i. 23 A bit strapped for the ready, eh?" (p. 850)

Wodehouse, eh? He moved to the US after World War II, due to his German broadcasts being misconstrued as him being a collaborator (McCrum, 2001), and being persecuted in the UK. He may have picked the term up, then introduced it back into UK English, and so to the Commonwealth nations. A possibility. 

I hope someone is able to do some more digging on this.


Sam

References:

McCrum, R. (2004). Wodehouse: A life. W. W. Norton & Company.

Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (Eds.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., Vol XVI Soot-Styx). Clarendon Press.

Wodehouse, P. G. (1952). Pigs Have Wings. Herbert Jenkins Ltd.

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