'What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone, 'was, that
the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.'
The 'caucus' was first used in John Adams's diary (back in the day) (Adams
would become the second president of the USA). Adams wrote (I'm
paraphrasing slightly),
"Dear Diary,
This day I learned that the Caucus Club meets at certain times in the
garret of Tom Dawes.There they drink eggnog"
The club members were all in "the ship business", and the implicature was
soon invited (by the classicists) that 'caucus' was, a Latin word for the
north wind. Others (such as Pickering) thought it was a corruption of
'caulkers' club', i.e. a club for those responsible for sealing the seams
between
a ship's panks with tar). It was because it was a corruputed form that
Pickering goes on to qualify 'caucus' as a "cant word" "never [to be] used in
good writing."
The Century Dictionary (classicist, too) suggested is is a Latinate
form, but not for the north wind ('caucus') but a Roman form of original
Greek 'kaukos', 'cup', an obvious implicature where the eggnog would be drunk
from.
Since the Caucus Club members, before moving to Tom Dawes's attic, met
at Cooke's House, it was suggested that the invited implicature was
"Cooke's House Club" ("Raising the problem as to why the kept the location in
the
NAME of the club when the club MOVED location. But implicatures are like
that").
Finally, Trumbull, hardly a classicist, thinks it's a corruption of an
Algonquin word (not to be confused with a word used at the Algonquin in
New York), to wit: cau’-cau-as’u -- and that the club should best be spelled
the Cau'-Cau-As'U Club (shortened to Caucus Club). In Algonquin,
'cau'-cau-as'u' means "one who advises, urges, encourages".
Trumbull's hypothesis of a native origin of the caucus had appeared in
a slightly differently spelt form in John Smith’s "Generall Historie of
Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles" (which incidentally he visited
in Autumn). Smith notes,
"In all these places is a severall commander, which they call Werowance,
except the Chickahamanians, who are governed by the Assistants called
Caw-cawwassoughes."
It would have originally been the Caw-cawwassoughes Club, shortened to The
Caucus Club.
Trumbull argues that Native American lexems were often adopted by clubs
and secret associations (since they often invite implicatures which are by
definition somewhat 'secret').
The fact that each meeting of the Caucus Club started with a recitation of
"To the North Wind" invites the implicature that Latin 'caucus' (north
wind) was meant, but the fact that the second activity was to pour the eggnog
on the 'caucus' (cup) may have a Griceian think that the club members are
merely flouting, roughly, one of Grice's maxims, 'avoid ambiguity' (a
sub-maxim of 'be perspicuous'), and in general, the desideratum of 'clarity'.
Cheers,
Speranza
Grice, "Clarity is not enough".
Lewis, "Clarity is not enough: remarks on Grice."
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