The phrase “don’t cabbage that,” meaning “don’t steal that,” may derive from the old practice of tailors’ employees taking scraps of leftover fabric, which, gathered up in one’s hands, could resemble a pile of cabbage leaves. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Cabbaging”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Bruce.
Hi, Bruce. How you doing?
Hey, Bruce.
I’m doing very well. It’s so good to talk with both of you.
It’s good to talk with you, too. Where are you calling us from?
The Tampa Bay, Florida area.
Excellent. What can we do for you?
My wife and I spent a week in Fort Myers, Florida earlier, or just this past summer, and we visited the Thomas Edison Winter Estate.
And it was fascinating.
It was such a wonderful place to visit.
There was a plaque describing the rules of the Seminole Cottage.
That’s what they called the estate there in Fort Myers.
And Thomas Edison’s oldest child, Madeline, she was the only daughter, had a very funny wit, very quick-witted, and they said sometimes even caustic.
Her name was Madeline.
And one of the rules for the guest at the Seminole Cottage was, don’t cabbage unto yourself all the fish poles.
This has been done by guests, thereby incurring the grave disapproval of the entire family.
I had never heard the word cabbage used in such a way, and I thought that it was worth sharing with you.
And you took cabbage to mean what?
To gather all the fish poles to yourself.
Instead of sharing them, bathing them all up and putting them in the water so you have a greater chance of catching all the fish.
Okay.
I’ve never heard fish pole before.
I’ve always heard fishing pole.
That’s interesting.
Me too.
Fish poles.
I thought that was equally as unique.
Yes.
And to cabbage unto yourself?
That’s almost biblical.
I know.
The unto, I think.
That’s right.
The 11th commandment.
Thou shalt not cabbage unto thyself.
All the fish poles.
There’s a long history to this.
It comes up now and again because it’s not completely archaic.
Cabbage, a verb meaning to take, pilfer, steal, plagiarize.
And it’s got 400 years history or so in the tailoring business.
There’s long been a custom among people who make clothes that if someone gives you a bolt of fabric to make, they say, a suit or a dress, that you get to keep the extras, the remnants, the scraps, and whatever little bit is left on the roll.
And that is called cabbaging, or actually the material itself is called the cabbage.
We don’t know why exactly.
There are a couple of French verbs that maybe it comes from.
More than likely, it just looks like a bunch of cabbage leaves.
Maybe the pile of scraps that you’re going to turn into, say, a pillow or a tie or a hat or something.
Maybe they look like a bunch of lettuce or cabbage leaves.
And then quickly, though, that kind of came borrowed probably about 50 years later, starts showing up just to mean to to crib, as in like when you crib somebody’s notes, that means you steal the school notes of the kid who sits next to you or to plagiarize.
And it becomes broader over time just to mean to steal or even just to take without the intention of depriving somebody else.
You’re probably going to give it back.
But you borrow with some force without getting permission first.
And then now we have it today where apparently it just means to hog things.
So hogging all the fishing poles for yourself.
How about that?
Very interesting.
Yeah, cool, right?
Yes, very cool.
Thank you so much for calling.
Thanks, Bruce.
It’s my pleasure.
Thank you both.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Here’s a quote.
Either the cutter or the proprietor might sell the cabbage privately and not put the money through the books.
So cabbage is a noun meaning the thing that was taken.
Oh.
And there may be some connection here to illicitly gotten money.
And the connection there is more clear green leaves of money.
Like lettuce.
Lettuce is slang for money too, right?
So much stuff all rolled up into one word.
