Dobber, Dauber

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Jerry Davis calling from Reno, Nevada.

Hi, Jerry. Welcome.

What can we do for you?

So I have a question for you guys. I grew up in rural Nevada, and the older members in my family would always say a certain phrase if somebody was down in the dumps or upset about something. They would say, don’t get your dauber in the dirt or keep your dauber out of the dirt.

And so I started saying that. And the first time I said it to my boss in the newsroom a couple of years ago, he was just sort of aghast. Like, I think he thought it was a euphemism for something less appropriate.

So I’m curious if you guys would know anything about the origins of that phrase.

So say it again. Keep your dauber out of the dirt or don’t get your dauber in the dirt.

And tell us about dauber. You’d spell that how?

B-A-U-B-E-R.

Oh, okay. So like a paint dauber, maybe.

I was thinking that it had to do with mud daubers or mud wasps that roll their nests. And so your boss thought it was a part of the male anatomy or the female anatomy or something else?

I think he thought it was a euphemism for the male anatomy.

The male anatomy.

Oh.

Okay. Right. So like those, that’s why I was thinking paint dauber, the foam on sticks that you might use to touch up woodwork and moldings when you’re painting a house.

I was thinking of mud dauber, and I think of them as putting their little abdomens in the mud.

Oh, interesting. Okay, gotcha.

Like the little wasp kind of insect.

Yeah, we called them dirt daubers in Missouri when I was growing up. But yeah, the same thing, these wasps.

So you use this, and everybody in your family knows this?

Yep, everybody in my family. You’d hear it from the older folks, and then all of us kids, too.

And do they think of it as naughty?

No, absolutely not. It was just meant to say, hey, don’t be bummed out, don’t pout, that kind of thing.

Yeah. And you’re Nevada through and through or from elsewhere?

Nope, Nevada. For sure. Homegrown.

It’s not that common, Martha, is it? This has got some history to it.

It’s not that well known, but it will pop up in slang dictionaries and dialect dictionaries here and there. Usually, though, it’s spelled D-O-B-B-E-R, although you will find it is D-A-U-B-E-R.

Many folks think there’s a connection to fishing bobbers because there is a part of this country that spells it, calls fishing bobbers, you know, the things that hold your hook and bait in place, you know, that’s on the top of the water and shows you when you have a fish strike.

Some people do call those daubers because that’s what they’re called in Dutch. The idea is that if your dauber is down and the fish isn’t on the line, then it means you’re probably tangled in a snag.

Although that kind of seems like a weak definition to me. And the mud dauber and dirt dauber, I don’t know what the connection would be there.

But the real origin is probably an English dialect word for lump, L-U-M-P, which was also used for anything extraordinary in size. Specifically, a dauber used in the game of marbles, which was much larger than other marbles.

Some descriptions have it as the size of a limit. So think of your ordinary marble and then think of this dauber that you would play with. Maybe after school in the gutter alongside the street, you would try to knock your friend’s marbles out of the gutter with this huge other marble made of clay dauber.

And this is as far back as the 1860s. So I don’t understand exactly why that’s a negative. It sounds like a positive because when you knock those marbles out, you get to keep them usually in the game of marbles.

But anyway, it probably goes back to this idea of having this extraordinarily large dauber, which is a good and great thing.

Not naughty at all, then.

Not naughty at all.

So there’s a kind of inversion there. And somewhere along the way, by the early 1900s, it came to mean kind of this upbeat spirit and enthusiasm. Usually the expression is something like, don’t get your dauber down or her dauber perked up again or things like that.

So it’s about good mood or spirits.

That is fascinating.

Grant, Martha, thank you guys so much. I’ve actually been curious about that ever since the incident at work that I had to explain my way out of.

And I, of course, told him that it was the mud wasp.

Yeah, so have HR call us and we’ll get you off the hook.

Yeah, cool.

Jerry, thanks for calling.

Take care now.

You too.

Bye-bye.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, you know, there’s something you said at work that you almost got into trouble for and you’re still sorting it out. I bet you that Martha and I can figure that out for you.

777-929-9673.

Words@waywordradio.org.

Or tell the sordid tale on Twitter @wayword.