Duffel Bag and Fabric

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Well, hello.

Hi, who’s this?

Well, this is Ken from Argyle, Texas.

Argyle, Texas. Welcome to the show.

Well, my grandson was in the attic stirring around the other day, and he came down with a green canvas bag about three feet long, and on it was stenciled my name and my Army service number. And inside, the only thing was a pair of combat boots that I was issued when I was in the Army in 1963.

Oh, my.

Well, you know, we got a laugh about him finding that. And then I got to thinking about, you know, at that time, we called that a duffel bag. My question is, where’d the word duffel come from, from this bag that, you know, when you’re in the Army, when you go from one place to another, everything you have has to go in that bag. And that’s how you carry it from one place to another.

Ken, my father was in the Army at about that time, so I know exactly the bag that you’re talking about. And he gave it to me, and I used that bag until it was nothing but rags. But I remember very distinctly having the stenciled name on the side, very sturdy stitching, just a really great utility bag.

Right, right. It was.

Yeah, and you’ve summed it up very well. You can spell it either D-U-F-F-E-L or D-U-F-F-L-E, but the original spelling was with E-L, and that’s because duffel bags were originally produced from a thick, coarse woolen cloth that was called duffel. And this cloth was manufactured in the Belgian province of Antwerp. There was a town called, it was spelled like duffel, but it was pronounced more like diffel. And so the duffel bag is made from that cloth and therefore called a duffel bag. And so duffel is actually one of many, many names of cloth that come from the town where they were produced. Like Damask is from Damascus. And what else, Grant?

Kashmir is from the Kashmir region in the Himalayas. Gene and denim and madras.

Yeah, madras.

Muslim comes from Mosul in Iraq. So it has to do with the name of the cloth. But I have a question for you, which is, did you refer to the contents of the bag as your duffel as well? If you were referring to the entirety.

Yeah.

You might say, you know, is your duffel on the truck?

Right, right. Well, you understood that meant is the bag, but is also the contents because they were all one thing as far as we were concerned.

Right, right.

Ken, we appreciate the call. Thank you for your questions on this. This is so interesting. I appreciate your call. Thank you very much. Take care of yourself.

-huh.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

For so many of the words that we say on a daily basis, there’s a story and a history. And Martha and I love to explore those stories and histories with you. Call or text toll-free 877-929-9673. And if you’re anywhere else in the world where that number doesn’t work, you can always go to our website at waywordradio.org and drop us a line.