Feather Merchant

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Janine Hillegas, and I reside in Charleston, South Carolina.

Charleston, South Carolina. Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you, Janine?

I was born in southwestern Pennsylvania, nothing but little coal mining villages, very ethnic, Eastern European, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Czechoslovakian. And the folks there, I heard it from my parents as well as my grandparents and childhood friends.

If you encountered someone when we’d be driving about the countryside that had a lot of junk, like mattresses thrown down over the hillside or washing machines, refrigerators, and just disheveled their surroundings, my family would say, oh, they’re nothing but feather merchants. And this is, I believe, unique to that area because any time I’ve asked others, they are totally unfamiliar with it. And I guess it just means someone trashy or lazy is what I concluded as a child.

Well, Janine, I’m wondering, do any of those family members who use the term feather merchant in a derogatory way, do any of them have any military in their background?

No, definitely not.

Interesting.

Yeah, it surprises me.

Yeah, it surprises me too because, of course, there really were feather merchants in the past, you know, in the 1800s. Those were business people who literally sold feathers for use in clothes making and pillows and things like that. But in the mid-20th century in this country, the term feather merchant took on another kind of meaning, specifically among members of the U.S. Military.

It referred to somebody who was kind of a lightweight, like a feather, somebody who is a weakling, or somebody who shirks responsibility, or maybe has an undeservedly cushy job. And the term was used specifically to refer to civilians. People in the military would refer to civilians as feather merchants. You know, they were lightweights. They didn’t put their lives on the line. They didn’t have to obey the chain of command. And so you can see how a dismissive term like that, that’s why I was asking if there were any military connection, because it was kind of a dismissive term referring to civilians.

Isn’t that interesting because I have been sitting here going through my head in terms of military experience. And my one uncle was in the army in the early 60s. However, I really never heard it from him. That was on my paternal side. But I, you know, just recently was asking my 88 year old dad, you know, and he said that the coal mines at one time, there was like a migration from Kentucky to that specific area. I know there was Route 23 people seeking employment in the north, but this was specific to the coal mines, I believe because it was like union wages or whatever. And he said there was an influx of folks, and they kind of kept their environment junky and were not neat and tidy and somewhat slackers.

So I thought maybe it had to do with like they threw their mattress and migrated, hence the feathers, a feather bed. But no one could ever explain it.

What do you think about the shirker or lazy part of the explanation Martha gave?

Well, I think that was pretty apropos in terms of, you know, how they would look at the environment and say they’re nothing but a feather merchant. Because, again, they were kind of lazy or unmotivated. So that aspect of it definitely makes sense.

So I appreciate it.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

And we should point out it’s not at all localized like that. It’s well beyond Pennsylvania.

Yeah, it’s widespread across the United States. As a matter of fact, there are occasional uses of it before the mid-20th century, maybe going back 2,000 years old. But it’s always hard to tell in the past whether or not they meant it literally or figuratively. There are some uses that look like they meant it to mean somebody who was not on the up and up.

Thank you for your call, Janine. We appreciate it. Take care.

You too.

Bye, and I really enjoy your show. I’ve learned a lot.

Thank you very much.

Call again sometime.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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