Transcript of “Galley-West, Collywest, and Variants”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Good afternoon. How are you doing out there in California?
I’m all right. Who am I talking to and where are you?
My name is Frederick Kohler. I live in Valdosta, which is South Georgia.
Well, there’s an expression, knock Gally West.
And I read about it in some book and it referred to, I believe,
Mark Twain may have first used it in the United States and he gets some credit for it.
It’s an interesting and intriguing expression to me.
It might mean to knock something into or break something into smithereens,
But I wanted to get your take on that expression, knock, galley west,
Two words, knock and galley west, or just galley west,
What it might mean from your studies.
So spell that for us, if you would, knock galley west.
Okay, knock is just like knock down a tree,
And Gally West is G-A-L-L-E-Y-W-E-S-T.
So the first word is K-N-O-C-K.
Yes.
And you said it was something like to break something into smithereens.
Well, to knock Gally West sounds like, yeah, that’s supposed to mean something like that.
Okay, gotcha.
To really destroy or obliterate something, yes.
And tell us again what you heard about Mark Twain.
I heard that Mark Twain first used the expression in his book, which I read years ago, Life on the Mississippi.
Okay.
Yeah.
I wouldn’t be surprised.
He was in touch with language, Martha.
He just had an ear for things.
Yes.
And he did use this term several times, although he’s not the first person to do that.
But I remember that in Huck Finn, he’s talking about Huck trying to play a trick on Aunt Sally and she gets mad and she grabs up this basket and slams it across the house and knocked the cat Galley West.
So, yeah, sort of knocked it really hard and sent it flying.
But, yeah, you’re right.
Knock Galley West means to send everything into confusion, send everything into all directions.
I think of wearing a pearl necklace and somehow the string breaks and all the beads go galley west.
They go all over the place, just like you said.
But it was around before Mark Twain, and actually we think that it’s a variant of a word that goes all the way back to the 16th century,
Which is the word collywest or collywestin, which in England meant crooked or awry or
Generally just messed up or disordered. And beyond that, we don’t know where this term comes from. It
Might come from a person’s name or there is a village in the middle of England called Collywestin.
And this village is known for producing slate that people use on roofs, you know, to make
They use it to make shingles. And there is a story that the folks there in Colley Weston
Sold their best pieces of slate for the highest prices and then furnished their own roofs with
Irregular pieces, less desirable ones that made their roofs all look messy or crooked. So there
Is a story like that floating around, but we really don’t know if that’s if that’s true. But
But you will find this expression, galley west or not galley west or go galley west, scattered throughout, especially the northern United States.
And where did you run across it?
Was it in reading Twain?
No, it was in a, I think it was in some kind of dictionary of unusual expressions.
And as you know, I think it was called a browser’s dictionary, but that was years ago.
I don’t have the dictionary anymore.
As you know, Mark Twain was very literate, and he was infatuated with the West, and he wrote a book called Roughing It.
I think it was used in newspapers, different articles.
But I have an expression where I can – a time when I can express my use of Galley West.
When I was in second grade, I got late – I was late getting back to class, and our lockers were on the side of our – inside of our room.
And I had to hurry and get my metal lunchbox, which we had in those days, full of marbles into my locker.
And as I was opening the locker, somehow the lid on my metal lunchbox opened.
And all the marbles went all over the room.
I guess they were not Daly West.
And my teacher confiscated all of them.
And I was mortified and embarrassed at everything because I lost my marbles and I had to sit down.
You lost your marbles.
Like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.
That’s a perfect example.
I’m sorry, Fred.
That sounds like a terrible thing for a kid.
It’s a true story, and I look back on it fondly, but at the time, of course, I was just benumbed with anxiety and terror.
Oh, it’s terrible.
Well, listen, thank you for sharing your story with us, and thanks for your question.
We really appreciate it.
Thanks, Fred.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
All right.
Bye.
