Jingo and Jingoism

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Katie calling from East Thetford.

Is this Grant and Martha?

It is, yeah.

It is indeed.

Where are you calling from, Katie?

Sorry, East Thetford, Vermont.

Vermont.

Gotcha.

Welcome to the show.

What’s up?

Well, I was talking to a friend of mine.

We were talking about the upcoming election, and I referred to a particular candidate as being a little bit too jingoistic for my taste.

Then my friend looked at me quizzically, and I had to explain what it meant.

So I was thinking, well, maybe it’s just a word that I use, but then talking to my brother, and he used the word, too.

So I didn’t know if it was just my family likes to use words that nobody else uses or if it’s a word that’s considered archaic or is still really in use.

And Katie, what do you mean by jingoistic?

I think of it as being overly patriotic, kind of the whole my country, love it or leave it sort of thing.

And if you don’t agree with me, you’re just not a real patriot.

Right, which is a hard charge to defend yourself from.

So jingoism has a particular edge to it.

Yeah, because I sort of believe that if you really love your country, you don’t miss the flaws also.

Yeah, I think of it as being a parent to a child, which is you criticize your child quite a bit, but you still love them with all your heart.

Right. You want to make them better.

You want to make them better, yeah. Make good adults out of them, right?

Yeah.

So your curiosity is, what is jingoistic? What is jingoism? Where does it come from? Is it a rare word? Is it just something that the two of you use?

Is it an use or is this something that just only a handful of people know?

It’s something that journalists love, definitely newspaper columnists love.

You do find it in people who are heavily into politics.

It’s never been all that common, but it’s never been completely unused either.

It’s definitely not archaic.

Just to do a Google News search, for example, you’ll find several hits every week somewhere in the country or somewhere in the English-speaking world.

And it’s got a curious history.

It comes from the United Kingdom from, I guess you’d call it a drinking hall song.

Oh, yeah.

There was a particular war.

I believe it was the Russo-Turkish War.

And Britain was involved.

And there was a song that came out that had a verse that something like, we don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do, we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and got the money too.

And this song was a huge hit.

And that particular word, so this is 1800s, what, 1878-ish, something around there?

Yeah, you can find recordings of this song.

You have to have a mug in your hand and swing your hand.

I mean, it compels you to do that.

And it’s by somebody called Gilbert McDermott.

So just look for the By Jingo song by McDermott, and you’re bound to find it on YouTube or somewhere else on the Internet.

But that particular line, By Jingo if we do, caught the fancy of people.

And not much later, not even a year later, people who were jingos were people who had this strong national pride that we were going to fight and win, or the British were going to fight and win and come out on top in that battle.

And before you know it, it converted into other forms of speech, and we use it even today.

So you’re part of a long tradition, 100 plus years.

Yeah, my father was a very newspaper type person.

I mean, I still get the newspaper.

I think my brothers and sisters will read it online.

But my father used to get several newspapers.

You think that’s who you got it from?

Probably.

By Jingo or high Jingo was a phrase for a long time.

It’s kind of a, that is an older form of, what should we call this, a minced oath, kind of a really super polite way of saying by God or by Jesus.

So by Jingo itself goes back even older.

People say by Jingo, but that’s usually a feel like they’re saying, by Jingo, let’s put on a show.

Yeah, exactly.

But they’re connected.

The by-jingo in the song comes from that expression, which is much older, and is one of probably 50 to 100 different ways we have to say by God or by Jesus in English without actually using those words.

Cool. Thank you for your call, Katie. Glad to help.

You’re very welcome.

Take care now.

Thanks for talking to me.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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