Posted on 08/12/2012 7:31:27 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For those who are curious as to the origin of the phrase: “I’m your huckleberry...”
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To be one’s huckleberry — usually as the phrase I’m your huckleberry — is to be just the right person for a given job, or a willing executor of some commission. Where it comes from needs a bit more explaining.
First a bit of botanical history. When European settlers arrived in the New World, they found several plants that provided small, dark-coloured sweet berries. They reminded them of the English bilberry and similar fruits and they gave them one of the dialect terms they knew for them, hurtleberry, whose origin is unknown (though some say it has something to do with hurt, from the bruised colour of the berries; a related British dialect form is whortleberry).
Very early on — at the latest 1670 — this was corrupted to huckleberry.
As huckleberries are small, dark and rather insignificant, in the early part of the nineteenth century the word became a synonym for something humble or minor, or a tiny amount. An example from 1832: “He was within a huckleberry of being smothered to death”. Later on it came to mean somebody inconsequential. Mark Twain borrowed some aspects of these ideas to name his famous character, Huckleberry Finn. His idea, as he told an interviewer in 1895, was to establish that he was a boy “of lower extraction or degree” than Tom Sawyer.
Also around the 1830s, we see the same idea of something small being elaborated and bombasted in the way so typical of the period to make the comparison a huckleberry to a persimmon, the persimmon being so much larger that it immediately establishes the image of something tiny against something substantial.
There’s also a huckleberry over one’s persimmon, something just a little bit beyond one’s reach or abilities; an example is in David Crockett: His Life and Adventures by John S C Abbott, of 1874: “This was a hard business on me, for I could just barely write my own name. But to do this, and write the warrants too, was at least a huckleberry over my persimmon”.
Quite how I’m your huckleberry came out of all that with the sense of the man for the job isn’t obvious. It seems that the word came to be given as a mark of affection or comradeship to one’s partner or sidekick. There is often an identification of oneself as a willing helper or assistant about it, as here in True to Himself, by Edward Stratemeyer, dated 1900: “ ‘I will pay you for whatever you do for me.’ ‘Then I’m your huckleberry. Who are you and what do you want to know?’ ”. Despite the obvious associations, it doesn’t seem to derive directly from Mark Twain’s books.
I thought it was “I’m here, huckleberry.”. Or rather, “uhm heeyah, huckleberry.”
Most interesting post I have read in a long time from anyone.
Thanks for the info, I did wonder about the origin of the phrase.
Val Kilmer and Micheal Biehn - two of the best looking men in Hollywood in the 90’s. That is STILL one of my all time favorite movies. (Kurt Russell gets better with age)
Some GREAT one liners!
I thought it came from the movie “Bladerunner”.
just kidding, of course.
“Say when.”
It was his best part ever. That movie was phenomenal.
it is one of the few I own.
Please. Romney is no Doc Holiday. More llke Blazing Saddle’s Howard Johnson. A rasberry, not a huckleberry.
“are you gonna do something, or just stand there and bleed?”
A Latin lesson from the movie TOMBSTONE (1993)
Doc Holliday (acting careless, drunk, and not looking very well):
“That’s the rumor.”
Johnny Ringo:
“You retired too?”
Doc Holliday:
“Not me. I’m in my prime.”
Johnny Ringo (sarcastically):
“Yeah, you look it.”
Doc Holliday:
“And you must be Ringo. Look, darling, it’s Johnny Ringo. The deadliest pistoleer since Wild Bill, they say. What do you think, darling? Should I hate him?”
Kate:
“You don’t even know him.”
Doc Holliday:
“Yes, but there’s just something about him.
Something around the eyes, I don’t know, reminds me of ... me. No. I’m sure of it. I hate him.”
Wyatt Earp (to Curly Bill and Johnny, holding up his hands in a peace-making gesture):
“He’s drunk.”
Doc Holliday (taking another drink from his tin cup):
“In vino veritas.”
[ a Roman proverb that translates to “In wine, is the truth” ]
Johnny Ringo:
“Age quod agis.”
[ literally translates to: “do what you are doing” meaning: “Pay attention to what you are doing” or “You’d better be careful” or “Watch what you say” ]
Doc Holliday:
“Credat Iudaeus Apella, non ego.
[ a phrase from a work by Horace, literally: “Let Apella believe it; not I.” meaning: “I don’t believe you” or in this case “I do not fear you.” ]
Johnny Ringo (patting his revolver):
“Luventus stultorum magister.”
[ “Youth is the teacher of fools” or “fools must be taught by experience.” ]
Doc Holliday (half-whispering and with a heightened intensity):
“In pace requiescatum.”
[ “Rest in peace”. ]
Tombstone Marshal Fred White:
“Come on boys. We don’t want any trouble in here. Not in any language.”
Doc Holliday:
“Evidently Mr. Ringo’s an educated man. Now I really hate him.”
Yes that was a great scene. Dualing shot cups, crazy eyes.
Fantastic movie.
I have the DVD, I think that I will watch it this afternoon.
I love the pick, and I’m upbeat. But let me caution everyone to remember how excited we were when Palin was named, and many people had the same platitudes about her and her impact on the campaign. But there is always pushback, and we haven’t begun to see the Ryan pushback, the gaffes that EVERYONE makes (especially Zero)-—but which the press will dwell on. Just be prepared. I don’t think a lot of people here were prepared for the Palin blowback. They thought because she was young and attractive well-spoken conservative she would automatically avoid some of the attacks. Same comments I hear about Ryan, how he’s so young and attractive (true) but let’s not be fooled. The enemy is preparing right now the assault.
Thanks, SAF.
w, s ping....
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