Re: Laura Riding died (2/9/1991)

On 3/09/2024 9:03 p.m., Aidan Kehoe wrote:

   Ar an dara lá de mí Méan Fómhair, scríobh Ross Clark:
   > [...] *Some of the quiet and simple living was done in what Wiki calls a
  > "vernacular cracker house" at Vero Beach FL. Wiki links us to an article
  > describing this type of architecture:
  >
  > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_cracker_architecture
  >
  > I have always encountered "cracker" as a mildly offensive term, somewhat like
  > "redneck". It's interesting to see it being rehabilitated in this way.
 Interesting NPR article on it here, but no convincing etymology:
 https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/01/197644761/word-watch-on-crackers
 

Yes. I tend to prefer the etymology from cracker 'a boaster, a braggart, hence a liar' (from 1509; OED includes the King John quote here), from crack 'to boast, brag' (1470-).
There's a particularly valuable letter written by Gavin Cochrane, a British officer, to his superior, in 1766:
"Repeated complaints came from the Cherokees that white people
came into their hunting grounds and destroyed their beavers
which they said was everything to them. I acquainted Mr. Bull
of this and told him I would send orders to have those Beaverers
made prisoners; as also to deliver them up to any Civil Officer
he should appoint to receive them....[T]he Officer at Fort
Prince George told the Indians the orders he had received and
bid them seize the Beaverers and bring them to him without hurting
them. They brought three of those lawless people called CRACKERS,
who behaved with the greatest insolence and told the Officer they neither valued him nor the Lieut. Gov.r."
And further down:
"I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers,
a name they have got from being great boasters, they are a
lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland,
the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode."
(Mitford M.Mathews, 'Of matters lexicographical', American Speech
34(2):126-130 (1959).)
I remember even from childhood reading that the frontiersmen had developed bragging to a high art.
Andrew Jackson's unwillingness, some decades later, to say "no" to massed crackers demanding Cherokee land, was what led to the Trail of Tears. Or so I've been told.