Bangs
Posted by Victor on April 06, 2003 at 21:34:42: Previous Next
I did some research on the origin of the work "bangs" at one time, and it turns out the origins of the word are rather murky.
Most references state that it comes from bangtail, which is slang for racehorse. One source that I used, indicated that bangtail came from bagtail. This seems odd, because I don't think racehorses typically had bags to catch their poop, which is one thought for what bagtail might mean.
For horse-drawn carriages, it's common practise to include a bag to catch the poop. Sometimes the horse's tail hair is cut to avoid its getting soiled in the bag. This is usually a blunt cut (the end is cut bang off).
I had one person inform me that bag tail actually refers to a rat. How that relates to hair, I don't know. This connection is probably just a coincidence of terms.
Getting back to racehorses, for trotters, the tail is sometimes cut to keep the tail from whipping the eyes of the sulky driver (revenge of the horse?).
Another resource states that the source of the word is [dial. bangled, hanging loosely, flapping < bangle, v.t., freq. of bang].
An old meaning of bang is cudgel, and perhaps the cropped tail simply looked like a cudgel, hence the name.
Most references I found referred to the United States. However, I read somewhere that in Australia, there was the practice of counting cattle by banging the tails as they were corralled and counting the locks.
Re: Bangs
Posted by Gollan on April 07, 2003 at 10:34:39: Previous Next
In Reply to: Bangs posted by Victor on April 06, 2003 at 21:34:42:
Thank you for the interesting report on "bangs". Except for slang Canadian english normally follows British english more closely than it does American english so I was surprised to find the word "bangs" is used in both Canada and America but not in the UK.
Now if someone could explain the meaning of "fringe" I'd be all set to discuss hair in english in three countries!
Re: Bangs/Fringe
Posted by Victor on April 07, 2003 at 12:18:52: Previous Next
In Reply to: Re: Bangs posted by Gollan on April 07, 2003 at 10:34:39:
Perhaps I can segue into this. In the musical Oklahoma, there is a song "Surrey with the Fringe on Top". A surrey is a horse-drawn carriage. The fringe is the decoration around the top, kind of like tassles. So if these carriages were drawn by banged horses, I guess you'd have bangs in front, and fringes above.
A fringe is basically an edge with threads dangling from it. It probably comes from Latin fimbra.
Re: Bangs
Posted by Resonance on April 07, 2003 at 20:26:26: Previous Next
In Reply to: Bangs posted by Victor on April 06, 2003 at 21:34:42:
I did some research on the origin of the work "bangs" at one time, and it turns out the origins of the word are rather murky.
heh, thanks for the research! Those are certainly some very confusing origins. How on earth did it come into popular usage as a way of referring to human hair?
Re: Bangs
Posted by baldie the eagle on April 08, 2003 at 00:11:27: Previous Next
In Reply to: Re: Bangs posted by Resonance on April 07, 2003 at 20:26:26:
: i>How on earth did it come into popular usage as a way of referring to human hair?
Probably because for earlier generations horses and other animals were part of everyday life, and so they viewed things in those terms.
Re: Bangs
Posted by Victor on April 09, 2003 at 00:31:08: Previous Next
In Reply to: Re: Bangs posted by baldie the eagle on April 08, 2003 at 00:11:27:
I wouldn't be surprised if the truth went something like this:
Common folks used horsedrawn carriages. The decent folks would attach bags behind the horses to catch the poop. Those that cared about the horses, banged the tails. Pretty soon, as people rode around town, they generally were watching banged horse tails as they went.
Along comes horse racing. First you have normal horse racing. Then there are the races where the driver is somehow behind the horse, necessitating control of the horse's tail. Either the tail could be braided (plaited) or banged.
Banged horses were derrogatorily referred to as bangtails, referring to the fact that they looked like they had tails banged for the bag. I say derrogatorily, because for racing, there is no need for the bag. So they have the banged tail but don't need it to keep out of the bag. A bag reference here would thus be derrogatory. Perhaps started by the jockeys or something.
The term was then transferred to the dumb blondes as a sort of precurser to dumb blonde jokes.
Re: Bangs or...
Posted by Hair Religion on April 08, 2003 at 00:14:17: Previous Next
In Reply to: Bangs posted by Victor on April 06, 2003 at 21:34:42:
How about just calling them "forehead strands"?