The Real Etymology of Thanksgiving

The website of the History Channel - History.com    provides a neat summary of the history of the first American Thanksgiving in the Plymouth settlement in America, which is marked as the year following the first 1620 settlement of those who sailed from Plymouth, England, to what they then, unimaginatively, named Plymouth - in America - where they settled:

'In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor Wiliam Bradford organized a celebratory feast andinvited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—.

THANKSGIVING the BigData-ID SUPERIOR ETYMOLOGY

Whilst Americans get together on the fourth Thursday in November every year for the sensational celebrations, the word Thanksgiving (and the term thanks giving) had been used regularly back in England and Scotland to name officially days of Christian religious celebration - usually in thanks for some kind of peace following military victory.Thanksgiving days were, therefore, a tradition brought over to the American colonies from England and Scotland.

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Nullius in Verba

The BigData-ID Method (See the freely available Chapter Two in my book: Nullius in Verba Darwin's greatest Secret)   , once again, just as it does in the case of theEaster Bunny, Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night, beats the Oxford English Dictionary and all other etymological sources to reveal the apparent first English-language use of the term thanksgiving day, as well as its apparent first use to refer to the American celebration - but not the one in Plymouth.

The Plymouth Brethren were far from being first with a Thanksgiving day in America.

There are in fact many contested cases in the USA for far earlier Thanksgiving days (see Coleman 2015)   . For example, see the 1622 publication of Virginia's Thanksgiving sermon of 1616.     Coleman's excellent evidence-led book explains that only a dreadfully poor historian would claim that the origin of the term 'thanksgiving day' or even the origin of the concept of the American holiday to celebrate it has its roots in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. The only reason so many American's have been fooled is because long powerful and dominant interest groups in America came from that region.

One again BigData-ID English Etymology beats the Oxford English Dictionary into a cocked hat!

The term "thanks giving" -

"Thanks giving" - England 1618   

The term "thanksgiving day"

"Thanks-giving day"- Apparently first published use in England 1648    and 1654 for Thanksgiving day   .

Thanksgiving day used in 1663 as a designated national celebratory day to mark a period of peace following civil conflict - England 1662    and also England 1663   

Thanksgiving day 18th September Oliver Cromwell got Parliament to create a Thanksgiving day for a victory over the Scottish - England 1675   

THE OED

Here is the best effort of inferior etymology provided by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) in what it publishes, at the time of writing - (8th November 2015) as the earliest attested publication of thanksgiving day.

• 1674 J. Josselyn Acct. Two Voy. 214 Towards night I returned to Boston again, the next day being Thanksgiving day, on Friday the Tenth day we weighed Anchor.
• 1704 N. Luttrell Diary in Brief Hist. Relation State Affairs (1857) V. 460 Sir Christopher Wrenn is erecting a throne in St. Pauls cathedral for her majestie to sittin on the thanksgiving day.
• 1714 S. Sewall Diary 25 Nov. (1973) II. 776 Thanks-giving day; very cold.
• 1844 J. G. Whittier Pumpkin iii, Ah! on Thanksgiving day..When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board The old broken links of affection restored.

Firework Night, Bonfire Night Guy Fawkes Night: First full November 5th Etymology

November 5th it is what we in the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland now call Bonfire Night, or else Guy Fawkes' Night or else Firework Night. But, whatever individuals call it now, the day was first celebrated as Gunpowder Treason Day.

November 5th public celebrations of Guy Fawkes effigy burning followed the discovery on 5th November 1605 of the plot to blow up the Protestant Houses of Parliament. Guido - "Guy" - Fawkes and fellow Roman Catholic conspirators were horribly tortured and then horrifically executed by being hung drawn and quartered.

Names for the nightly celebrations of the capture and demise of Guy Fawkes and Co and the saving of Parliament have evolved for over three hundred years.

Just like Wikipedia, my "Cassell's Dictionary of Word and phrase Origins' by Nigel Rees (1992) sums up - with unsatisfactorily vague decade only dates regarding word and phrase origins of these various names. The same criticism goes for Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (19th Edition 2012) and Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (2012).

Whereas the ID method gets us back as far as 1811 (see my timeline, below and Appendix 1), The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) can get back only as far as 1826 for the first published use of "Guy Fawkes Day:

"1825 W. Hone Every-day Bk. (1826) I. 1430/2 ‘Guy Fawkes-day’, or, as they as often call it, ‘Pope-day’, is a holiday, and.., on account of its festivous enjoyment, is the greatest holiday of the season."

Worse, the OED can get back no further than 1936 for the term 'Bonfire Night', whereas the ID method takes us as far back as 1705 (See my timeline below and evidence in Appendix 1).

From the OED:

"1936 N. Smith 52 Yrs. at Labrador Fishery 114 We opened the Club on Bonfire Night, November 5th."

However, I never realised that Guy Fawkes was the origin of the now commonplace word 'guy'. Cassell's (1992, p. 113):

'Guy: an effigy of Guy Fawkes burned on a bonfire every 5th November to commemorate his part in the gunpowder plot, an attempt to blow up King James 1st and parliament in 1605. Fawkes was executed and the name 'guy' was being applied to such an effigy by the early 19th century at least. From thence, the word was applied to any disreputable person, and thence - particularly in the US from the 1890's - to any man, good as well as bad.'

Timeline (in date order) of the 'at the time of writing' earliest discoverable use of Guy Fawkes Night, November 5th, names:

Using my original Big Data ID research method (Sutton 2014   ), today (1st November 2015) I conducted the first ever fully dated November 5th etymology of the origins of different names for Guy Fawkes Day.

The dates listed in the timeline in this blog post represent the first usage of these names that can be found today amongst the 35+ million books in Google's Library project. No doubt, as more books are scanned, these dates may one day be superseded by new discoveries of earlier usage. For now, however, these dates give us the first ever precise pinpointing of first known useage of various names for Guy Fawkes Day:

• Gunpowder Treason Day - 1630
• Gun-powder Treason Day - 1691
• Bonfire Night - 1705
• Gunpowder Day - 1768
• Firework Night - 1801
• Guy Fawkes Day - 1811
• Guy Fawkes Night 1832
• Gunpowder Night - 1854
• Gunpowder Treason Night - 1860
• Pope's Night (USA ) - 1860
• Fireworks Night - 1865

Further original discoveries made with the ID method can be found in my A-Z of newly busted myths in Nullius in Verba: Darwin's Greatest Secret    (that chapter is free for you to to view at Amazon books at absolutely no cost whatsoever).

The ID facilitated Etymology of the Easter Bunny (here)

The ID facilitated Etymology of Halloween (here)

APPENDIX 1

Published evidence for the Full Etymology of Guy Fawkes Night (in no particular order)

The Tripod or New satirist 1811 Guy Fawkes Day   

Is this the first published use of "Guy Fawkes Day"?

The Catholic Magazine and Review (1832) first use Guy Fawkes Night?   

Is this the first published use of "Guy Fawkes'Night"?

Timeline of 'at the time of writing' earliest discoverable use of November 5th idioms, words and phrases:

Gunpowder Treason Day Lohn Boys (1630)   

Is this the first published use of "Gunpowder Treason Day" and "Treason Day"?

Gun-Powder Treason Day Guy Miège (1691)   

Is this the first use of Gun-powder treason Day?

Gunpowder Treason Night: Samuel Greene Arnold (1860)   

Is this the first published use of Gunpowder Treason Night?

Gunpowder Day - 1768 Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review, Volume 38   

Is this the first published use of "Gunpowder day"?

Gunpowder Night (E. Monro 1854   )

Is this the first use of Gun-powder treason Day?

Pope's Night (USA) Ripley and Dana (1860)   

Is this the first published use of Pope's Night?

Bonfire Night (1705) The Earl of Rochester   

Is this the first publication of the term Bonfire night?

Fireworks Night - Betham-Edwards (1865)   

Is this the first published use of Fireworks night?

Firework Night - Strutt (1801)   

Is this the first published use of "Firework night"?

Etymological Origin Halloween

Halloween Pumpkin

Today (31 October 2015) is Halloween. And so, from that cause, I deployed my Big Data ID method, which is - see Sutton 2014    - the same that debunked Charles Darwin's self-serving lie that no naturalist had read Scottish horticulturist Patrick Matthew's (1831) prior published full hypothesis of 'the natural process of selection' before he replicated 27 years later, to discover the first publish use of the word Halloween.

What did I find?

Another new discovery

The powerful ID method enabled me to originally discover that what appears to be the earliest currently known printed origin of the word 'Halloween' - or more precisely 'Hallow E'en' - is 1724. Moreover, the Scottish poet Robert Burns appears to have been first into print in 1786 the modern appearance of the word 'Halloween' in the poem he penned of that name in 1785.

Prior knowledge

(C) Mike Sutton. All Rights ReservedUsed only with express written permission

Halloween Witch on the Prowl in Our House!

At the time of writing, Wikipedia    and seemingly countless other websites vaguely have it that the earliest known usage of the word is "about 1745". The Online Etymology Dictionary    makes the same conveniently vague claim, as does the mighty Chambers' Dictionary of Etymology. What about Chambers?

Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (2012) p 462:

'Halloween or Hallowe'en about 1745, Scottish shortening of Allhallow-even'.

More precisely, the ID method enables is to pinpoint the first - to date - discoverable use of the word 'Hallow E'en' to be 1724. on page 22 of a book by Alan Ramsay entitled The Teatime Miscellany:   

Public Domain

Hallowe'en

Incidentally, the same Big Data ID method uniquely discovered that the Chamers Dictionary of Etymology founder, Robert Chambers, author of the Vestiges of Creation, correspondent and associate of Charles Darwin, had earlier read and then cited Matthew's (1831) book in 1832 (see Sutton 2104a   )

Back to Halloween, and curiously, we see from Ramsay's prose that there appears to have been an apparently well-known tune of the same name. Further research reveals this song was published n 1726. (More on Ramsay himself: here   ).

In 1786, we find what to date appears to be the earliest discoverable use of the unhyphenated word Halloween, and it is in a book authored by none other than the great Scottish poet: Robert Burns (pp 101-102   ).

Public Domain

Did Robert Burns first coin the word Halloween?

The trusty ID method strikes once again!

Thinker Media IncUsed only with express written permission

Nullius in Verba

For more examples of the power of the new research method, check out the free to view Chapter Three in Nullius In Verba: Darwin's greatest secret    at Amazon books - which contains my A-Z of originally busted myths.

If you want to know the real origin of the Easter Bunnie?Here it is.

Crimes Fairystories: The Wolf and Three Little Pigs Re-Told - or Felson's versus Sutton's Crime Opportunity Explanations

An opportunity cannot exist for you unless you personally perceive it as the coming together of a set of fortunate or otherwise potentially beneficial circumstances/events upon which you can choose to act. So the entire definition of a personal opportunity is based on the premise that benefits and a person's (or animal's/plant's) capabilities to secure them are in some way perceived by them. And perceived opportunities are always subject to expected or unexpected beneficial or detrimental contingencies. Where crime is concerned, a potential offender can have a pre-crime accident, get injured or otherwise thwarted during a criminal attempt. The capabilities of any guardian can never be fixed (known) in advance of a crime happening. Even the little piggy in the house made of sticks might have leapt out of his demolished house at the very last minute and poked the wolf in the eye with a broken twig. Check out the hundreds of newspaper stories of have-a-go heroes if you doubt this.

And the wolf coming down the chimney in the house made of bricks could have spotted the boiling turpentine and braced his legs above it, bounded over it and ate the piggy. The piggies guardianship capabilities and the wolf's capabilities can never be known (fixed) in advance as the RAT model would have it. They do not exist in a fixed position, like a mountain or a home, until the crime is completed (including the crime of criminal attempt). Criminal opportunities cannot exist unless perceived and are contingent on both the expected and unexpected.

Felson's paradigm of crime opportunity is a mere description of the data of a successfully completed crime or completed attempt. Descriptions can not explain themselves. For that, we need a testable hypothesis that is either right or wrong. Felson's theory s a mere truism masquerading as causality.

Just as even the most elegant description of a fossilized dinosaur found in the geological strata cannot explain why it is there, neither can Felson's RAT model of opportunity explain successful crimes, failed criminal attempts and prevented crimes.

To explain dinosaurs we have Patrick Matthew's theory of macro organic evolution by natural selection (the one Darwin plagiarized). To explain crimes in terms of opportunities, we need a similarly potentially refutable and - if refuted - hard to vary theory. Felson's theorem is not refutable because it's a mere truism in the form of a mere description. In terms of the potential of natural selection to be refuted, we need to find only one case of (for example) a human in the strata below a dinosaur. It's bold ability to be so easily refuted is what makes it such a powerful theory and good explanation.

A barrier to more effective crime reduction knowledge progression has been thrown up by two criminology theories/approaches: Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) and Routine Activities Theory (RAT). The problem is caused by the policy-oriented popularity of SCP and RAT that is likely due in no small part to their simplistic and easily comprehendible, compelling, yet ultimately illogical weird focus upon describing the data of crime in ever more complex ways so that simple truisms about the scenes of successfully completed crimes and failed attempts (crimes of attempting to commit a crime) are placed in the spotlight and presented as a root cause of crime. Felson's simplistic notion of opportunity is, in fact,merely the very data that a true testable theory of causation could explain. 

Click here to read my online article that explains why.

My explanation for why the RAT notion of opportunity (Ratortunity) is a mere truism masquerading as causality is published in a peer-reviewed essay (here).

Felson's theorem is not the opportunity it claims to be.

This is merely a description of some elements of a completed crime. 

Descriptions of things cannot explain themselves. 

 For that, we need a theory, which is capable of being disproven and

that is hard to vary when so disconfirmed by the evidence.

Sutton's Opportunity Hypothesis allows for offender and guardianship perceptions
and for expected and unexpected contingencies at the pre-crime scene and the scene
of attempted crimes

The Crime Substitution Hypothesis

The Real Reason for the crime drop? : http://t.co/psPwaXqufG A really tough hypothesis is crying out for testing! pic.twitter.com/JKlsDImHVV

— Dr Mike Sutton (@Criminotweet) September 23, 2015

Is there, logically, something pathologically psychopathic about homeopathy?

FROM THE BRITISH NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE WEBSITE (here)   

Homeopathy is a 'treatment' based on the use of highly diluted substances, which practitioners claim can cause the body to heal itself.

A 2010 House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report on homeopathy   said that homeopathic remedies perform no better than placebos, and that the principles on which homeopathy is based are "scientifically implausible". This is also the view of the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies.

Does it work?

There has been extensive investigation of the effectiveness of homeopathy. There is no good-quality evidence that homeopathy is effective as a treatment for any health condition (see What can we conclude from the evidence?)   .

So far so good, because the NHS accepts homeopathy does not work.

The telling question then is why in the name of Veracity is it prescribed by their paid employees as a medical treatment on medical treatment premises paid for by British tax payers?

From the NHS website   :

It is available on the NHS?

Homeopathy is not available on the NHS in all areas of the country, but there are several NHS homeopathic hospitals and some GP [general medical practice] practices also offer homeopathic treatment.

The sham treatment shame of it!

The Royal Society is Nought but a Darwin and Wallace Glee Club

Sir Gavin de Beer (FRS) wrote in the Wilkins Lecture for the Royal Society (de Beer 1962 on page 333):

"...William Charles Wells and Patrick Matthew were predecessors who had actually published the principle of natural selection in obscure places where their works remained completely unnoticed until Darwin and Wallace reawakened interest in the subject.'

What the expert Royal Society member Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer, British evolutionary embryologist, Director of the British Museum (Natural History), President of the Linnean Society, and receiver of the Royal Society's Darwin Medal for his studies on evolution never knew - that I have uniquely discovered (see Nullius in Verba) - is that  at least 25 people actually cited Matthew's (1831) book before Darwin's and Wallace's papers, which replicated Matthew's original ideas and explanatory examples, were read before the Linnean Society in 1858, seven of them were naturalists, four known to Darwin and two to Wallace.

Royal Society Darwin Medal

So where's my Darwin Medal for being proven a better scholar than de Beer on his own subject?

Perhaps the Royal Society needs to improve the quality of its membership and medal winners? Linnean society too. The pseudo-scholarly Darwin glee-club shame of it! 

Visit PatrickMatthew.com to learn the truth about the discovery of natural selection.