Herein looking like a wall-eyed uncle staring at ruraldictionary.com.
April 28, 2013 4:21 PM Subscribe
I have two phrases that I've come across in the past two days that I cannot get the internet to tell me what they mean: "yard cousin" and "bluefish wars".
These are unrelated terms, except they're both generating sufficient internal niggling that I'd like them both done with.
Regarding Yard Cousin, I've written an email, already, to someone at Ole Miss who fits the description of Mark Franks, but that's a shot in the dark and I might not have found the right person or ever get a reply. The only other cites online are of people having the EXACT SAME QUESTION as I do.
For Bluefish wars, I may not have dug deep enough, but I'm totally at sea on it still.
Finally, while I am exceedingly keen to find out what these phrases actually mean, as I know there's not very much online here to link to, I'd like to caution against providing what you think it could mean, however fanciful or amusing. I'm getting plenty of imaginary hilarity from Yard Cousin already. Thank you.
These are unrelated terms, except they're both generating sufficient internal niggling that I'd like them both done with.
Regarding Yard Cousin, I've written an email, already, to someone at Ole Miss who fits the description of Mark Franks, but that's a shot in the dark and I might not have found the right person or ever get a reply. The only other cites online are of people having the EXACT SAME QUESTION as I do.
For Bluefish wars, I may not have dug deep enough, but I'm totally at sea on it still.
Finally, while I am exceedingly keen to find out what these phrases actually mean, as I know there's not very much online here to link to, I'd like to caution against providing what you think it could mean, however fanciful or amusing. I'm getting plenty of imaginary hilarity from Yard Cousin already. Thank you.
Here is the "yard cousin" quote, for the record:
posted by thelonius at 4:28 PM on April 28, 2013
Best answer: Guess: Could the McPhee reference be to a bluefish blitz?
posted by wintersweet at 4:38 PM on April 28, 2013
posted by wintersweet at 4:38 PM on April 28, 2013
Best answer: Yard cousins are relatives or acquaintances (since everyone is pretty much related) with whom you would be ill-at-ease to have them around your furnishings, china, silver or rugs by coming into the house. They might be great fishing/hunting buddies, but they are not "housebroken." If mud falls off of them (or their dogs) when they walk, or if the odor of a week's fishing trip into the Gulf wafts into your yard five minutes before they arrive out front, they are yard cousins.
This doesn't make them bad people, just the outdoor type. As in, stay outdoors. And get that damn dog off the porch.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:50 PM on April 28, 2013 [23 favorites]
This doesn't make them bad people, just the outdoor type. As in, stay outdoors. And get that damn dog off the porch.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:50 PM on April 28, 2013 [23 favorites]
Response by poster: wintersweet, I like that guess. Let's give it a bit more time, and possible input.
Halfbuckaroo, That sounds very good too. ibid.
But, I'd just like to inform anyone searching the internet right now on this that the urban dictionary def. is from today, and it was not there this morning, so do be dubious googlers.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:25 PM on April 28, 2013
Halfbuckaroo, That sounds very good too. ibid.
But, I'd just like to inform anyone searching the internet right now on this that the urban dictionary def. is from today, and it was not there this morning, so do be dubious googlers.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:25 PM on April 28, 2013
Perhaps "bluefish wars" is akin to a bluefish feeding frenzy? Makes sense in the context of mergers and companies gobbling each other up.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:29 PM on April 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:29 PM on April 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
I have heard the term "yard cousin", and my understanding is similar to halfbuckaroo's, but a little less specific, I guess. I always thought of "yard cousins" as people who might show up in the yard if you threw a big outdoor barbeque event, but otherwise you didn't really necessarily know them very well.
Never heard of bluefish wars.
posted by trip and a half at 6:16 PM on April 28, 2013 [3 favorites]
Never heard of bluefish wars.
posted by trip and a half at 6:16 PM on April 28, 2013 [3 favorites]
Oh. Also I sometimes heard dogs of uncertain provenance referred to as "yard cousins". (Small town/rural North Carolina.)
posted by trip and a half at 6:29 PM on April 28, 2013
posted by trip and a half at 6:29 PM on April 28, 2013
Huh, I saw the yard cousin term, couldn't find a definition and thought I might askmefi, but you have beaten me to it.
I kind of read it as the opposite of a house cat/dog. That is the cousins were figuratively not housebroken.
Note, though, the urban dictionary suggests somebody might be trolling northerners.
Edit: uh, I see you saw the urban dictionary thing.
posted by bystander at 6:54 PM on April 28, 2013
I kind of read it as the opposite of a house cat/dog. That is the cousins were figuratively not housebroken.
Note, though, the urban dictionary suggests somebody might be trolling northerners.
Edit: uh, I see you saw the urban dictionary thing.
posted by bystander at 6:54 PM on April 28, 2013
If you've read much McPhee, you know he's a pretty avid fisherman, so a fishing metaphor is something he's likely to have first-hand experience with. (In fact after reading this book by McPhee that is all about fish and fishing from cover to cover, I've been trying my darndest to get a taste of shad somewhere--he extols its virtues to the highest heavens--but so far without any luck at all.)
As MonkeyToes and WinterSweet mention above, a "Bluefish War" seems to be another way to refer to a "Bluefish Blitz". Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (search the pages for "bluefish war").
But the bit of info that isn't really clear from the above, and that an avid east coast angler like McPhee would know, is this: "During a blitz, bluefish will bite on almost anything that is cast in their midst." It's particularly that concept, one that an angler who's fished during a bluefish blitz would know, that bluefish in the midst of their frenzy will strike at and eat anything, that McPhee seems to be getting at with the term.
As for "bluefish war" vs "bluefish blitz": "Bluefish war" doesn't seem to be as ready-made or commonly used a term as "bluefish blitz"--though nobody on the linked angler's forums seems to have a problem understanding what it means or refers to. To anglers who fish during a blitz, it probably seems quite a lot like a war or at least a battle. For McPhee's purpose, "bluefish war" probably conveys the ideas he was trying to get at with the various railroads: That they devour any and every smaller 'fish' in sight in a sort of feeding frenzy, that one fish might devour a smaller fish and then in turn be devoured itself by a larger fish, and that it really it pretty indiscriminate, with the railroads devouring at every opportunity dropped in front of them, like bluefish that will strike at any lure at all when they are in the frenzy. But using "war" rather than the apparently far more common "blitz" gives the sense that this railroad situation is more of a long, drawn-out situation of predation, whereas the term 'blitz' would have given the idea of something rather sudden and short--which the railroad situation is not.
In short, it appears to be a bit of a coined term, tailored to fit the precise concept McPhee was intending to convey, rather than the most commonly used term for the bluefish feeding frenzy.
posted by flug at 8:26 PM on April 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
As MonkeyToes and WinterSweet mention above, a "Bluefish War" seems to be another way to refer to a "Bluefish Blitz". Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (search the pages for "bluefish war").
But the bit of info that isn't really clear from the above, and that an avid east coast angler like McPhee would know, is this: "During a blitz, bluefish will bite on almost anything that is cast in their midst." It's particularly that concept, one that an angler who's fished during a bluefish blitz would know, that bluefish in the midst of their frenzy will strike at and eat anything, that McPhee seems to be getting at with the term.
As for "bluefish war" vs "bluefish blitz": "Bluefish war" doesn't seem to be as ready-made or commonly used a term as "bluefish blitz"--though nobody on the linked angler's forums seems to have a problem understanding what it means or refers to. To anglers who fish during a blitz, it probably seems quite a lot like a war or at least a battle. For McPhee's purpose, "bluefish war" probably conveys the ideas he was trying to get at with the various railroads: That they devour any and every smaller 'fish' in sight in a sort of feeding frenzy, that one fish might devour a smaller fish and then in turn be devoured itself by a larger fish, and that it really it pretty indiscriminate, with the railroads devouring at every opportunity dropped in front of them, like bluefish that will strike at any lure at all when they are in the frenzy. But using "war" rather than the apparently far more common "blitz" gives the sense that this railroad situation is more of a long, drawn-out situation of predation, whereas the term 'blitz' would have given the idea of something rather sudden and short--which the railroad situation is not.
In short, it appears to be a bit of a coined term, tailored to fit the precise concept McPhee was intending to convey, rather than the most commonly used term for the bluefish feeding frenzy.
posted by flug at 8:26 PM on April 28, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: As a devoted fan of McPhee, I am well aware of his fishing obsession, however surprised at his both coining a new term, as well as dropping it into a story about trains. As he's often such a good handholder to the reader in navigating terms of art and specialized niches, I had expected more.
Thanks all.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:19 PM on April 29, 2013
Thanks all.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:19 PM on April 29, 2013
Response by poster: OH and halfbuckaroo! You're now internet famous! This gets you back for making me metafilter famous (according to the chicago mefites).
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:40 PM on April 29, 2013
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:40 PM on April 29, 2013
And you didn't even get accused of dropping acid. Easy out!
I'll accept it.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 9:03 AM on April 30, 2013
I'll accept it.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 9:03 AM on April 30, 2013
surprised at his both coining a new term, as well as dropping it into a story about trains. As he's often such a good handholder to the reader in navigating terms of art and specialized niches, I had expected more.
A bit of a late response, but re-reading the passage again after a few months, I think that (in his mind at a least!) "bluefish wars" isn't just a term that he's dropping on you from 10,000 feet and then moving on. Rather, it's an extended metaphor and he spends the rest of the paragraph--three or four rather lengthy sentences--explaining the concept in detail.
"These train mergers are like bluefish wars. Southern Pacific, which nearly merged with the Sante Fe, was consumed by Union Pacific in 1996"--"consumed" indicating that he's not just dropped the term "bluefish wars" and moved on. He's spinning out the metaphor as the one fish/railroad consumes the other.
He then continues to explain that U.P. is a consolidation of 8-10 railroads, including "the Chicago & North Western, which was struggling to build the Orin Line when U.P. came along with its mouth wide open." Again, the "mouth wide open" is extending and explicitly explaining the "bluefish war" metaphor--the idea that these fish are always swimming around with their mouths open and gulping each other down whenever the opportunity arises.
The next sentence explains how U.P. became a "military-type company"--again tying in with the extended "war" metaphor.
The idea, I think, is that you don't need to know exactly what a bluefish war is coming in, because he's explaining it to you on the way through.
posted by flug at 4:08 PM on October 11, 2013
A bit of a late response, but re-reading the passage again after a few months, I think that (in his mind at a least!) "bluefish wars" isn't just a term that he's dropping on you from 10,000 feet and then moving on. Rather, it's an extended metaphor and he spends the rest of the paragraph--three or four rather lengthy sentences--explaining the concept in detail.
"These train mergers are like bluefish wars. Southern Pacific, which nearly merged with the Sante Fe, was consumed by Union Pacific in 1996"--"consumed" indicating that he's not just dropped the term "bluefish wars" and moved on. He's spinning out the metaphor as the one fish/railroad consumes the other.
He then continues to explain that U.P. is a consolidation of 8-10 railroads, including "the Chicago & North Western, which was struggling to build the Orin Line when U.P. came along with its mouth wide open." Again, the "mouth wide open" is extending and explicitly explaining the "bluefish war" metaphor--the idea that these fish are always swimming around with their mouths open and gulping each other down whenever the opportunity arises.
The next sentence explains how U.P. became a "military-type company"--again tying in with the extended "war" metaphor.
The idea, I think, is that you don't need to know exactly what a bluefish war is coming in, because he's explaining it to you on the way through.
posted by flug at 4:08 PM on October 11, 2013
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