Burnt Orange Report

Trivia!

By Jim Dallas

Down in the comments of an earlier post, I was called on referring to Gary Polland as a "big whig"; apparently the correct spelling is "big wig."

Only it turns out that in my crazy over-stuffed mind, I managed to accidentally correct a linguistic fluke:

Have you ever heard someone called a "big wig"? The expression really should be Big Whig. It was used to describe members of Henry Clay's Whig Party. Most of the wealthy influential people of the time were Whigs—just the kind of people who would be called big wigs today!

Only it also turns out that there is another interpretation!

Back in the dim and distant past, before the days of hair products, bad hair days were much more common. Rather than having to deal with this problem, people wore wigs, or artificial hair. Though the use of wigs was known in ancient Greece and Rome, we are here concerned with the wig worn as a distinctive piece of costume.

This trend apparently started in France in the early seventeenth century; the fashion reached England later in the seventeenth century. England being England, wigs were differentiated based on class and profession. Men of great importance naturally wore larger wigs than the rabble, and so they were called big wigs.

Bigwig was first used just after the turn of the eighteenth century, and was generally humorous or derisive at the time. It spawned a number of derived terms such as bigwiggery and bigwiggism. The wearing of wigs gradually declined in England among doctors and clergymen; by the coronation of Queen Victoria, for example, only the Archibishop of Canterbury still wore a wig. Wigs are still worn as part of the costume of certain officials and jurists, though there is a movement to abolish their use entirely.

So there you have it. Two perfectly plausible explanations. Although for the second there appears to be quite a bit of confusion over when the term arose, although it would have been at some time during the 18th century. Incidentally, one suggested origin for the word "Whig" is that it meant "country bumpkin" in the 17th century. This being Texas and all, maybe "big whig" is more appropriate after all?

At any rate, I think there seems to be a pretty settled etymology for "O.K." Incidentally, it appears that it originated as a slur against Andrew Jackson by... the Whigs:

Van Buren's opponents tried to turn the phrase against him, saying that it had originated with Van Buren's allegedly illiterate predecessor, Andrew Jackson, a story that has survived to this day. They also devoted considerable energy to coming up with unflattering interpretations, e.g., "Out of Kash, Out of Kredit, and Out of Klothes."

Newspaper editors and publicists around the country delighted in coming up with even sillier interpretations-- Oll Killed, Orfully Konfused, Often Kontradicts, etc.--so that by the time the campaign was over the expression had taken firm root nationwide.