1893 text

The ‘poor john’ is a hake salted and dried. It is frequently referred to in old authors as poor fare.


This text comes from a footnote on a diary entry in the 1893 edition edited by Henry B. Wheatley.

3 Annotations

First Reading

pedro  •  Link

Poor Jack or John

Dried hake.

We have “john-dory,” a “jack” (pike), a “jack shark,” and a “jack of Dover.” Probably the word Jack is a mere play on the word “Hake,” and John a substitute for Jack.

“ 'Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor-john.”- Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, i. 1.

We have a similar perversion in the school-boy proof that a pigeon-pie is a fish-pie. A pigeon-pie is a pie-john, and a pie-john is a jack-pie, and a jack-pie is a fish-pie.

(Brewer's)

cum salis grano  •  Link

OED:
Poor John, n.
1. a. Fish, usually hake, salted and dried for food; a fish preserved in this way. Now hist.
1589...
1657 R. LIGON True Hist. Barbados 113 Two barrels of salt Fish, and 500 poore-Johns, which we have from New England. 1695

Second Reading

Bill  •  Link

JACK, a Fish, called also a Pike.
---An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. N. Bailey, 1675.

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1662