(QUICK ASIDE: I got frustrated trying to figure out the correct capitalization scheme for that title so I gave up. Can I get some opinions from the Peanut Gallery? (All two of you, don't be shy!))
(untranslatable frustrated shouting/screaming)
!!! I said on the Twitter I was in a funny mood this morning, well that passed but I felt like catching up on some internet reading since I'd been reading, among other things,
the Bloggess,
the Onion, and
this thing about how herbal supplements are bullshit (via
Scarybug's Twitter), and was now ravenous for more. I started reading
this thing here, excerpts from a book about the 2008 election, and I got about halfway through the second part (where they're talking about how Lieberman and McCain were totally gay for each other) when I started to wonder what the actual dictionary definition of the word
maverick actually is, since no one will ever use it unironically again thanks to "Chest Pains" McCain and his borderline retarded sidekick the Wasila Whacko.
So I went to an internet dictionary which gave me several mostly identical definitions, here's one:
maverick
noun
1. Southwestern U.S. an unbranded calf, cow, or steer, esp. an unbranded calf that is separated from its mother.
2. a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates.
3. (initial capital letter) an electro-optically guided U.S. air-to-ground tactical missile for destroying tanks and other hardened targets at ranges up to 15 mi. (24 km).
Origin:
1865-70, Americanism; after Samuel A. Maverick (1803-70), Texas pioneer who left his calves unbranded
Just after pulling that up I realized I'd gone on this same little trip before, probably during the election when
maverick was becoming the battle cry of the chronic dimwits. But this time a new thought crept into my head: okay, the common American use of the word is derived from the surname of a lazy 19th century cattle rancher, so what does the surname
Maverick actually mean?
I should've known this was a troublesome thought. I've been interested in the meanings of words for some time, particularly the origins of apparently meaningless words, like names. I remember in school there was always that point in some class where they'd tell us about how names have meanings, like if your last name is
Baker some ancestor was a baker, and that became his last name, and maybe they'd have you rifle through a pile of baby books looking for the meaning of your first name. But that discussion was always very shallow, for instance no one ever tried to figure out my last name,
Bivins, until I went looking on the internet a few years back, and with great pains (in the ass) eventually I came upon a dark corner of a genealogy site which explained it was a misspelling of the Welsh name
Bevan, derived from the Welsh
ab Evan,
ab meaning "son of,"
Evan meaning "warrior." People seem to be less than interested in what their names mean, particularly their surnames, which they have no control over and much of the time whatever heritage is reflected in them is long since diluted (a prime example: no mention of possible Welsh ancestry was ever made in my family until I looked up my last name, also I'm pretty sure nobody else in my family even knows where Wales is, and I only know because I watch a lot of British TV). Prospective parents are the lone exception, and of course are only interested in given names, since picking a last name at random for their offspring would be crazy (yet awesome.)
Regardless of my personal history of wondering about name meanings,
this recent FFU comic and related discussion would've had the topic at the forefront of my consciousness. (And with that I've effectively name-dropped both my regular readers! (
Adam also has a Twitter))
So I set out to find a source identifying the origin of the historic rancher's surname. Coming up empty at several other of my usual sources I was left no choice but to embark on an increasingly frustrating Google odyssey (much like the journey of Odysseus who, returning from the Trojan War, became curious about the meaning of a cattle rancher's name and in investigating was sidetracked by a Cyclops), poring through page after page of what I've found to be among the most obnoxious and useless information sources on the internet: Genealogy sites.
While a few have even LESS information, and some talk for far longer than is necessary about the eponymous TV series starring James Garner and later film remake starring Mel Gibson (pre-crazy) AND James Garner (pre-8 Simple Rules when he and David Spade came on to even out the cast after John Ritter suddenly died THAT WAS CRAZY also did you know that Kaley Cuoco, late of smash hit The Big Bang Theory, was previously on 8 Simple Rules I KNOW MORE ABOUT OBSCURE TELEVISION THAN YOU DO HA), and surprisingly one site claims
Maverick was briefly a popular given name while the TV show was popular and again for a bit when the movie came out but makes no mention of
Top Gun, which I would've assumed would inspire far higher quantities of unfit parents to label their unlucky child with the name (wow this is a run-on sentence huh), the unsettlingly recursive trend seems to be claiming the surname is derived from the word which is derived from the rancher's surname. The text I've run into verbatim several times:
English surname, derived from the vocabulary word maverick, originally meaning "unbranded range animal." This was the surname of Samuel Maverick (1803-1870), a Texas cattleman who refused to brand his cattle.
Could it be this name is truly an ontological paradox? Did someone take this surname back in time and give it to Samuel Maverick's European ancestors, who brought it to the New World and eventually gave it to him, leaving him to turn it into a common vocabulary word, which inspires some maverick to build a time machine against all odds and go back in time to name the historic Maverick family?
I'm not done searching just yet. I'm convinced this name didn't just come out of thin air (or...THE FUTURE) and I can only hope that someone on the vastness of the Interwebz will have the answer I'm looking for.
