What is the origin of 'to pony up' ? It seems to mean to pay voluntarily, freely, for something ( it is an Americanism unknown here in the UK). 'Pony' here is slang for twenty-five pounds sterling but otherwise there's no connection between pony and money or paying. ************************************************************************* 10-06-03, 12:50 PM MommyTimesTwo In the US I've heard pony up used to mean paying your part--as in "Everyone pony up some dough if you want beer tonight!"
According to this site it is assumed the origin is based in horse racing, and that is also what I thought. Where I'm from, we're right near Saratoga Race Track, and "pony up" is also used to say "pony up your bets". ************************************************************************* 10-06-03, 01:09 PM maiku What mommyx2 suggests could be true, I suppose, but somehow I'm doubtful of that.
M-W (conveniently linked above) says that the usage is recorded in 1824, but is of unknown origin. It certainly does mean to put up money for something, usually in advance. That being the case, I kind of wonder whether it might have originated as a macaronic expression based on the Latin verb ponere, which means to put or place, set down, or even to wager. ************************************************************************* 10-06-03, 03:39 PM maiku As in Cicero's pone pecuniam in praedio?
What the website Mommyx2 has linked above suggests is that the noun pony, meaning £25 in British slang, as Fred has already pointed out, originates in horse racing. It has no suggestion to make about the origin of the American use of pony as a verb.
I cheerfully admit that my guess about a connection with the Latin verb is just that--a guess.
[This message was edited by maiku on 10-06-03 at 03:47 PM.] ************************************************************************* 10-07-03, 09:04 PM MommyTimesTwo I did some more looking around. The origin of the term 'pony up' is actually French, from poulenet meaning "small", according to www.dictionary.com; however, this doesn't many any sense. It is logical as the basis of the word pony, which is obviously a small horse, but is not for the term 'pony up', which means to give something.
Other sources suggested, as I said, it was from horse racing. From what I read, it's assumed it was an English term that was simply adopted by Americans. ************************************************************************* 10-07-03, 09:59 PM Tree I figure "pony up" IS in fact based on horse racing - meaning to cough up the money!
Just like in poker, when you "see" the bet, you "ante up" - just like "pony up" would mean virtually the same thing. ************************************************************************* 10-07-03, 11:08 PM newnickname www.etymonline.com
'pony (v.) - 1824, in pony up "to pay," from slang use of L. legem pone to mean "money" (first recorded 16c.), because this was the title of the Psalm for March 25, a Quarter Day and the first payday of the year (the Psalm's first line is Legem pone michi domine viam iustificacionum "Teach me, O Lord, the ways of thy statutes").'
(Why is it that so many etymological explanations seem about as convincing as 'Just So' stories?) ************************************************************************* 10-08-03, 09:18 AM maiku That's two votes, then, nnn's and mine, for my suggested derivation from the Latin verb ponere, more specifically, from the imperative pone.
If the American use of the verb pony derived from British English, it would be strange that the word is unknown in this sense in Britain, as Fred originally observed.
And yes, Tree, pony up is used to mean the same thing as ante up. We are all agreed on that. That explains the "up" part. Unfortunately, it doesn't explain the "pony." ************************************************************************* 10-08-03, 02:09 PM FredPuli And just how many ordinary people in the UK in 1824 were hearing psalms in Latin? It's a Roman Catholic practice. Services in the Church of England have been conducted in English for centuries. Catholicism is very much a minority faith here and was hardly encouraged; for obvious reasons of history it was regarded as dangerous .
On the other hand the United States has received vast numbers of Catholic immigrants who might well have had the same practices over payments back home and who would certainly be familiar with Latin in church too.
The Quarter Day, March 25th is called Lady Day in England. It formerly marked the end of the financial and tax year. (This now ends on April 5th here because of the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and the adjustment of date it brought)
[This message was edited by FredPuli on 10-08-03 at 02:17 PM.] ************************************************************************* 10-08-03, 02:21 PM maiku Yes, Fred, and as you have said already, this use of "pony" as a verb is an Americanism. The 1824 date for its earliest use cited by the M-W dictionary (conveniently linked above) is in reference to an American source.
Since pone in Latin means put, as in "Put up or shut up," I think my case for an origin in a deliberate bit of macaronic coinage is looking better all the time. Smile ************************************************************************* 10-09-03, 05:05 PM FredPuli The Latin is peculiarly apt, being in the form of a command or demand addressed to one person ( 'Put thee!'), not several, and is, I think, certain to have been pronounced by the clergy as 'pony'.
In Britain we would ask someone to 'chip in'or if we meant to be insistent, with an air of complaining, 'divvy up'. 'Divvy'is from dividend; something which is to be paid out to all eligible parties, as of right. ************************************************************************* 10-09-03, 06:30 PM maiku Thank you, Fred. If ever my suggested etymology is accepted (and I can't think of a single scholarly reason why it should be, except for the fact that is somewhat apt, at least), then I will cheerfully "divvy up" the credit with you (as the originator of the question).
BTW: We use the expressions "chip in" and "divvy up" here in the colonies, too. "Divvy up" may or may not amount with us to an insistent demand. When the successful bank-job is pulled off, the gang then "divvies up" the loot. In some films here, that can happen amicably enough. But this is rare. More often than not, the divvying up leads to dissension, betrayal, and downright bad-faith dealing (including rubbing out Red Face). ************************************************************************* 10-10-03, 11:23 PM dogspit Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Centennary Edition) does not list pony up. But has the following entries for pony.
1) Slang for £25; also (especially in the U.S.A.) for a translation CRIB; also for a small beer-glass holding slightly less than a gill
2) In card games the person on the right hand of the dealer is called the "pony", from Lat. pone, "behind", being behind the dealer. ************************************************************************* 10-12-03, 08:45 PM maiku Of course the meanings you adduce for the word pony here, dogspit, have to do with the noun. Here's one you left out, one which was popular in my days as an undergraduate. We had two or three pony parties every week in my senior year, and the pony in that case was a ¼ keg of beer (approx. 10 gallons, which seemed like a lot at the time).
As I have suggested above, though, there is some reason for thinking that the verb pony up has nothing to do with the noun pony at all, in any of these senses. I'm by no means certain, but I'm still inclined to favor my suggested derivation from the Latin imperative verb pone (not the preposition).
If the verb did somehow derive from the noun (in any of the above senses, including the one I've just added to the list) it would not be alone. Words primarily denoting animals are often used in English as derived verbs. Sometimes this functional shift is transparent, as in pig out, squirrel away, and out fox, for example. Not much doubt there how these verb meanings arise.
But other cases are many and varied. How about to dog someone? Clear enough from the use of dogs to track people? Maybe so. Cat around? Well, we all know about the behavior of cats, and perhaps the less said the better about that one. But how about some of these much less obvious ones:
to cow someone to rat on someone to horse around to skunk the other team to goose someone?
It is not at all obvious what real cows, rats, horses, skunks, or geese have to do at all with these meanings, is it?
If you have any other examples (or better yet, real explanations) to offer, do not chicken out. Pony up your posts! (which is not same as ponies at the post). ************************************************************************* 10-12-03, 10:50 PM DorianGreyed Cow - to destroy the resolve or courage of; to bring to a state or an action by intimidation
Etymology: probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Danish kue to subdue Date: 1605
Goose seems to be easy, if one has ever walked into a gaggle. Geese can be mean. ________ by the way, a quarter barrel of beer holds 7.75 hallons. In the US (even in the Upper US), a barrel of beer holds 31 gallons. The standard half barrel, used by almost all draft outlets, is 15.5 gallons. ************************************************************************* 10-12-03, 11:14 PM maiku Dare I suggest, DG, that the suggested etymology of the verb "cow" you give implies that it has nothing to do with the animal? Or maybe it does, and we have yet to get behind its putative Scandinavian source (which may or may not have had, originally, to do with the animal)?
As for goose, I've seen many a gaggle of these myself, but I've never yet been verbed by any of them in that way. Have you? Tsk! Tsk! ************************************************************************* 10-13-03, 12:37 AM DorianGreyed I was just offering it as of possibly some help. Frankly, my first thought was that cow as you mentioned it in your list was related to kowtow, but the date of kowtow's entry into English ruled that out.
Regarding geese, there is a reason that they are used as watch dogs by some. Their bite can be painful, and their height seems right for the term to have been derived from the action taken upon someone leaving a gaggle. (And, no, he only got me on the hand. Had the owner not been there, I would have had said goose on the table. Animals with long thin necks should be more careful when they bite.) ************************************************************************* 10-13-03, 05:15 AM FredPuli I've no idea what 'skunk' the team means.
However 'cow' is surely related to the verb to cower. Here we say that someone looks cowed if they look beaten and submissive, as though told off severely by the boss or a schoolmaster or that a dog was cowed when submissive to another dog. It has nothing to do with heifers or other bovines.I don't think Scandinavian cows are particularly submissive or ever were ! ( If you count Friesians as Scandinavian they certainly aren't Smile).
'Goose' is easy. Not only are you likely to be goosed as you turn to retreat from them but, as a bonus, the shape formed by the arm and hand when goosing someone resembles a goose's neck and beak (reaching down and not up or across usually, I grant Smile). I have encountered the latter as an explanation for the term( such scholars should visit the country more, perhaps)
'Horse' as in 'horse around ' ( an Americanism) and in 'horseplay' is exactly what young horses, colts in particular, do. They will take into their heads to start chase games and 'follow my leader' as well as suddenly rear up at each other in play- fighting. This sudden , unexpected, impulsive activity can be alarming to anybody close by when it starts, though innocent enough and not likely to cause the bystander harm. In that it is a good description of horseplay among human 'colts' !
'Rat' is another which must surely have the animal, despised and feared over thousands of years, as its origin. After all 'rats leave a sinking ship' as we say. It is the very image of betrayal.
Generations of English schoolboys have been delighted to learn of the German word Rathaus; somehow politics of the Town Hall are suggested by the very name of it; but I leave it to s a German scholar, such as maiku, to make any precise connection Big Grin
[This message was edited by FredPuli on 10-13-03 at 05:33 AM.]
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