16 November 2021
1848 pro-Democratic political cartoon in which Democratic candidate Lewis Cass is boxing Whig candidate Zachary Taylor. Democratic vice-presidential candidate Samuel Butler looks on, while defeated candidates lie about: a Black character representing abolition, Martin Van Buren, and Millard Fillmore. The latter is saying “Curse the Old hoss wot a south paw he has given me!”
A southpaw is a left-handed person. The term is most often heard in baseball, in reference to left-handed pitchers. The paw is obviously a reference to the hand, but south poses a bit of mystery. It clearly is a reference to the fact that, for most people, the left is the less useful or dexterous hand. The choice of south is probably not due to any literal spatial direction but is rather probably a metaphor. South and north are opposites and in our culture we tend to orient things spatially in reference to the north; something that is the opposite of the norm is south.
The earliest known use of southpaw is from a 30 June 1813 article in Philadelphia’s the Tickler newspaper. The Tickler was a one-page broadsheet consisting mostly of advertisements and satirical “news” stories. Southpaw’s appearance is in a letter to the paper:
Being in a room the other night where HONEST BOB happened to come in contact with a late number of your useful paper, his Irish eye in the general glance over it chanced to rest on “Bow, Vow, Vow,” when the Pat-riot in the fulness of his HONEST heart, exclaimed, “Arrah, by my shoal, these Yaunkees are the divils boys at spaking V for W, so much that by the hill o’hoath their very dogs have pecked it up, for instead of barking, Bow, Wow, Wow, as they ought it’s——it’s——(growing impatient)—arrah luk here mon and convince yourself,” said he, holding up the Tickler, in the right paw, between the ceiling and the floor, and with the south paw pointing to the “bow, vow, vow.”
Picture a man holding up the 2 June paper in his right hand and pointing to an article that uses “Bow vow, vow!” with his left hand, or southpaw. The context is confusing, but it is in reference to this piece that appeared in the Tickler on 2 June 1813:
Bow vow, vow!
Any CURIOUS Lady, either at the helm of VIRTUE or of VICE, who, in seeking the gratification of her Curiosity by a peep into another person’s window,---especially while some of the children are undergoing discipline,-----should chance to be ‘kratz’d,’ by a favourite Dog, that may be too uncourteous to relish peeping, she may hear of a person well skilled in the art of murdering Dogs, by applying to Mr. Kratz!——More anon!
The bit about Mr. Kratz murdering dogs seems to have been a running, anti-Semitic joke, the context of which has been lost to the ages.
Southpaw doesn’t seem to appear in print again until 1848, when it appears in a political cartoon by Edwin Durang. The cartoon features Democratic presidential candidate Lewis Cass boxing Whig candidate Zachary Taylor. Whig vice-presidential candidate Millard Fillmore lies on the ground with a black eye, saying:
Curse the Old hoss wot a south paw he has given me!
There is an 1851 instance of a person being nicknamed South Paw. It appears in a story in the sporting newspaper the Spirit of the Times on 5 April 1851. The context is hunting in Texas. Presumably, the person so nicknamed is left-handed, but that’s not made explicit in the text:
“Come on, ‘South Paw’ I’ve got him.”
“Now,” thought I to myself, “somebody has got it into his head to call me by that name.” I did not get angry, however, but went up to him.
“Well, South,” said he, “dad burn my skin if it ain’t the poorest deer that ever this child killed.”
[...]
“Now, C——,” said I. “you have got into a way, lately, of calling me ‘South Paw,’ and as being as you have killed such a poor deer, I will call you ‘Poor Doe.’”
“’Greed!” said he, “I’d just as leave be called that as anything else.”
Finally, we get a baseball use of the southpaw in the New York Atlas of 12 September 1858. This is also the first known use of the term clearly being used to refer to a left-handed person, as opposed to one’s left hand itself or a blow from a left hand:
Hallock, a “south paw,” let fly a good ball into the right field, which was well stopped by Harrold, but not in time to put the striker out before reaching the first base.
And we get this use in the context of a boxing match, as opposed to a political street fight, in the New York Herald of 27 June 1860:
Ninth round—Davy was the first one on hand, and Mike came slowly up. The first named made several feints, and, evidently pitying his opponent, dealt rather mildly with him. After some sparring he planted his “south paw” under Mike’s chin, laying him out as flat as a pancake.
The earliest use of northpaw that I have found is from the Chicago Press and Tribune of 27 July 1859, in an article about US President James Buchanan shaking hands with citizens:
Men, women, and children crowded about the venerable Chief Magistrate, and the continual wagging of his north paw, together with the excessive heat, almost exhausted him.
It’s not surprising that northpaw comes later and is far less frequent than southpaw. It’s common for exceptional things to be marked linguistically, while the norm goes unmarked. Left-handed people are less common, so a term is coined to refer to them.
There is a tale that circulates in baseball circles that southpaw arose because of the “fact” that nineteenth-century baseball diamonds were often arranged so the batters would face east, to avoid looking into the afternoon sun. The pitcher’s left hand, or paw, would therefore be on the southern side. But as we’ve seen, southpaw did not originate in baseball, so that cannot be the origin.
Sources:
“Adventures in Texas.” Spirit of the Times, 5 April 1851, 81. ProQuest.
“Base Ball Match Between the Manhattan and Independent Clubs.” New York Atlas, 12 September 1858, 5. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Bow vow, vow!” The Tickler (Philadelphia), 2 June 1813, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Durang, Edwin Forrest. “Who Says Gas? Or the Democratic B-Hoy” (political cartoon). Abel and Durang, 1848. Library of Congress.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. southpaw, n.
Letter. The Tickler (Philadelphia), 30 June 1813, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2011, modified September 2019, s.v. southpaw, n. and adj.; December 2003, modified June 2021, s.v. north, adv., adj., and n.
“The President Shaking Hands in the Whisky District. Chicago Press and Tribune, 27 July 1859, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
“The Ring. Prize Fight at Hunter’s Point for Fifty Dollars a Side.” New York Herald, 27 June 1860, 8. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Image credit: Edwin Durang, 1848. Public domain image.