Since it’s Juneteenth


UPDATE: The Orthosphere on the traditions of a holiday that is new to many outside Texas. I recall it being celebrated in Atlanta thirty years ago, but then went more than two decades without hearing it mentioned after I moved out of that city.

An “anvil” was a volley of gunfire.  I have found no discussion of the word, but the usage was clearly Southern and my guess is that “anvil” was a corruption of the word enfilade.

That sounds plausible, and is a nice preservation of the linkage between the rifle and individual democratic liberty.


2 comments:

Texan99 said...

I often heard it mentioned when I was in public school in the 60s or 70s, but I don't recall anyone actually celebrating it with a BBQ or the like. Not that I'd likely have noticed if black neighborhoods were celebrating it, since our Houston neighborhoods and schools were still fairly segregated then. By the 90s, neighborhoods were much more racially mixed, but in that period there was even less mention of Juneteenth.

Now we're closer to deep South Texas. My county has a strong Mexican presence but only a tiny handful of blacks. Yesterday, I noticed that the Post Office was closed, but the county courthouse was open; we even had budget meetings.

Eric Blair said...

I got the day off.

I suspect that anvil might be a slurring of the french "Feu de joie", as I literally heard it slurred like that once.