Bronck's cheer

Back in the winter, on one of our Sunday drives, Richard and I headed south on route 9W.  About 20 miles south of Albany in Coxsackie, we passed a sign for the Bronck House and Museum, which was closed for the season.  I made a mental note that this destination would be good for a “Meme Day,” when I have my two grandsons for the day, in the summer.  That day happened this past Friday.

When I told 8-year-old Charley that we were going to the Bronck House, he made a connection between the Bronck family and the Bronx.  At first, I was skeptical, but as it turns out, his guess is correct.  According to “The Bronx in Brief” on the Bronx County Historical Society web site, the Swedish sailor Jonas Bronck and his wife, Teuntje Joriaens were the first European settlers at what became “New Amsterdam,” and later New York City, in 1639.  Sadly, Jonas died leaving no heirs, only a settlement, which ultimately became the Bronx due to vagaries of spelling.  But his name also gave rise to the ignominious Bronx cheer.

Bronck’s younger, poorer cousin, Pieter, and his wife Hilletje Jans, however, carried the Bronck name farther north, settling in the mid-1650’s at Beverwijck, now known as Albany.  In the 1663 the couple made their way down to Coxsackie, building what is now the oldest surviving house in Upstate New York.

As I considered this interesting but mundane historical information, I wondered why the infamous Bronx cheer originated in the Bronx.  The Bronx has developed a reputation as a hard-scrabble place.  Between 1900 and 1930 the population of Jonas Bronck’s namesake grew from 201,000 to 1,265,000—quite the dramatic increase.  In addition, at the turn of the 20^th century, the Bronx was a population destination for Italian immigrants.  The Chambers Slang Dictionary supplies two definitions for “Bronx cheer.”  As a noun, a Bronx cheer comes from “the uncouth manners of the Bronx, New York” and means “a loud, derisive noise, imitative of a fart.”  As a verb, a Bronx cheer means “to make a loud derisive noise, as if breaking wind.”

In my researches, I found three possible theories of origin for the Bronx cheer, which first appeared in 1929.  According to Michael Rudeen on examiner.com, the Henry Holt Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins offers that perhaps the word comes from the Spanish “branca,” meaning a rude shout.  (I also found “branca” as an Italian word, meaning “branch,” as in branch of medicine or “grip” or “clutches.”)  A second theory holds that the Bronx shout originated in the National Theatre in the Bronx with unhappy patrons of the theatre.  Finally, probably the most widely accepted theory holds that the Bronx cheer originated with unhappy baseball fans in Yankee Stadium.

Regardless, I found it fascinating that Upstate New York has its own little slice of “the Bronx” 20 miles south near Coxsackie.  I also wonder what the Swedish sailor Jonas Bronck, father of the Bronx, would think if he knew the rude association with his family name.

As an added note, the question arises of how the Bronx cheer became known as a “raspberry.”  Supposedly, that term came from Cockney rhyming slang, in which “raspberry tart” rhymes with “fart.”