AboutTed Nesbitt Expertise I am willing to assist anyone in the interpretation of the literature of any genre, but my expertise is in American literature. My masters thesis is an analysis of the heroic novels of William Faulkner. I am also adept in English literature, particularly Shakespeare and the romantic poets.
I will not edit or revise lengthy papers. Nor will I do homework.
Experience I taught advanced placement English in a preparatory school and am now a reference librarian at a medium-sized public college. I have been a volunteer at the grammar and writing, poetry, etymology and politics sections of allexperts for more than four years.
Question Dear Mr. Nesbitt,
At the risk of appearing disrespectful (which I in no way intend), I do realize that you are no longer accepting questions. However, I do not wish to ask a question; I wish to learn the outcome of the remainder of your research on the origin of the expression "Red-headed [bastard] stepchild".
When I Googled it, I found very little. But I did find your response on 12/8/2004; with further research to follow. I have been unable to find the 'further research', which interests me greatly.
This is not an idle interest for me. That term was used on and for my brother and me (red-heads) our entire childhood. I am now working on a book of our experiences, and would very much like to know the (legitimate) origin of that expression.
Thank you so much for your dedication to our great language. You are a welcome rarity.
Sincerely,
Tana Fisher
Answer Dear Tana:
It took me a while to find the answer I sent to "Jason," but I finally found it. However, the date on the message to him is December 8, 2004. The answer I sent -- after consulting MANY other people, to whom I gave credit -- was very lengthy.
I did not use the phrase "further research" in that answer, however.
I am pasting in below the full answer I sent to Jason. You may have already read it. I went as far as I could trying to find a definitive answer about the origin of the phrase. I have done no other research since my response to Jason, nearly five years ago.
I hope what follows is "new" to you, but I have a feeling that it is not.
Ted Nesbitt
Jason:
I am pasting in below the various comments that I found. The one that I find most convincing is from John Dyson, Indiana University. He is an excellent resource.
Step children are "less significant" than children who are the offspring of both parents, I guess. I'm thinking of Cinderella and her "stepsisters." They were, if I remember the story correctly, the "chosen" two, because they were the natural offspring of both parents. Cinderella, as a "stepsister" did NOT have BOTH of the parents -- but just one.
I had never considered "redheaded" to be negative until these answers starting coming into the list.
I have checked every phrase, idiom, and colloquialism dictionary that we have in our library -- in case we have some reference source that the other libraries cited below do NOT have. I found nothing.
The "bible" of the field, "The Oxford English Dictionary," with its 20 volumes, does not have an entry.
The original question was posted to the "Stumpers" [librarians] group in 1998. There were no answers at that time. When it was recently posted again [October], there were several responses. I have given the most pertinent ones below. I omitted a number of responses that were repetitious or were not really on the subject, but went off on a tangent.
Happy reading!
Ted Nesbitt
DECEMBER 1, 1998
Got what I thought would be an easy question...they're always the worst.
Client wants to know origin of the "red-headed stepchild" references,
such as "beaten like a red-headed stepchild" or "feeling as ignored as
a red-headed stepchild."
I've checked forty-plus books of slang, regionalisms, euphemisms, phrase origins, etc., and a colleague has been checking through our quotation book collection. Nada.
A Web search brings up a number of occurrences of the phrase--a Pontiac
racecar driver complaining that Pontiacs are the r-hs of racecars; an
operetta fan saying operettas are the r-hs of the opera world; a
lawyer titling an article describing recanted testimony as a r-hs of
jurisprudence; residents of a Washington island saying that lack of
ferry service has made them feel like a r-hs; even Butthead (of
Bevis and...) in an "interview" in ROLLING STONE describing torturing
a frog or somesuch by saying he'd been beating on it like a red-
haired stepchild, heh heh, heh heh. With one exception, everything
I found was from within the last three or four years, though I think
I've been vaguely aware of the phrase for longer than that.
The exception was a 1931 play that we don't own, found in WorldCat:
| AUTHOR: George, Charles, 1893-1960.
| TITLE: The red-headed stepchild,
| a comedy-drama in three acts,
| PLACE: Chicago,
|PUBLISHER: T.S. Denison & company
| YEAR: 1931
| PUB TYPE: Book
| FORMAT: 108 p. 18 cm.
| SERIES: Denison's select plays
Now, two questions: my original client's question had to do with
origins--is there a literary quote or the like to which the phrase
can be ultimately traced? Since, as I noted, I've not been able
to find it in any print source (and none of the Web references I
found discussed origin except for one poor guy who had posted a
query asking about its origin but got no replies), at this point
I'd gladly accept even a semi-authoritative "Proverbial, origin
unknown" or the like just to have something to point to and give to
my client.
Second question, which is my own: I've always assumed the reference
suggested illegitimacy (perhaps remembering the Farkle Family skits
on LAUGH IN), but in that case why "step"child? (The Farkle kids'
red hair was--obviously to all but their alleged Dad--an inheritance
from their red-headed next-door neighbor; but "stepchild" doesn't
make any sense in this context.) Or is it not hinting at illegitimacy
but simply combining two categories of people who (at least in some
folkloric traditions) are traditionally ill-treated or ill-regarded:
stepchildren in general and redheads in general? Since this question
is my own, and solving it is less urgent than the question of origins,
idle speculation is cheerfully encouraged.
Of course, the fact that the term might appear as red headed, red-headed,
redheaded, red haired, red-haired, or redhaired (and perhaps as
step child, step-child, or stepchild) just adds to the searching fun...
Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien@tc.umn.edu
whose hair was brown with slight red undertones before he started all
of this, but it's probably mostly gray by now
********************************************************
OCTOBER 21, 2004
Hello-
Does anyone know the origin of the phrase "beaten like
a red-headed stepchild." I happen to be a red-headed
stepchild, and this expression has always confused me.
Thanks
GK
PS: I am not a member of the list
OCTOBER 21, 2004
You forgot to anticipate the most important question, viz., are you
beaten? If so, like a red-headed stepchild? like an arbitrary stepchild?
like an arbitrary redhead? other?
Regards
Dave
It is a slang insult born of violence that has become a catch phrase. It
means "to beat you extremely", assuming that in anger or frustration you
would beat a redheaded stepchild more than any other child because she/he is
less desirable - both for being a stepchild and for being redheaded.
In the poorer classes one might beat a stepchild more than their own because
they care less for them than their own child. The redheaded part may be a
reference to the hotheadedness that redheads are supposed to be prone to,
which would incite the beating all the more.
It is probably anonymous, coming from less educated people who use and make
up their own slang frequently. I'm betting on anonymous because I can't see
a person who would make up such a thing being interested in going on record
for it, nor would it be something to be proud of, nor is it quite that
famous that enough people would care who came up with it. It could, however, eventually be attributed to someone, though probably the wrong person and some time after it was actually first said.
If you don't find a formal source or definition, you might try seeing if any social, psychological and/or language studies have been done on the poorer classes and their slang that might provide a lead to a definition and, if possible, an author.
OCTOBER 21, 2004
"The Poorer classes" have no monopoly on child beating. I am very uncomfortable with this implication.
Marian Drabkin
OCTOBER 21, 2004
I don't think maltreatment of children was and is restricted to the poor.
Apart from recent trouble with priests who are scarcely poor. "Monasticmicrobes" are not unknown in boys boarding schools and Barnardo's children who ended up on Canadian farms seem to have frequently been badly treated.
David ib
OCTOBER 21, 2004
This is pretty much within earlier traditional expressions of contempt for
redheads as unreliable, untrustworthy and ill-tempered. The Egyptians
sacrificed redheads, if I remember correctly. Poor old Esau was made
redheaded by painters who associated him with his red land of Edom. Legend
made Judas a redhead and one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse rides
the red horse of conflict. The Irish held a better view of redheads, but
even so, they had na Trì Deirg, the three redheaded horsemen of death
and destruction, dressed in red and astride red horses. Then there are the
nervous jokes about redheaded babies born to a mother and father who
aren't. So, saying "beaten like a redheaded step-child" seems congruent
with all that and not particularly novel. Rumor has it that some have been
overheard actually offering to pay to see Carrot Top beaten in public, but
I have been unable to verify either that or his step-status.
And then along came Rita Hayworth and Nicole Kidman, and a whole tradition
faded far, far away...
John Dyson
Spanish and Portuguese
Indiana University
OCTOBER 21, 2004
I Googled and found a couple of recent references:
"... treated like a redheaded bastard at family reunion."
"... treated like a redheaded bastard stepchild."
-- which might shed a little light on its origins. It might be that
"bastard" was a bit rough and was dropped or replaced by "stepchild" in
common usage.
On the other hand, I recall that Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables)
bemoaned her fate as a ill-treated redheaded orphan.
Bill Davis
OCTOBER 22, 2004
The sports version, "beaten like a rented mule" (as in, The Red Sox beat
the Yankees like a rented mule) is the only similar expression I still hear
in common use; but I do know that in generations past, step-children were
often treated poorly, since biological children were favoured in many
families. I recall that there are fairy tales where the step-child is the
helpless victim of cruelty...But then, the "wicked step-mother" was another
archetype in myths... On the other hand, I don't know much about how
rented mules were treated-- not very well, I guess.
OCTOBER 22, 2004
A belated thought: the Norse trickster god Loki is often depicted with
red hair and beard, and he is an adopted child (son of a giant but
foster parented by Odin).
Of course, I don't recall any stories in which Loki is specifically
beaten (threatened with a beating by Thor, maybe), but he is punished
in other ways often enough, notably for his part in the death of Balder,
where he is chained up under a serpent who drips painful venom upon him.
Maybe Loki also contributed to the cliche, but "chained up beneath a
snake that drips painful venom on you like a red-headed and red-bearded
foster child" just didn't make it, succinctness-wise.....
Or maybe not.
Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien@tc.umn.edu
OCTOBER 22, 2004
I don't have any reference for this and in some ways it
doesn't even make sense but I always thought that the
"redheaded" part was to suggest that the child was possibly
not the "father's"; that is that the mother had cuckolded the
father and being redheaded suggested that someone else
was the father. It doesn't make sense because a step-child
*of course* has a different father. But folk slang frequently
doesn't make sense, almost as often as folk etymologies
like this one.
Craig.
I am surprised that no one has mentioned the most famous red-headed orphan/stepchild of fiction - Ms. Annie Warbucks, nee Orphan Annie ... In the comics, she was ill-abused on numerous occasions, although not by Daddy Warbucks.
Peter T. Prunka
Our librarians' group just went through a lengthy series of explanations of this expression -- and many others that are similar to it. In various parts of this country and in OTHER countries, the phrases differs quite a bit. I'll go to the librarians' archives and will copy the entire thread, but it will take me a while to do it. It is going to be a lengthy process -- finding the messages, and then cutting and pasting them into a message for you. You'll have to give me a couple of days.
Most people want an answer immediately, and I cannot provide you with one. If you're interested in my doing this work, then get back in touch with me.
I hesitate to make this offer, because the last time I did a project like this, it took me about ten hours over several days.
The person who asked the question didn't evaluate my work or send me a note of appreciation or thanks. In fact, she didn't even acknowledge that she received the message, even though I kept sending it to her -- three times over three days.
That's one of the reasons that I state in my profile that I am not accepting any more questions. The questioners are too rude -- expecting the experts to drop what they are doing and SERVE them, with absolutely no "thank you" in return.
I will do the work for you, but you'll have to give me some time. But, you'll have to let me know. I'm working tonight on special projects for my students. I'll try to start your project tomorrow . . . but I will not begin it, unless you contact me again.
I'm sorry for this, but I have been burned too many times by the ungrateful people who ask questions. If you're serious about getting all the input that various people sent to the librarians' list, then I will somehow find a few hours to put it all together.
Their answers are VERY COMPREHENSIVE, but they don't really reach a solid conclusion . . . just a lot of options.
