Why are “knickers” known by that word?
And what is a New York Knick?
The latter, of course, is a hoops player who plays for the professional basketball team based in Manhattan, New York City. Competing in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. the Knicks are one of the NBA’s league’s oldest teams.
But what is a “Knick?”
We’re betting that most of you will say its a shortened version of the word,”Knickerbocker,”and you’d be right, but what is a knickerbocker???
We have to go back over 200 years to find the etymological origins of the word, and we would find it in literature. In 1809, Washington Irving (the same writer who brought us Rip Van Winkle, the Headless Horseman, and Ichabod Crane) wrote a piece of satire under the pseudonym, Diedrich Knickerbocker. Irving borrowed the name from a real life Knickerbocker, the author’s friend, Herman Knickerbocker.
Like many of us who have surnames rooted in an ancestor’s livelihood (i.e. Tailor, Carpenter, Farmer, Thatcher, and Weaver), Knickerbocker is believed to be a last name derived from the Dutch words, “knikker,” meaning “marble,” and, “bakker,” meaning “baker,” thus literally translating to “a baker of marble.” Since marble can’t be baked, some experts think the name is a metaphorical description of someone who creates marbled patterns in baked goods, but more likely is that it refers to a toy maker who baked children’s clay marbles. In short, it is a surname that many of the Dutch settlers who made their way to the New York area in the 17th century carried. In fact, in 1840 there were 27 Knickerbocker families living in New York, about 75% of all the recorded Knickerbockers in the entire United States. It didn’t take long for New Yorkers to use the term, “Knickerbocker” to refer not only to Dutch descendants, but over time, any native or resident of New York. To Wit: The New York basketball team. As the story goes, in the summer of 1946, the Basketball Association of America granted a franchise to New York City and a bunch of names were put into a hat. “Knickerbocker” was the one pulled out, and Ned Irish, the founder of the club, officially called his team the New York Knickerbockers, eventually shortened to the New York Knicks.
As for the use of the term to describe a certain style of pants we call “knickers,” we refer back to Irving’s book that had contained illustrations of men wearing these loose breeches gathered below the knee.
But what on earth has this to do with dogs, you ask? The short answer is: Beagle.
A brief history lesson. It was during colonial times that fox hunting was introduced to North America, and by 1665, the English had established the sporting culture in New York after gaining control from the Dutch. Traditional fox hunting attire typically included knee-length breeches – or knickers – as part of the sport’s traditional garb, and since fox hunting in New York retained many of the English traditions including what people wore, knickers became part of the standard attire for fox hunting in New York.
The Beagle’s AKC breed standard is not only the only standard in which the word, “knickerbocker” appears, but it is the only standard in which recommendations for Show Livery are included. From that standard: “Black velvet cap, white stock, green coat, white breeches or knickerbockers, green or black stockings, white spats, black or dark brown shoes. Vest and gloves optional. Ladies should turn out exactly the same except for a white skirt instead of white breeches.”
Image: “Following the Hounds” by Rachel Parker – rachelsstudio
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