It isn’t necessary to suppose one word was translated and the other wasn’t. Diez galóns might have been translated into English as “ten galloon,” which might later have been corrupted to “ten gallon.” Galloon is an English word with the same meaning and derivation as the Spanish galón. I don’t know if it happened this way, but it’s a possibility to consider.
JIll Much as I love you, I think we need to know your cites on this one.
Okay, so I didn’t save my sources. But a quick search brought up the following support for my article:
http://www.villagehatshop.com/facts_10_gallon.html
http://www.wordorigins.org/errors.htm
http://www.azhatters.com/faq.html
http://www.unm.edu/~gabbriel/chap8.html
http://nocto.com/kirsty/?month=03&year=2002
http://www.kith.org/logos/words/lower/h.html
Well, your cites have the problem that several of them appear to be direct rip offs of each other - exact copies of wording. However, your first cite lists several book cites.
Jill. I’m gonna tenatively say that you got it basically correct.
Everything I can find etymologically speaking tends to support your research.
The word gallon in English in the phrase almost certainly came from galoneado or galloon or some variant thereof. Sorry, but my Spanish is non-existant.
The first American English cite in print is, as I said earlier, from 1928. It says
The second American cite in print is from Thomas Wolfe, In Look homeward Angel, 1929:
So here we have a phrase that is common enough at this time that a newpaper writer and a popular novelist can use it and assume their readers understand the term.
The etymologically interesting cite is from 1939, in American Speech, which says
Note that nothing is ever said about dangly braids hanging from sombreros. This is a false lead.
The galloon or braid, however you correctly spell it in Spanish, is simply the braid that adorns any item, a hat in this instance. It can simply be the wide braid running around the base of the crown.
The ten is probably just a modifier used in one instance, as cited by your best source http://www.unm.edu/~gabbriel/chap8.html .
Mathews offer a cite from 1893, thus:
HERE is a picture and quote that indicates some western guy wearing a “four gallon sombrero.” I can’t vouch for when the term was used about the “four gallons” but I’m sufficiently convinced that the term “ten gallon hat” evolved from a myriad of sizes of galoneados which stabilized at ten in American English, sometime before 1928(but probably not much).
Back to you, Chet. 
*To forstall DDG from repeating herself—YES, I have no life. IN my defense, all the little clems are away this week at the Outer Banks with their Mom(I’m so jealous). So what else do I have to do?
Just you and the OED, eh? Alone together…
“Ten-gallon” arose around 1925, when Western movies were very popular.
Galán, as I think I noted earlier, also means “movie star”.
“Un sombrero tan galán” is a “movie star’s hat”.
Breaking out of Beginner’s Spanish, Joseph J Keenan, 1994 University of Texas Press, pp 182-3:
“Ten-gallon” arose around 1925, when Western movies were very popular.
Galán, as I think I noted earlier, also means “movie star”.
“Un sombrero tan galán” is a “movie star’s hat”.
Breaking out of Beginner’s Spanish, Joseph J Keenan, 1994 University of Texas Press, pp 182-3:
From the Southwest and the Old West come some of English’s more colorful Spanish loan words, a few of which have lost more than a little of their “Spanishness” in the translation. Still, no western would be complete without some “desperado” “lassoing” a “bronco” (from desesperado, lazo, and bronco). "…The bad guys, incidentally , wore black “sombreros,” whereas the good guys could be counted on to show up in white “ten-gallon” (from tan galán, or “so gallant”) hats.
It is interesting that no one really responded to my post, aside from some crude ad hominem insults, but that is to be expected, I guess.
I know what the dictionaries say, and they are all quoting each other. The fact that galón means “braid” as well as “gallon” adds to the confusion as well. I made the statement about dangling braids to hghlight the dubiousness of the derivation, not because I thought anyone ever dangled braids from his brim. “Cinta (de sombrero)” is Spanish for hatband. “Galón” is Spanish for braid. If it wraps around the crown, it’s a “cinta.” That’s the point I was trying to make.
Even Jill, in her original article, unwittingly supports my assertion that “ten-gallon” comes from “tan gálan”:
“Stewart says the tall-crowned hats became popular when movie stars of B-Westerns in the 20s and 30s wore them to make themselves look taller (Tom Mix was only 5’6”). "
I reiterate that gálan means “movie star”. Tan means “so” or “like”.
Tan gálan means “like a movie star”.
The “ten-ounce” hat that samclem cited most likely refers to the weight of the fabric used to make it, since fabric is often specified in ounces per unit of square measure, usually a square yard. To call “ten” a “modifier used in one instance” is surely a false lead.
The “four-gallon” hat he cites is unique, I think. One might call it humorous.
Neither of his cites from 1928 indicates word origin, merely that the word was in use.
Aside from various self-referential dictionary entries, the case for “ten-braids” is pretty weak.
Hardy. I wasn’t ignoring you. I was actually waiting for an answer to an email about ten-gallon hats and Buffalo Bill. It hasn’t arrived yet.
I don’t dismiss your assertions out of hand. Lord knows, there is little hard evidence(so far) to prove anything before the late 1920’s.
Here’s my problem with your theory:
If galan means “movie star” in Mexican/Spanish, when was it first used in print. Now I realize that there ain’t no OED of Spanish out there. But, when do you reasonbly think that that word arose? 1905? 1915? 1925. How many movie stars were there in 1905? And when were they first called "movie stars?
And when would “tan galan” meaning “like a movie star” have arisen?
I just don’t think there was enough time between the advent of movies, and something called “movie stars” and a Mexican word for “Movie star” to morph into English as galan=gallon, or more properly as sombrero tan galan=ten gallon hat.
It sound like a good theory, but you’ll have to find some evidence.
The Real Academia Española has published dictionaries since 1734. The current is the 22nd edition. They have been a very conservative group; their goal is to keep Spanish frozen enough that Don Quixote will always be intelligible to an educated reader. Try that with Shakespeare-without copious footnotes, his plays really don’t make sense to a modern reader, educated or otherwise, since English has changed so dramatically since his day.
All the various editions of the DRAE (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española) are online, in charming facsimile, and the current one is fully online, hotlinked and everything. Unlike the OED, the DRAE does not now give instances of usage, first or otherwise, though in its earlier editions it gives cites of usage, as well as a few examples.
The 1734 edition defines galan as
- a man off good height, well proportioned limbs, and graceful in movement. Lat: elegans, pulcher, venustus. Cerv. Quix. tom 2.cap 1.
- Also said of one who is dressed for a gala.
- it describes also he who pursues, woos or wins some woman. Also citing Cerv. Quix.
So, combining the three 268 year old definitions, we have a well-built, graceful, well-dressed lady’s man. Sort of like a matinée idol, don’t you think?
The edition of1803 adds to this: Any of the men who plays a serious role in a farce, of whom the first is called galan by antonomasia, and the others are distinguished by their order, second galan, third galan &c. Primus actor in scena.
1817-same
1822- He who in comedies has one of the principal serious roles with the exclusion of the ‘barba’; and thus one says the first galan, the second galan &c. Primus actor in scena.
(The ‘barba’ is an old man, stock character in farces and comedies. Dropped the antonomasia, changed farce to comedy, added the ‘barba’ exception.)
1832, 1837, 1852, 1869-identical.
1884- He who in the theater has one of the principal serious roles, with the exclusion of the ‘barba’ First galán, second galán. (accent first appears in singular form) ‘Comedy’ dropped for ‘theater’
1899, 1914, 1936, 1939, 1947, 1956-identical.
1984- added: By extension, it is applied also to an actor of this type in the movies.
1989 and 1992, identical
The current edition, published in 2001- Actor in theater or film who plays leading roles, mainly of an amorous character; as well as the older meanings of a suitor and a good-looking, well-proportioned, graceful man.
I confess I was surprised that it took the DRAE until 1984 to admit that, ‘by extension’ galan could be applied to an actor in the movies. I said the RAE was conservative; it took them a century to make any change at all in the definition.
I don’t think it is much of a leap to apply theatrical terms to cognate items in the cinema. I’m sure people here, and Spanish speakers also, did so from the first appearance of the movies.
So, in summary:
Galán has been used for centuries, at least since Cervantes and probably earlier, to mean a handsome, well-built, graceful, well dressed man with an eye for the ladies.
Gálan has had a theatrical meaning, (romantic/serious lead) for more than two centuries.
‘Tan galán’ is a familiar phrase in Spanish. Cervantes used it, it’s in nursery rhymes, it’s in songs, it’s in jokes. A “google” in Spanish pages only returned more than 200 hits.
“Ten-gallon” hats didn’t become popular until the stars in cowboy movies wore them. The adjective “ten-gallon” does not appear, in any dictionary I consulted, before 1925.
Even eighty years ago, men would not have bought a “movie-star hat” by that name. But they wanted to look like a movie star. Hatmakers still give colorful, exotic names to their hats: El Presidente, El Patron, Catera, California B, Bull Whip and Cinch are the names Stetson currently uses for their Western line. Note that half the names are Spanish. Two-thirds, if you count ‘cinch’ which comes from Spanish ‘cincha’. Five-sixths, if you count California.
A very easy way to describe ‘a hat like Tom Mix wore in his last movie’ would be to use a catchy, mellifluous name, that means ‘handsome man/movie star’ in Spanish. It is easy to understand how hat stores and their customers could mis-hear the Spanish, and substitute similar sounding English words. That the hats looked like they might even hold ten gallons makes it easier to understand. People have been making jokes for a long, long time. It didn’t start with us.
If the ‘diez galónes’, or ‘ten braids’ derivation is the correct one, then cites should appear from well before 1925, since the height of the cowboy/vaquero era was at least fifty years before that; by 1925 it had become the semi-mythical Old West, and one of the staple themes for the everywhere available and popular movies.
While final proof may still be lacking, the derivation from ‘tan galán’ just makes more sense.
The Real Academia Española has published dictionaries since 1734. The current is the 22nd edition. They have been a very conservative group; their goal is to keep Spanish frozen enough that Don Quixote will always be intelligible to an educated reader. Try that with Shakespeare-without copious footnotes, his plays really don’t make sense to a modern reader, educated or otherwise, since English has changed so dramatically since his day.
All the various editions of the DRAE (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española) are online, in charming facsimile, and the current one is fully online, hotlinked and everything. Unlike the OED, the DRAE does not now give instances of usage, first or otherwise, though in its earlier editions it gives cites of usage, as well as a few examples.
The 1734 edition defines galan as
- a man off good height, well proportioned limbs, and graceful in movement. Lat: elegans, pulcher, venustus. Cerv. Quix. tom 2.cap 1.
- Also said of one who is dressed for a gala.
- it describes also he who pursues, woos or wins some woman. Also citing Cerv. Quix.
So, combining the three 268 year old definitions, we have a well-built, graceful, well-dressed lady’s man. Sort of like a matinée idol, don’t you think?
The edition of1803 adds to this: Any of the men who plays a serious role in a farce, of whom the first is called galan by antonomasia, and the others are distinguished by their order, second galan, third galan &c. Primus actor in scena.
1817-same
1822- He who in comedies has one of the principal serious roles with the exclusion of the ‘barba’; and thus one says the first galan, the second galan &c. Primus actor in scena.
(The ‘barba’ is an old man, stock character in farces and comedies. Dropped the antonomasia, changed farce to comedy, added the ‘barba’ exception.)
1832, 1837, 1852, 1869-identical.
1884- He who in the theater has one of the principal serious roles, with the exclusion of the ‘barba’ First galán, second galán. (accent first appears in singular form) ‘Comedy’ dropped for ‘theater’
1899, 1914, 1936, 1939, 1947, 1956-identical.
1984- added: By extension, it is applied also to an actor of this type in the movies.
1989 and 1992, identical
The current edition, published in 2001- Actor in theater or film who plays leading roles, mainly of an amorous character; as well as the older meanings of a suitor and a good-looking, well-proportioned, graceful man.
I confess I was surprised that it took the DRAE until 1984 to admit that, ‘by extension’ galán could be applied to an actor in the movies. I said the RAE was conservative; it took them a century to make any change at all in the definition.
I don’t think it is much of a leap to apply theatrical terms to cognate items in the cinema. I’m sure people here, and Spanish speakers also, did so from the first appearance of the movies.
The Real Academia Española has published dictionaries since 1734. The current is the 22nd edition. They have been a very conservative group; their goal is to keep Spanish frozen enough that Don Quixote will always be intelligible to an educated reader. Try that with Shakespeare-without copious footnotes, his plays really don’t make sense to a modern reader, educated or otherwise, since English has changed so dramatically since his day.
All the various editions of the DRAE (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española) are online, in charming facsimile, and the current one is fully online, hotlinked and everything. Unlike the OED, the DRAE does not now give instances of usage, first or otherwise, though in its earlier editions it gives cites of usage, as well as a few examples.
The 1734 edition defines galan as
- a man off good height, well proportioned limbs, and graceful in movement. Lat: elegans, pulcher, venustus. Cerv. Quix. tom 2.cap 1.
- Also said of one who is dressed for a gala.
- it describes also he who pursues, woos or wins some woman. Also citing Cerv. Quix.
So, combining the three 268 year old definitions, we have a well-built, graceful, well-dressed lady’s man. Sort of like a matinée idol, don’t you think?
The edition of1803 adds to this: Any of the men who plays a serious role in a farce, of whom the first is called galan by antonomasia, and the others are distinguished by their order, second galan, third galan &c. Primus actor in scena.
1817-same
1822- He who in comedies has one of the principal serious roles with the exclusion of the ‘barba’; and thus one says the first galan, the second galan &c. Primus actor in scena.
(The ‘barba’ is an old man, stock character in farces and comedies. Dropped the antonomasia, changed farce to comedy, added the ‘barba’ exception.)
1832, 1837, 1852, 1869-identical.
1884- He who in the theater has one of the principal serious roles, with the exclusion of the ‘barba’ First galán, second galán. (accent first appears in singular form) ‘Comedy’ dropped for ‘theater’
1899, 1914, 1936, 1939, 1947, 1956-identical.
1984- added: By extension, it is applied also to an actor of this type in the movies.
1989 and 1992, identical
The current edition, published in 2001- Actor in theater or film who plays leading roles, mainly of an amorous character; as well as the older meanings of a suitor and a good-looking, well-proportioned, graceful man.
I confess I was surprised that it took the DRAE until 1984 to admit that, ‘by extension’ galán could be applied to an actor in the movies. I said the RAE was conservative; it took them a century to make any change at all in the definition.
I don’t think it is much of a leap to apply theatrical terms to cognate items in the cinema. I’m sure people here, and Spanish speakers also, did so from the first appearance of the movies.
So, in summary:
Galán has been used for centuries, at least since Cervantes and probably earlier, to mean a handsome, well-built, graceful, well dressed man with an eye for the ladies.
Gálan has had a theatrical meaning, (romantic/serious lead) for more than two centuries.
‘Tan galán’ is a familiar phrase in Spanish. Cervantes used it, it’s in nursery rhymes, it’s in songs, it’s in jokes. A “google” in Spanish pages only returned more than 200 hits.
“Ten-gallon” hats didn’t become popular until the stars in cowboy movies wore them. The adjective “ten-gallon” does not appear, in any dictionary I consulted, before 1925.
Even eighty years ago, men would not have bought a “movie-star hat” by that name. But they wanted to look like a movie star. Hatmakers still give colorful, exotic names to their hats: El Presidente, El Patron, Catera, California B, Bull Whip and Cinch are the names Stetson currently uses for their Western line. Note that half the names are Spanish. Two-thirds, if you count ‘cinch’ which comes from Spanish ‘cincha’. Five-sixths, if you count California.
A very easy way to describe ‘a hat like Tom Mix wore in his last movie’ would be to use a catchy, mellifluous name, that means ‘handsome man/movie star’ in Spanish. It is easy to understand how hat stores and their customers could mis-hear the Spanish, and substitute similar sounding English words. That the hats looked like they might even hold ten gallons makes it easier to understand. People have been making jokes for a long, long time. It didn’t start with us.
If the ‘diez galónes’, or ‘ten braids’ derivation is the correct one, then cites should appear from well before 1925, since the height of the cowboy/vaquero era was at least fifty years before that; by 1925 it had become the semi-mythical Old West, and one of the staple themes for the everywhere available and popular movies.
While final proof may still be lacking, the derivation from ‘tan galán’ just makes more sense.
I’m not sure whether to be insulted or complimented, but I read (and watch) Shakespeare without footnotes.
How could my comment possibly be interpreted as an insult?
If you can understand every word and shade of meaning in Shakespeare without resorting to footnotes or dictionaries, I not only compliment you, I am in awe of your erudition.