This one bothers me. I’m not even sure if it’s slangSince I never see it used in proper written speech, I’ve never been sure which word to use when describing “beating on someone”. The internet is no help, since most online writers will use any combination of keystrokes that strikes their fancy to spell most words. I usally see “whaling on” or “wailing on.”
However, my best guess is that the real usage this comes from is wale, “to mark with stripes,” probably from the same root as “weal” meaning “a streak or stripe.” So, if I am correct in this assumption, the usage should be “He was waling on him good!” Well, so to speak.
Anyone have a different take on this?
I recognize that correcting every average user of this term is already a lost cause. I’m mostly just trying to know the correct version of the verb wale/whale/wail to settle my mind on the matter.
I’ve often wondered if it could be from Irish or Scottish Gaelic buail, to hit / beat / strike. The sense agrees exactly. In the past tense, it is bhuail, which is pronounced very similarly to Irish-English wail (but not whale; I’d have to rely on the general English w + wh merger to explain that one).
I have been looking for that article for years! It’s the first Onion article I ever read, and was so well written that it got me hooked on the publication. Thank you!
In my readings, I notice that it’s used as follows in sources that I usually find to be reliably correct in grammar and usage:
If it’s beating on a person, it’s “whaling on” or more commonly “whaling away on”. Getting whaled on is what happens to you if you piss off a bully in a 1940’s pulp novel, but I’ve seen it in both earlier and later periods. It’s not obsolete yet.
If it’s playing a musical instrument, it tends to be “wailing on” or just “wailing”. This is a little sketchier… fan mags and rock rags always use this spelling, but they’re not generally considered authorities on English usage. I would probably avoid using this one at all unless I were imitating a rock musician or fan circa 1950-1970. Again, not obsolete yet, but more prevalent among the pompadour set.
Merriam-Webster also has this entry:
Main Entry: wale
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): waled; wal·ing
Date: 15th century
: to mark (as the skin) with welts
I submit that if we’re using it in the slang sense of “beating,” the “raise welts on the skin” form is probably more true to the sense of what we’re getting at than the “large marine mammal” form.
I’ll speculate that “whale” acquired the meaning “to beat” through a descriptivist reading of popular literature, which was misspelling “wale,” and became cemented over time.
However, I’m unconvinced. I’m aware of the dangers of folk etymology and making assumptions. I don’t think we have a definitive answer yet; there may very well not be one.
So beating up a Japanese guy on a ship currently occupied in hunting in the southern ocean because you don’t like his singing is waling on a whaler wailing?
That Onion article is the greatest story about whaling since Moby Dick. Sadly enough, it was also the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title.
