Busboy cart
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Meaning "male negro slave or Asian personal servant of any age" attested from c. In some local uses "a man," without reference to age (OED lists "in Cornwall, in Ireland, in the far West of the U.S."). For a different conjecture: Used slightingly of young men in Middle English, also in familiar or contemptuous use of criminal toughs or men in the armed services.
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This suggests a gradational relationship to babe. Possibly from Old French embuie "one fettered," from Vulgar Latin *imboiare, from Latin boia "leg iron, yoke, leather collar," from Greek boeiai dorai "ox hides." (Words for "boy" double as "servant, attendant" across the Indo-European map - compare Italian ragazzo, French garçon, Greek pais, Middle English knave, Old Church Slavonic otroku - and often it is difficult to say which meaning came first.)īut it also appears to be identical with East Frisian boi "young gentleman," and perhaps with Dutch boef "knave," from Middle Dutch boeve, perhaps from Middle Low German buobe. as "male child before puberty" (possibly an extended sense from the "urchin" one). 1300, "rascal, ruffian, knave urchin," mid-14c. We are all complicit in busboy democracy, whether we want to be or not.Mid-13c., boie "servant, commoner, knave" (generally young and male) c. Through Guenette’s adroit and surprising verse, social critique and quixotic imagery do a double team, and when the main busser dozens us by saying “Your mother was a busboy,” the call-out is complete. Matthew Guenette’s funky, funny collection, American Busboy, isn’t about “the flawed /democracy of lobster tanks,” but it could be if the lobsters were replaced with grumbling busboys and the tank was exchanged for The Clam Shack!, a restaurant that “drags its tired butt, but /never shuts its smack-talk mouth.” In these incisive poems, untouchable waitresses step on the heads of busboys while cultural luminaries like Dorothy, Rilke, and Al Pacino revel in their own busboy aspirations. Sandra Beasley, author of I Was the Jukebox “The restaurant needed / a spanking all morning,” is the brassy declaration of “National Ice Cream Sandwich Day,” “& would need a good spanking /all summer long.” Using irreverent humor, clever lineation, formal invention, and alliteration worthy of Chaucer, American Busboy cuts to the front of the line for the attention of any lover of fresh, funny-yet movingly vulnerable-contemporary poetry. In this book’s world, “the restaurant /never asked you to /imagine imaginary /things like the brittle / bones of onion rings.” Instead, a manager sticks his hand first in the breader, then the Frialator, just to prove a point on another night, a middle-aged waitress gets taken home via a dirt road. With no apologies and with no mercy, but with an electrifying degree of lyric energy, Matthew Guenette brings the mindset of a stifled serving class to life in American Busboy. David Kirby, author of Talking About Movies with Jesus But aren’t we all busboys? Aren’t we all essential to the hum of daily life? Aren’t we all unsung? Don’t we all put cornstarch in our polyester pants to keep from getting a butt rash? The next time you’re chowing down at The Clam Shack! and some pimply teenager or schoolteacher working a second job staggers by with a trayful of dirty dishes, you’ll remember these ballsy, all-American poems and think, poetry in motion. When he says Jesus is a busboy, it sounds like a prayer. When Matthew Guenette says your mother is a busboy, it sounds like an insult.