Most of the Geneva Daily Times editorials for December 1900, when they commented on local events, focused on the trials, tribulations, and righteous indignation of the editor.

The latest bout in the longstanding feud between the Times and the Advertiser was over a dinner the Times had served its 64 newsboys, an event it publicized proudly. The Advertiser blustered that the Times bragging about its “liberality” was what we now call virtue signaling.

The Advertiser, on the other hand, boasted it had anonymously contributed food the previous Christmas to “three worthy poor families with materials for a dinner, and no one knows to day who they were nor anything about it.” (It should go without saying that mentioning it is virtue signaling too.) The Times responded that the Advertiser was jealous because it had no newsboys.

On Dec. 6, a Times editorial mocked the slang used by “our hysterical friend of Linden Street” (i.e., the editor of the Courier) who stooped so low as to engage in “personal attacks” on politicians, rain abuse on businesses that failed to patronize the Courier, and assail public charities. “Now he shouts, ‘tag-tail! Tag-tail!’ Next, it will be ‘stingy-gut’ and ‘crybaby-cripsy’ [sic]. Thus endeth the hysteria of the nursery.”

What do these pungent insults mean? A “tag-tail” is a sycophant or a toady, commonly used from 1864. “Stingy-gut” combines “miserly” with “gut” referring in this usage........

© Finger Lakes Times