Unwinding Ubiquities, Entry One: "Pike's Peak or Bust"

Hello, everyone!


     Have you heard any of the sweet and impressive violin covers by Seda Baykara? If not, I would recommend giving them a listen. Baykara's arrangements are lovely, and she seems like someone whom I would love to meet. I'm actually feeling a bit under the weather today, but her work greatly lifted my spirits. In fact, watching her videos inspired me to work on a new project for That Doesn't Happen!

(Via Imaginary Wars)

     While I was dreaming up my new project, I began to wonder about the origins of the phrase "...or bust," as in the saying "California or Bust." After a bit of research I stumbled upon an etymological debate, and, because I'm a little ill today, I was compelled to formulate a stance. (I tend to rant about silly things when I'm not feeling well. Do you do nonsensical things when you're sick?) Thus the first post of Unwinding Ubiquities, a series of brief explorations into etymology, was born. If you are for some reason interested in what I have discovered about the tiny phrase above, then read on, dear reader, read on!

     As it happens, there are several variations of opinion about the origin of the "or bust" construction, though all of the sources that I've seen agree that it is from the U.S. Some state that Dust Bowl refugees were the first to use the saying, citing the "California or Bust" signs in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. The expression, however, appears to predate the Great Depression. The earliest version that I found at a cursory search was from the 1800s, when gold prospectors painted the slogan "Pike's Peak or Bust" on their expedition wagons.

     Not only do etymologists debate the saying's origins, but they also disagree on its meaning. Some claim that the phrase "or bust" references the idea of "going bust," which is equivalent in some contexts to "going broke." Setting aside the "or bust" conundrum for a moment, however, one must admit that when "going bust" is used in this way it functions as a derivative idiom stretched from the basic meaning of "bust." In other words, when the phrase "going bust" is used within a setting of bankruptcy, it performs a specific contextual application of a word which, outside of this narrow context, has a very general definition. For in most conversational settings, "bust" has a broad metaphorical meaning, which is to fail so spectacularly that the aftermath is akin to that of an explosion.* To assume that the slogan "Pike's Peak or Bust" meant that miners were merely willing to risk financial destitution is to apply the word "bust" in one of its most narrow and specific senses, and the context does not provide enough evidence to support such a leap.

     Additionally, when Etymology Online suggested that the saying "...or bust" was linked to the phrase "bust (one's) boiler," they explained that the latter expression alluded to overworking one's steamboat until the engine exploded. Within a similar vein,** several English speakers who were asked to define the "or bust" idiom equated it with the phrase "or die trying." These comparisons point us toward the more general sense of "bust" given in the paragraph above, and I agree with those leanings. The historical motto of "Pike's Peak or Bust" and its many variants express something a bit darker (and a bit more melodramatic, apropos of U.S. American culture) than bare financial commitment.

     In sum, this is a very rough-hewn, very Yankee expression. The Gold Rushers with whom it seems to have originated were facing more than monetary bankruptcy: In many cases, the journey to and the conditions on the frontier were fatally risky. Were these prospectors driven predominantly by iron determination, golden delusion, or black desperation? No doubt the cocktail of motive differed from person to person. One imagines, though, that if we asked these characters to explain the phrase in question themselves, they might respond with something like this: "We're gonna give it all we've got, and the only way we'll stop is if we get there or we die on the way."

On that note, adieu, and to any fellow invalids reading this, get well soon!

L.


*After all, let's remember that "bust" itself is a dialectal descendant of its elder relative, "burst," which means to pop or explode.

**Nudge nudge, wink wink.