Peter Tamony (October 9, 1902 – July 24, 1985) was an American folk- etymologist who is noted for his research on American colloquial speech,

Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

music and

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

Early life

Tamony was born at home in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, to Irish immigrants. He attended a parochial school at St. Peter's Church, and learned

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and rhetoric from the progressive Father Peter Yorke, a supporter of modernizing the church, organized labor, and Irish independence. In 1905, Tamony's family bought a flat at 2876 24th Street in the

Mission District The Mission District (Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission (Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name is ...

where he lived for eighty years until his death at

Saint Francis Memorial Hospital Saint Francis Memorial Hospital is an accredited, not-for-profit community hospital that has been operating in San Francisco since the early twentieth century. Saint Francis Memorial is a member of Dignity Health, now part of CommonSpirit Health. ...

Interest in language

Tamony first became interested in etymology when he noticed various speech patterns. At the age of 20, he was diagnosed with

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

and couldn't participate in sports; this led him to pay close attention to sports in newspapers, and from there to analyzing how people used words. His sources eventually included any kind of material he could collect such as posters and blues records. He later became a real estate broker and notary, but for more than 50 years, Tamony collected examples of language, storing hundreds of cardboard cartons with file cards, newspaper clippings, conversation notes, and literature quotations. Folklorist

Archie Green Archie Green (June 29, 1917 – March 22, 2009) was an American folklorist specializing in laborlore (defined as the special folklore of workers) and American folk music. Devoted to understanding vernacular culture, he gathered and commente ...

reminisced about the late Tamony as his mentor: "I look back at Peter Tamony as a keeper of a Celtic clan's lore, a bard in a magic three-storied castle - not in legendary Erin, but rather in San Francisco's Mission District."

Legacy

On April 8, 1986, Kathleen Tamony donated her brother's collection to the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

. It is now archived at the

State Historical Society of Missouri The State Historical Society of Missouri, a private membership and state funded organization, is a comprehensive research facility located in Columbia, Missouri, specializing in the preservation and study of Missouri's cultural heritage. Establ ...

Selected works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tamony, Peter American lexicographers American philologists Etymologists American people of Irish descent Writers from San Francisco 1902 births 1985 deaths American real estate brokers Mission District, San Francisco 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century philologists 20th-century lexicographers