Young Whppersnapper

As a youth I can remember my grandfather Davis calling me a "young whippersnapper." I never really knew the full meaning of that comparative title until just recently.

Lively young men of the seventeenth-century England developed a great passion for fast driving. With two teams of horses hitched to heavy coaches, they dashed about in style that made the old-timers shake their heads and wonder what the world was coming to.

This newfangled sport required great skill in the use of the whip. No man was considered adept until he could flick a forward animal from below the lead bar without alarming the wheel horses.

In this age of conspiracies, plots, and attempted rebellions, every swaggering bully prided himself on his prowess as a "whipsnapper." Naturally, adolescent youth and small boys tried to imitate their elders. Gangs of rowdies--boys who today would be called juvenile delinquents--made a great commotion by continually snapping and popping their long whips. This practice was so general that by 1700 any upstart youth or presumptuous person was likely to be sneeringly described as a "whippersnapper." (I've Got Goose Pimples, by Marvin Vanoni)

Well, with my Grandfather Davis long gone, I now know what he meant. I must have been doing something really rowdy to receive a title like that.