Nutmegger is a nickname for people from the state of
ConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and New York to the west and south ....
. The official name for Connecticut is 'the Constitution State', as voted in 1958 by the Connecticut state legislature; however 'The Nutmeg State' is also an unofficial name for the state, hence the nickname 'nutmegger'. While this nickname had become increasingly overshadowed by the official nickname since the legislative act in 1958, it has made a recent resurgence.
The origin of the appellation is unknown.
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Nutmegger is a nickname for people from the state of
ConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and New York to the west and south ....
. The official name for Connecticut is 'the Constitution State', as voted in 1958 by the Connecticut state legislature; however 'The Nutmeg State' is also an unofficial name for the state, hence the nickname 'nutmegger'. While this nickname had become increasingly overshadowed by the official nickname since the legislative act in 1958, it has made a recent resurgence.
The origin of the appellation is unknown. One theory is that it comes from
YankeeThe term Yankee, sometimes abbreviated to Yank, has a few related meanings, often referring to someone either of general United States origin or more specifically, within the US, to people of Northern origin or heritage. Its meaning has varied over time...
peddlers selling
nutmegNutmeg or Myristica fragrans is an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia, or Spice Islands. Until the mid 19th century this was the world's only source...
s in colonial times. These nutmegs may have been the real thing,
i.e. the hard aromatic seed of the nutmeg tree (
Myristica fragrans), an East Indian evergreen tree, or counterfeit wooden nutmegs; or, as has been suggested , they were the real thing but customers unfamiliar with the native form of the spice might have decided they had been sold a counterfeit after futilely trying to grind the unusually hard seed.
A popular newspaper column in the 1830's was 'The Sayings and Doings of
Samuel SlickSam Slick was a character created by Thomas Chandler Haliburton, a Canadian judge and author. With his wry wit and Yankee voice, Sam Slick of Slicksville put forward his views on "human nature" in a regular column in the Novascotian, beginning in 1835...
, of Slickville', which has been often cited as the source of this legend. The original story was :
"...that eternal scoundrel, that Captain John Allspice of Nahant, he used to trade to Charleston, and he carried a cargo once there of fifty barrels of nutmegs: well, he put half a bushel of good ones into each end of the barrel, and the rest he filled up with wooden ones, so like the real thing, no soul could tell the difference until HE BIT ONE WITH HIS TEETH, and that he never thought of doing, until he was first BIT HIMSELF. Well, its been a standing joke with them southerners agin us ever since. "
The term "nutmegger" is also used about people who often use nutmeg recreationally.