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mucker
DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)
1n. — Mining
a person who removes muck or loose rock from a mine by hand.
Type: 1. Origin — See OED-3, mucker n. sense 4a “a person who removes excavated material from a mine, quarry, etc.". The first quotation listed is from a US magazine dated 1899, which is antedated here from a British Columbia magazine (see the 1895 quotation). Chart 1 shows that the term in the mining context has a North American dimension (.ca and US are highest). Due to the earliest evidence to date found in Canada, the meaning can be considered Type 1 - Origin, in addition to a Type 4 - Cultural salience in the early Canadian context.
The case of mucker, meaning 1, is reminiscent of skid road, which in the meaning of a derelict part of town (like skid row) is first attested in British Columbia, Canada in DARE and not in the US (s.v. "skid road (2)", see Pratt 2004).
Quotations
1895
Wages are $3.50 per day for miners - not a cent too much for good men. In some they pay mucker or trammers $3 per diem. For a new country, and considering transportation of provisions, etc., accommodations for miners are all that could be desired.
1900
. . . the muckers, ore sorters, rawhiders, four-horse teamsters, office men are all hard at work.
1920
MINE FOREMAN WANTED - Young, energetic mine foreman for Silver-lead mine. State wages and references in first letter. Also machine men, muckers and millmen; wages $5.00 to $6.00 per eight hours; board $45.
1948
Sorry to report the death of three miners this morning, Jan. 31st, and a fourth injured. [...] The short service plus wreaths are something that has never been done before and it was all so lovely I hope in future it will always be that kind of parting as though they are really one of our "boys", not just a miner or mucker.
1960
Harry was a mucker from a gold-mine at Wells with a disinclination to stay underground when the grass was green.
1989
I don't know how my father could have stood to be a mining engineer and to be an underground miner. When he worked in the summers, he started right at the bottom as a mucker, so he knew. He wasn't one of these people who came in and started right at the top. He knew what he was talking about when he told people what to do.
1992
WEARING a blue helmet anyway, greaser Ken McKenzie and his fellow miners - muckers, drillers, cuttermen and loader blasters - go "down the hole" (the mine-service shaft) at the start of a shift. The trip to the mine floor takes less then half a minute and is the most claustrophobic part of salt mining.
2002
Hope, who came away from the SOAR experience with the nickname 'Mama Mucker,' said she thinks it's a name that will stick with her for a long time.
"I was in charge of setting up the site," she said. "I had a committee of six or seven others. The muckers in the mines were the ones who did the clean-up. I named us the 'Merry Muckers.' But before long they changed that and called me 'Mama Mucker.'"
2n. — Mining
a mechanical shovel for removing muck (def. 2).
Type: 4. Culturally Significant — Mining has played an important part in the development of the country, from east to west. In combination with meaning 1, which is first attested in Canada, this term is of historical cultural importance for a society that depended, and still does in its more remote areas, on the extraction of natural resources.
Quotations
1943
The company is using a mucker and tugger hoist, recently acquired from a neighboring property. A new mucker has also been ordered and will be delivered in a few weeks.
1956
The mucker was hoisted clear of the bottom timber by 10 feet, to where it might normally have been anchored, when it suddenly fell down the 32 feet to the bottom.
1990
But now things are tame. Tourists walk into the new site at the old Hollinger Mine.
The visitors ogle "fool's gold" and watch as miners drill holes, operate muckers and even perform a simulated blast.
2005
Preparatory work was completed over the past 20 days, and included servicing and maintenance on the specialized equipment necessary to begin the underground phase of this project. The fleet of equipment used in this program includes low profile loaders, or muckers, which are specially designed to minimize tunnel clearance heights, and are able to maneuver in a tight turning radius. Percussion drills are used to bore a series of holes into the face of the frozen gravels, which are carefully blasted in sequence. The fragmented material is then scooped up by the muckers and transported to the stockpile.
2015
Over the next 30 minutes, Rovere showed us all aspect of sand-mining operations: the cavernous stopes where miners toiled; chutes where rock traveled on its downward tumble to the rail carts; ominous-looking machines called muckers made to clear the rubble with a catapultlike lever; pipes used to carry water to keep the dust down after blasts; holes left by 6-foot drill bits from pneumatic augers; holes left by "prehistoric burrowing ghost shrimp" in walls that formerly were the ocean floor; the office where the pit boss kept an eye on the number of carts chugging by.
3†n. — Sports, Hockey
a rough or physical person.
This meaning is not Canadian, other than perhaps through hockey terminology. It is, however, shown here to contextualize meaning 1, which is.
See: muck up
Quotations
1978
"I call him a bull in a china shop because of his unorthodox style, but he's been our best forward this week," said Petes' coach Gary Green. Doug Sauter, Bruins' assistant coach, called the Petes' left winger "a mucker" and agreed Trimper has been the team leader.
2009
Just as the other members of the Canucks' third line are proving that an artist (Kyle Wellwood) doesn't have to be faint of heart, and a frustrated goal-scorer (Steve Bernier) can reinvent himself as a rugged, tenacious mucker, the once one-dimensional flyer that was Mason Raymond has played bigger than his 180 pounds, taken the inside path to the net more often, and stayed strong on the puck.
References
- OED-3
- DARE
- Pratt (2004)
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