How an Old Shoe gives us the word Sabotage

Hello,

This week’s word is sabotage, with thanks to the final episode of BBC’s submarine drama “Vigil”. The episode featured several characters discovering sabotage on the boat and it reminded me how much l like the sound of this word.

Where do we get sabotage from? Well, it’s the story of an old French shoe.

Old boots on a mountain summit (not sabots!)

Sabotage entered English in 1907 as a borrowed word from French. The French word derived from the verb saboter (to sabotage or bungle) whose origins lie in footwear. The sabot was a wooden shoe (from around 1200s) worn often by lower class workers as they toiled through muddy streets. They were clunky things but their thick soles got you above the level of the dirt and they were cheap to make, albeit wobbly. The wealthier might wear them too, but they would change into fancier leather or silk shoes when they reached their destination.

The sabots were pretty noisy objects, everybody would hear you coming and saboter translated literally as to walk noisily in sabots. Sabot arose from the Old French word bot (boot) and savate (old shoe). Savate may even come from the Persian word ciabat which gives us related words in Provençal, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Basque, and Italian (ciabatta, yes that loaf is named for a shoe, a story for another day).

You might assume that the source of sabotage’s modern meaning is that the disgruntled would destroy property by throwing shoes at it (we know it’s way to express disrespect in Iraq, for example). I suspect a shoe in a factory machine would bung up the works pretty well. Sadly there’s no evidence on the whole shoe-chucking notion. Sabotage was used in French for all types of clumsiness – from wobbling along on wooden shoes to playing music badly. It’s reported in 1907 as being a workman’s way of protesting – instead of striking they would work badly, annoy customers, and cause a loss to their employer.

Grammar Phobia debunked the sabot throwing theory beautifully in this piece and adds the information that rural workers wearing sabots were sometimes mocked for being as clumsy and slow as their footwear. This led to sabotage being a type of “go slow” work protest in the late 1800s in France.

This was not the method in last night’s drama – no shoes were thrown, the saboteur preferred murder, causing a leak on a submarine, and releasing nerve gas in an enclosed space. I think I prefer the wobbly wooden shoe method of protest.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery)

p.s. As I’ve mentioned before, my next Wordfoolery book will explore the origins of words associated with the Christmas season (and other mid-winter festivals too, of course). I’m at the “gathering candidate words” phase now and I’d love to get some suggestions from Wordfoolery readers. If you have a favourite Christmas word or one whose history intrigues you, drop it in a the comments below. As always, any “word donors” get their names in the acknowledgements section of the book. I have been asked if this book will be out in time for Christmas 2021. Sadly, not even Wordfoolery is that productive but I hope to launch in 2022.