January 25: The Name Game, Ebenezer, Scrooge

I wanted to talk about the name "Ebenezer Scrooge" a little bit this morning.  I'd always wondered where Charles Dickens came up with that moniker that has become synonymous with stinginess and ill will.  A while ago, I found this little tidbit of information on Wikipedia:

Where the "meal man" is buried

In his diaries, Dickens states that Scrooge stems from a grave marker which he saw in 1841, while taking an evening walk in the Canongate Kirkyard in Edinburgh.  The headstone was for the vintner Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie, a relative of Adam Smith, who had won the catering contract for the visit of George IV to Edinburgh and the first contract to supply whiskey to the Royal Navy.  The marker identified Scroggie as a "meal man" (corn merchant), but Dickens misread this as "mean man," due to the fading light and his mild dyslexia.  Dickens wrote that it must have "shrivelled" Scroggie's soul to carry "such a terrible thing to eternity."  The grave marker was lost during construction work at part of the kirkyard in 1932.

That information supplies part of the information.  Digging a little deeper, however, I discovered this definition of the word "ebenezer":

1.  usu cap:  a commemoration of divine assistance (here I raise mine Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I'm come--Robert Robinson)

2.  dial:  ANGER, TEMPER (he must have had a tempestical time of it for she had got her ebenezer up--T. C. Haliburton)

And from the Bible (where the word seems to have originated):

Heb.  stone of help; fr. the application of this name by Samuel to the stone which he set up in commemoration of God's help to the Israelites in their victory over the Philistines at Mizpah (1 Sam 7:12)

All of this information probably played a part in Dickens creating one of the most well-known names in English literature.  I'm sure Mr. Scroggie's headstone, and Dickens' misreading of its epitaph, hugely influenced the character of Ebenezer Scrooge.  However, the definitions and origin of the word "ebenezer" probably did not escape Dickens' attention, either.

Think about it.  Scrooge is a man who is, literally, a commemoration of divine assistance.  By the end of the book, he is a walking, talking monument of supernatural help.  Of course, the second definition  of the word ("anger, temper") certainly fits his former self, as well.  Scrooge's volatile mood is readily apparent from the outset of the tale.  Fred gets blasted by his cranky uncle.  The two gentlemen looking for a charitable donation get blasted.  Bob gets blasted. 

There is so much power in a name.  Charles Dickens knew that.  I wonder how famous A Christmas Carol would be today if Ebenezer Scrooge's name had been Joe Asswipe (or something similar).  We might be running around at Christmas time telling angry/cheap relatives to stop being such an Asswipe.  Or, perhaps, the story of Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim and Joe Asswipe would never have even entered the lexicon of popular culture.

I guess the point of my post is that we should all be ebenezers.  That's what being a Christian is all about.  Being a commemoration or monument of God's love, whether you're a "meal man" or a "mean man,"  a sinner or a saint.

Saint Marty will try to be an ebenezer today.