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Chris -- 2018-04-11

#1 2009-05-18 16:51:28

burred
Eggcornista
From: Montreal
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1112

"Shade tree dealers" and shady dealers

I came across the phrase shade tree mechanic, which I took for an eggcorn for a shady mechanic, in the sense of a disreputable or untrustworthy one. It sometimes does have eggcornish inclinations. But the more I looked at examples of “shade tree”, the more I came to believe that it is developing into an independent idiomatic expression, describing something done in the backyard, amateur or self-taught. It does not automatically have a negative connotation.

Car buyer’s guide:
Year after year Car Makers have designed their cars to be more and more unrepairable by the Shade tree or Most Pro mechanics
(http://reviews.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Guid … 0003195109)

Motor forum:
gotta love how the shade tree dealers tell you how long they’ve had/loved a particular car, listed alongside 4 other cars they have for sale
(http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/ … 229/page1/)

Blog:
This is the same thing we faced in Missouri when we tried to get a Consumer Protection Bill passed. The corner drug stores, the shade tree dealers and the consumer power dealers lobbyed to not let the bill get out of committee.
(http://mymobilitymatters.spaces.live.co … nformation)

Fishing equipment forum:
eBay, that bastion of castoff’s, semi-sales, and shade-tree dealers that delight in our lust for the dubious all-star equipment of yesteryear.

Shade tree developer:
When I was growing up in a farm community in Missouri, there was a “special” breed of folks around called Shade Tree Mechanics. Usually they were not the most reputable people in the world, but they had a knack for fixing mechanical problems and a reckless fearlessness to tinker with anything. A shade tree mechanic can be spotted by finding the pair of legs sticking out from under a beater car on blocks
(http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.mill … 29330.aspx)

Cooking oil biodiesel:
I’m sure that a shade-tree operator can get enough to get by if he looks around the quick-fry places.
(http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/ … 9061/inc/1)

Roll bar needed:
Need a 8 point bar installed. Looking for good quality work, not a shade tree deal.

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#2 2009-05-19 11:16:30

nilep
Eggcornista
Registered: 2007-03-21
Posts: 291

Re: "Shade tree dealers" and shady dealers

I’ve heard the idiom shade-tree mechanic and related uses of the shade-tree modifier all my life. I was therefore somewhat surprised to find no mention of it in the OED, M-W 10th, or Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English. There are, however, eight occurrences of shade-tree in the relevant sense (compared to nine literal references to shade-tree species etc.) in the Corpus of Contemporary American English.

Outdoor Life 1994
It’s sort of like the shade-tree auto mechanic who recommends correcting a wheel alignment problem by letting air out of one

The New Yorker 2004
my man was a board-certified U.Va. architect, not some fly-by-night shade-tree spec builder with a clipboard fat with plan-book blueprints

Popular Mechanics 2005
That spindle nut needs to be torqued properly, but few shade-tree mechanics have a torque wrench capable of the 200 to 300 lb. -ft. required.

Kiosk, by Bruce Sterling 2007
The shade-tree plans for such guerrilla devices were everywhere on the net.

I’ve always imagined that the term derives from those amateur mechanics who work in their gardens, in the shade of a tree, literally outside of a garage and figuratively outside of the regulations and standards in place at proper establishments. I’ve never really associated the term with shady, though I think both imply a certain “outlaw” status.

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#3 2009-05-19 21:38:42

kem
Eggcornista
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2007-08-28
Posts: 2851

Re: "Shade tree dealers" and shady dealers

“Shade tree mechanic/dealer” is probably American slang. Not only does the BNC not have “shade tree mechanic,” it doesn’t even have “shade tree” (though it does have a few instances of “shady tree”). “Shade tree” may also be a predominantly AmEng expression.

Perhaps the expression “shade tree mechanic” owes something to Longfellow’s shade tree blacksmith: http://www.horseshoeingmuseum.com/poem.htm If Longfellow had lived a century later he might have written

Under the spreading chestnut tree
The town grease monkey stands
The tattoos on his hairy arms
Reach to his oil-smeared hands.
The sander whines. He cares not where
the cloud of Bondo lands.

Last edited by kem (2009-05-20 10:08:14)


Hatching new language, one eggcorn at a time.

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