Welcome to the Tuesday Coffee Hour here on Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can hang out and talk about what’s going on in our worlds. Let’s start today’s conversation with a little blackmail.
Today blackmail refers to the extortion of money under threat. The origins of this word, however, do not begin with the post office or the delivery of letters and packages. Our story begins in Scotland in the 16th century.
In 16th century Scotland most farmers were tenants and the land they farmed was owned by absentee English lords. The rent which these tenant farmers paid was known as mail. If the farmer had enough hard cash to actually pay the rent in silver coin, it was known as white mail. More frequently, however, the farmers did not have silver coin and so they would pay the rent in produce or livestock. This type of payment was known as black mail.
Many absentee owners, whether owners of large agricultural estates or modern businesses, are not known for having a great deal of empathy for anything other than their own prosperity. Thus, in order to increase their own profits, they began to demand that black mail payments had to be significantly larger than the white mail payments. With this, the concept of blackmail took on pejorative meaning.
In the border area between Scotland and England, the farmers were often harassed by transient border thieves who demanded grain and horses from them. In exchange, these thieves would not plunder the property. It was natural that this type of theft, like the demands of the absentee landlords, would be called blackmail.
This is an open thread. Feel free to share your experiences, thoughts, and opinions about blackmail, or about any other subject that calls to you today.