Origins of "A Furphy"; kin of "Scuttlebutt"

[ChrisGreaves]

Its origins date back to World War I, when troops in military camps would gather, swapping tales, around water carts manufactured by the company Furphy.
Quoted from "Australian manufacturing icon Furphy marks 150-year milestone in Shepparton"
The tail end of the article has an image of a thread of seven Furphys (Furphies"?).
Cheers, Chris

[GeoffW]

Thanks Chris. That's the town where I grew up.

As far as I know, it's just an Australian term. I don't hear it very often.

One of the early Australian novels was "Such Is Life", written in 1897 in Shepparton under the pen name of Tom Collins - who was Joseph Furphy. I've never read it. Joseph Furphy later moved to Western Australia. The typewriter he used, in the early days of the instrument, still exists.

[ChrisGreaves]

Thanks Chris. That's the town where I grew up.

Wot?!!??? In Grahamvale? Maybe that's a new division and "Vale" as in "fare the well" was named in your honour after you left?

As far as I know, it's just an Australian term. I don't hear it very often.

So give thanks for Scuttlebutt, eh?

As do I :-

One of the early Australian novels was "Such Is Life", written in 1897 in Shepparton under the pen name of Tom Collins - who was Joseph Furphy. I've never read it. Joseph Furphy later moved to Western Australia. The typewriter he used, in the early days of the instrument, still exists.

Sadly not yet available on Gutenberg.org.

I still have a copy of A.B.Facey's "A Fortunate Life", but then, I'm from WA ...
Cheers, Chris

[GeoffW]

Grahamvale is a sort of suburb of Shepparton. Nobody from Shepp is going to make the distinction.

Joseph Furphy, BTW, is the brother of John Furphy, who had the foundry, and he too worked in the foundry for 20 years.

While Such Is Life is not available in Project Gutenberg, it is available for free in Kindle. Though I gather it's a bit hard to read, as he tries to reproduce the accents in the spelling.

[ChrisGreaves]

Grahamvale is a sort of suburb of Shepparton. Nobody from Shepp is going to make the distinction.

Geoff, thanks for this. I had been wondering what today's problem-in-logic was going to be.
Cheers, Chris

[BobH]

Was Furphy a Murphy born on the wrong side of the blanket? 'Murican minds want to know.

[GeoffW]

It looks as if it might be - Furphy and Murphy are both Irish names. This story also references the word Furphy being an Australian slang.
https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Furphy

Just out of curiosity, here's another surname from the same site
https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Greaves

[ChrisGreaves]

https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Greaves

Cute!
I had known two origins (1) knee or shin armor and (2) acidic droppings of a falcon or hawk. The Grove adaptation had been unknown to me.
Given the number of variations ("the surname can be found as Greave, Greve, Greaves, Greves and Greeves") any one of those variations could have arisen from any one of the known sources.

There is a web page written by some demented techie in Toronto Canada that shows how you can con the Canadian government into fabricating a brand new, yet legal, identity for your self!

Cheers, Chris