Aunt Sally

English

Etymology

Apparently after My Old Aunt Sally, the title of a blackface minstrel song written by Dan Emmett in 1843.

Proper noun

Aunt Sally

1. A traditional game in which balls are thrown to break the pipe in the mouth of a figurine resembling an old woman. [from 19th c.]
   • 1905 [1902], Edith Nesbit, chapter VIII, in Five Children and It, New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, page 220:

     There were some swings, and a hooting-tooting blaring merry-go-round, and a shooting-gallery and Aunt Sallies.

   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter I, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     Mrs. Morel did not like the wakes. There were two sets of horses, one going by steam, one pulled round by a pony; three organs were grinding, and there came odd cracks of pistol-shots, fearful screeching of the cocoanut man's rattle, shouts of the Aunt Sally man, screeches from the peep-show lady.

2. (figurative, chiefly UK) A figure drawing criticism or ridicule, especially when prejudiced or unwarranted. [from 19th c.]
   • 1912 November 24, W. B. Maxwell, “The Future of the Novel”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     But the novel is something more than a national institution; it has become the recognized channel of communication between the crank and his victims; it is the shooting gallery through which we fire our messages at that dear old Aunt Sally, the British Public.

   • 1999, J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace, Vintage, page 95:

     He is helpless, an Aunt Sally, a figure from a cartoon, a missionary in cassock and topi waiting with clasped hands and upcast eyes while the savages jaw away in their own lingo preparatory to plunging him into their boiling cauldron.

   • 2008 June 26, “Manmohan Singh’s burning ambition”, in The Economist‎^[2], →ISSN:

     IN FOUR years as India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh has come to resemble a bearded and turbaned Aunt Sally.

   • 2013 March 23, Kyran Fitzgerald, “Stakes couldn’t be higher”, in Irish Examiner‎^[3]:

     The finance minister, a true Aunt Sally figure, was dispatched to Moscow in search of backing.