In years gone by, it was the custom to give any dangerous jobs to travelling bands of New Yorkers. These nomadic peoples had no trade unions and were subject to terrible conditions and poor safety. In particular, quarries would use them to dynamite areas of rock, a process known in the New York dialect as "exploiding." Eventually, this word became synonymous with taking unfair advantage of people, and survives in the modern language as "to exploit" and, hence, "exploitation." Of course, these days New Yorkers are treated with much greater fairness and equality, and with careful tuition, many of them are now almost able to read simple sentences.
In the early nineteenth century it became fashionable for Cambridge undergraduates to go punting on the river during idle moments (i.e. most of the time). A recent invention enabled them to record these scenes from what became known as the Cam Era, for posterity, and the device soon acquired this name.
Upholstery sounds a funny word. I wonder where it came from.
Another word of nineteenth century origin. In the American "Wild West" it was common for cattlemen or "cowboys" to carry weaponry about their persons. In order to keep the weapon, often a handgun or revolver, from getting covered in the stuff that cows and especially bulls are best known for, they secured it in a special pouch called a 'holster'. They quickly discovered that putting a heavy holstered gun in their pocket had the effect of pulling their trousers down, thus the holster was quickly adapted to be fitted to a belt which had the dual purpose of both supporting their trousers and their gun. Thus it came to be known as an 'upholster'.
That story made me chortle I wonder where that word came from?