In the movie Tombstone--Doc Holiday says to Ringo "I'm your huckleberry" , he says it again later ---what is

Question

I've looked up huckleberry and all I find is the fruit. This was the movie with Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and Sam Elliott. I just want to know what Doc meant when he looked at Ringo and says "I'm your huckleberry". I've watched this movies bunches of times--I've got a thing for Sam Elliott and Val Kilmer is the absolute best Doc Holiday I've ever seen!! Any help with a definition of "huckleberry".

Doc says this as he's about to shoot Ringo thru the head--which he does

Oh c'mon I really just want to know what this means!! So far 2 make sense to me--

Answer 1

It basically means if your looking for a fight, I am the one!

Answer 2

A 'huckleberry' was a slang term a hundred years ago for somebody who is nieve or uneducated; a simpleton or sucker usually of a lower social class and often from a rural background (ie: a 'country bumpkin' sort). Think of the other famous huckleberries - Huckleberry Finn is an uneducated half-wild runaway and Huckleberry Hound is portrayed as something of a nieve hillbilly. The term likely arose because huckleberries (similar to blueberries) are not cultivated (ie: they are always wild) and were a staple for poorer 'country folk' who could gather them for free.

When Doc Holiday says "I'm your Huckleberry", he is saying "I'm your sucker". In other words, Ringo believes that he is such a great gunfighter that anyone who would fight him must be a fool (ie: "I'm looking for someone foolish enough to fight me, so I can put another notch on my pistol"). Holiday is taunting him by making it clear that he knows what Ringo is thinking and yet is not worried.

Yes... I know there are a bunch of web sites out there that claim 'Huckleberry' meant the 'best person for the job', but you will notice that most make reference to the movie and none refer to any historical sources. When you think about all the other places where 'Huckleberry' is used, that meaning does not make sense - is Huckleberry Hound's character one of always being 'the right person (hound) for a job'? Nope... does not really fit.

Note that several of the poster above are completely wrong when they say that Ringo and Holiday never met in real life. George Parsons (Tombstone's doctor) notes an incident in his diary on January 17, 1882 where he personally saw a short stand-off where "Ringo and Doc Holliday came nearly having it with pistols". There are multiple historic accounts of Ringo and the cowboys standing on the streets glaring at the Earps and Holliday as they went by. And these are just specific incidents that people recorded - given that Tombstone was not a big town (in area) and both men lived there for multiple months, it is very unlikely that they did not run into each other on a regular basis before the feud without people bothering to take notice.

However, many other things about Ringo in the movie are incorrect such as the movie's portrayal of Holiday shooting Ringo. Nobody really knows who shot Ringo (he was found dead near the Chiricahua Mtns), but it certainly was not Holliday who was in Colorado at the time. And while Ringo did like to read, he was not highly educated and certainly was not fluent in latin. Furthermore, while he was a leader of the cowboy faction, there is no hard data that he ever killed anyone or was that feared of a shot (his legend is largely the result of pulp fiction authors and b-movies).

Answer 3

JAM's answer is correct. It is also a fact that Ringo and Doc never actually met, unless it was by accident. Ringo's death is one of the big mysteries of the old west, only his killer knows for sure, although it has gone down as a suicide. I actually liked Kurt Russell's version of Wyatt Earp better than I did Kilmer's Holliday. I prefer Dennis Quaid's peformance as Doc. Earp is a hard part to play since the actor going in knows that he will be second fiddle to the actor playing Holliday. THis is one of the all-time westerns, but it is a shame that the whole script was not filmed. There was to be a scene that shows the Earp party, during the vendetta ride, stops at a wagon camp for the night. The wagonmaster was to be played by Hugh O'Brian. Also, some footage depicting the reason for the slaughter at the Mexican wedding party at the beginning of the film was eliminated.

Answer 4

My understanding of the Universe is that "God did do it" and that in no way interferes with my investigation into the Creator's machinations, that is the inner workings or quantum physics for any pseudo intellectuals out there. Life is a mystery to be lived not a problem to be solved, therefore mysteries are a part of my life. Many things I can not even know, as my brain doesn't have the capacity. Some things like non-physical reality, my brain CAN conceptualize.I would like to know what god did that so enraged you. if god is everything, he must be of the dark side too. without wars there would be no generals or brave soldiers, no disease? no doctors or famous surgeons, death and birth are just two sides of same coin,

Answer 5

Finally a movie I know something about...

Huckleberry was a term used for a soft touch..an easy win....basically a sucker and Doc used it to sort of dare Ringo because if Ringo was as good as he thought then he wouldn't be afraid of a "Huckleberry" or sucker...

In real life they never met, the closest they came was they were both in the same town but did not see each other. Wild huh?

Answer 6

A Huckleberry is a bad boy looking for an adventure.

Answer 7

What it means is easy enough. To be one’s huckleberry — usually as the phrase I’m your huckleberry — is to be just the right person for a given job, or a willing executor of some commission. Where it comes from needs a bit more explaining.

First a bit of botanical history. When European settlers arrived in the New World, they found several plants that provided small, dark-coloured sweet berries. They reminded them of the English bilberry and similar fruits and they gave them one of the dialect terms they knew for them, hurtleberry, whose origin is unknown (though some say it has something to do with hurt, from the bruised colour of the berries; a related British dialect form is whortleberry). Very early on — at the latest 1670 — this was corrupted to huckleberry.

As huckleberries are small, dark and rather insignificant, in the early part of the nineteenth century the word became a synonym for something humble or minor, or a tiny amount. An example from 1832: “He was within a huckleberry of being smothered to death”. Later on it came to mean somebody inconsequential. Mark Twain borrowed some aspects of these ideas to name his famous character, Huckleberry Finn. His idea, as he told an interviewer in 1895, was to establish that he was a boy “of lower extraction or degree” than Tom Sawyer.

Also around the 1830s, we see the same idea of something small being elaborated and bombasted in the way so typical of the period to make the comparison a huckleberry to a persimmon, the persimmon being so much larger that it immediately establishes the image of something tiny against something substantial. There’s also a huckleberry over one’s persimmon, something just a little bit beyond one’s reach or abilities; an example is in David Crockett: His Life and Adventures by John S C Abbott, of 1874: “This was a hard business on me, for I could just barely write my own name. But to do this, and write the warrants too, was at least a huckleberry over my persimmon”.

Quite how I’m your huckleberry came out of all that with the sense of the man for the job isn’t obvious. It seems that the word came to be given as a mark of affection or comradeship to one’s partner or sidekick. There is often an identification of oneself as a willing helper or assistant about it, as here in True to Himself, by Edward Stratemeyer, dated 1900: “ ‘I will pay you for whatever you do for me.’ ‘Then I’m your huckleberry. Who are you and what do you want to know?’ ”. Despite the obvious associations, it doesn’t seem to derive directly from Mark Twain’s books.

Answer 8

Bah.. I can't stand it! I absolutely love that movie but these answers are killing me.

Huckleberry when used in a sentence with "persimmon" which is a small unit of measure. "I'm a huckleberry over your persimmon" meant "I'm just a bit better than you. "The phrase translates into "I'm just the man you're looking for!"

I can't claim credit for this so I give my props to "Lawson Stone
" who did the outstanding research Using The "Historical Dictionary of American Slang". Dr Lawson Stone is biblical scholar with quite a knowledge of language.

Best lines of the movie is:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doc Holliday: In Vino Veritas (In wine is truth)
Johnny Ringo: Age Quod Agis. (Do what you do best.)
Doc Holliday: Credat Judaeus Apella, Non Ego. (Oh I don't believe drinking is what I do best.)
Johnny Ringo: Eventus Stultorum Magister. (Fools have to learn by experience)
Doc Holliday: In Pace Requiescat. (It's Your Funeral")

Did I mention I love that movie? (-:

http://web.mac.com/lawsonstone1/iWeb/StonesFence/Podcast/24A2BFB4-2E0E-4C9F-AB63-ED2FBC615F4A.html#comment_layer

JAM

Answer 9

As stated above, it is most likely a reference to the fictional character Huckleberry Finn... a lot of media alludes to this character... "Huckleberry friend... huckleberry hound..."

Answer 10

Maybe it's a reference to Huckleberry Finn. I think you should also look up Tom Sawyer as well. Both are fictional characters written by Mark Twain.