A friend (who shall here remain nameless) pointed out to me that there is no such thing as a "tenement farmer," apparently the proper term is "tenant farmer." I googled this, not because I didn't believe her, but because I could swear that I heard it from other people. At least 34 other people have made the same mistake, so I'm not the only one.
I was trying to say that before Central Park was built there were people farming some of that land and they weren't all tenant farmers, some of them were squatting farmers. Saying squatting farmers doesn't sound right though. There must be a better word.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Central Park Historical Trivia
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2 comments:
FWIW, "tenement farmer" makes perfect sense.
I suspect if you looked through literature on medieval land tenure you would find a term. There were often people (usually the landless and desperately poor) who farmed a corner of the commons. But squatters seems appropriate to me.
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