Meaning: To reject or to have nothing to do with.
Background:
We are all familiar with trucks as carts and road vehicles, but that's not
what's being referred to in `have no truck with'. This `truck' is the early
French word `troque', which meant `an exchange; a barter' and came into
Middle English as `truke'. The first known record of truke is the Vintner's
Company Charter in the Anglo-Norman text of the Patent Roll of Edward III,
1364. This relates to a transaction for some wine which was to be done `by
truke, or by exchange'.
So, to `have truck with' was to barter or do business' with. In the 17th
century and onward, the meaning of `truck' was extended to include
`association'/'communication' and `to have truck with' then came to mean
`commune with'.
`Truck' is now usually only heard in the negative and this usage began in the
19th century. To `have no truck with' came to be a general term for `have
nothing to do with'. An example of that is cited in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, 1834:
Theoretically an officer should have no truck with thieves.
`Trucking' was also country slang for `courting'/'dallying with' (and no, in
case you are wondering, it has nothing to do with any similar word beginning
with `f'). To `have no more truck' meant that a courtship had ceased. An
example of that usage in print is found in Notes and Queries, 1866:
[In Suffolk] A man who has left off courting a girl, says that he has `no
more truck along o'har'.
`No truck with' may seem rather antiquated language now, although it is still
used. Even older is a version that hasn't often been heard since Grandma's
day - `brook no truck with'. `Brook' in this context means `make use
of/enjoy' and adds emphasis to the standard `have no truck'. The image I have
of someone who would `brook no truck' is Queen Victoria, in her later and
more `unamused' years. A truculent woman at that stage by many accounts,
although `truculent' and `truck' aren't related.
Going back to the original `barter' meaning of truck, this also became
extended to include the sundry items that were bartered and also small odd
jobs or errands. The stores that were set up to service the needs of
itinerant navvies while they were building the UK's canals and railways were
known as `truck stores' or `tommy shops'. The great rural campaigner William
Cobbett referred to these in his classic, Rural Rides, 1825:
In the iron country [the Black Country]... the truck or tommy system
generally prevails.
The navvies' sites were often far from towns and were the only places that
the workmen could shop. The shops were generally ruinously expensive and
provided poor quality goods. The workers were often paid in vouchers that
could only be `trucked' at the workplace shop. That all ended in the UK with
the passing of the 1887 Truck Act, which made the worst excesses of the truck
trade illegal. In the USA such shops were known as company stores and are the
subject of the well-known American song Sixteen Tons:
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store.
...
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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My dream of having no truck with driving came true after the kid left for
college. I alerted California DMV, fired the insurer, sent the premium to my
boy, and parked my little Honda in the gagrage. I might need it someday, I still
think, although I have been thriving on train and my ebike for four months.
Every ride reminds me that I'm no longer in the grip of the tyranical democratic
truck shops of the state.
In addition, I've since learned to adjust the bike's brakes and flip its front
tire to even out the wear on the tread. I've also learned that the sitting car
battery dies in 40 days and it takes a 1A charger about 22hrs to recharge.
