Chapter IX: Miscellanea, 301 (4)

/The Expanding Vocabulary/--A glance at some of the characteristic coinages of the time, as they are revealed in the /Congressional Globe/, in contemporary newspapers and political tracts, and in that grotesque small literature of humor which began with Judge Thomas C. Haliburton's "Sam Slick" in 1835, is almost enough to make one sympathize with Dean Alford. Bartlett quotes /to doxologize/ from the /Christian Disciple/, a quite reputable religious paper of the 40's. /To citizenize/ was used and explained by Senator Young, of Illinois, in the Senate on February 1, 1841, and he gave Noah Webster as authority for it. /To funeralize/ and /to missionate/, along with /consociational/, were contributions of the backwoods pulpit; perhaps it also produced /hell-roaring/ and /hellion/, the latter of which was a favorite of the Mormons and even got into a sermon by Henry Ward Beecher. /To deacon/, a verb of decent mien in colonial days, signifying to read a hymn line by line, responded to the rough humor of the time, and began to mean to swindle or adulterate, /e. g./, to put the largest berries at the top of the box, to extend one's fences /sub rosa/, or to mix sand with sugar. A great rage for extending the vocabulary by the use of suffixes seized upon [Pg077] the corn-fed etymologists, and they produced a formidable new vocabulary in /-ize/, /-ate/, /-ify/, /-acy/, /-ous/ and /-ment/. Such inventions as /to obligate/, /to concertize/, /to questionize/, /retiracy/, /savagerous/, /coatee/ (a sort of diminutive for coat) and /citified/ appeared in the popular vocabulary, and even got into more or less good usage. Fowler, in 1850, cited /publishment/ and /releasement/ with no apparent thought that they were uncouth. And at the same time many verbs were made by the simple process of back formation, as, /to resurrect/, /to excurt/, /to resolute/, /to burgle/[14] and /to enthuse/.[15]

Some of these inventions, after flourishing for a generation or more, were retired with blushes during the period of aesthetic consciousness following the Civil War, but a large number have survived to our own day, and are in good usage. Not even the most bilious purist would think of objecting to /to affiliate/, /to itemize/, /to resurrect/ or /to Americanize/ today, and yet all of them gave grief to the judicious when they first appeared in the debates of Congress, brought there by statesmen from the backwoods. Nor to such simpler verbs of the period as /to corner/ (/i. e./, the market), /to boss/ and /to lynch/.[16] Nor perhaps to /to boom/, /to boost/, /to kick/ (in the sense of to protest), /to coast/ (on a sled), /to engineer/, /to collide/, /to chink/ (/i. e./, logs), /to feaze/, /to splurge/, /to aggravate/ (in the sense of to anger), /to yank/ and /to crawfish/. These verbs have entered into the very fibre of the American vulgate, and so have many nouns derived from them, /e. g./, /boomer/, /boom-town/, /bouncer/, /kicker/, /kick/, /splurge/, /roller-coaster/. A few of them, /e. g./, /to collide/ and /to feaze/, were [Pg078] archaic English terms brought to new birth; a few others, /e. g./, /to holler/[17] and /to muss/, were obviously mere corruptions. But a good many others, /e. g./, /to bulldoze/, /to hornswoggle/ and /to scoot/, were genuine inventions, and redolent of the soil.

With the new verbs came a great swarm of verb-phrases, some of them short and pithy and others extraordinarily elaborate, but all showing the true national talent for condensing a complex thought, and often a whole series of thoughts, into a vivid and arresting image. Of the first class are /to fill the bill/, /to fizzle out/, /to make tracks/, /to peter out/, /to plank down/, /to go back on/, /to keep tab/, /to light out/ and /to back water/. Side by side with them we have inherited such common coins of speech as /to make the fur fly/, /to cut a swath/, /to know him like a book/, /to keep a stiff upper lip/, /to cap the climax/, /to handle without gloves/, /to freeze on to/, /to go it blind/, /to pull wool over his eyes/, /to know the ropes/, /to get solid with/, /to spread one's self/, /to run into the ground/, /to dodge the issue/, /to paint the town red/, /to take a back seat/ and /to get ahead of/. These are so familiar that we use them and hear them without thought; they seem as authentically parts of the English idiom as /to be left at the post/. And yet, as the labors of Thornton have demonstrated, all of them are of American nativity, and the circumstances surrounding the origin of some of them have been accurately determined. Many others are palpably the products of the great movement toward the West, for example, /to pan out/, /to strike it rich/, /to jump/ or /enter a claim/, /to pull up stakes/, /to rope in/, /to die with one's boots on/, /to get the deadwood on/, /to get the drop/, /to back and fill/ (a steamboat phrase used figuratively) and /to get the bulge on/. And in many others the authentic American is no less plain, for example, in /to kick the bucket/, /to put a bug in his [Pg079] ear/, /to see the elephant/, /to crack up/, /to do up brown/, /to bark up the wrong tree/, /to jump on with both feet/, /to go the whole hog/, /to make a kick/, /to buck the tiger/, /to let it slide/ and /to come out at the little end of the horn/. /To play possum/ belongs to this list. To it Thornton adds /to knock into a cocked hat/, despite its English sound, and /to have an ax to grind/. /To go for/, both in the sense of belligerency and in that of partisanship, is also American, and so is /to go through/ (/i. e./, to plunder).

Of adjectives the list is scarcely less long. Among the coinages of the first half of the century that are in good use today are /non-committal/, /highfalutin/, /well-posted/, /down-town/, /played-out/, /flat-footed/, /whole-souled/ and /true-blue/. The first appears in a Senate debate of 1841; /highfalutin/ in a political speech of the same decade. Both are useful words; it is impossible, not employing them, to convey the ideas behind them without circumlocution. The use of /slim/ in the sense of meagre, as in /slim chance/, /slim attendance/ and /slim support/, goes back still further. The English use /small/ in place of it. Other, and less respectable contributions of the time are /brash/, /brainy/, /peart/, /locoed/, /pesky/, /picayune/, /scary/, /well-heeled/, /hardshell/ (/e. g./, Baptist), /low-flung/, /codfish/ (to indicate opprobrium) and /go-to-meeting/. The use of /plumb/ as an adjective, as in /plumb crazy/, is an English archaism that was revived in the United States in the early years of the century. In the more orthodox adverbial form of /plump/ it still survives, for example, in "she fell /plump/ into his arms." But this last is also good English.

The characteristic American substitution of /mad/ for /angry/ goes back to the eighteenth century, and perhaps denotes the survival of an English provincialism. Witherspoon noticed it and denounced it in 1781, and in 1816 Pickering called it "low" and said that it was not used "except in very familiar conversation." But it got into much better odor soon afterward, and by 1840 it passed unchallenged. Its use is one of the peculiarities that Englishmen most quickly notice in American colloquial speech today. In formal written discourse it is less often encountered, probably because the English marking of it has so conspicuously singled it out. But it is constantly met with [Pg080] in the newspapers and in the /Congressional Record/, and it is not infrequently used by such writers as Howells and Dreiser. In the familiar simile, /as mad as a hornet/, it is used in the American sense. But /as mad as a March hare/ is English, and connotes insanity, not mere anger. The English meaning of the word is preserved in /mad-house/ and /mad-dog/, but I have often noticed that American rustics, employing the latter term, derive from it a vague notion, not that the dog is demented, but that it is in a simple fury. From this notion, perhaps, comes the popular belief that dogs may be thrown into hydrophobia by teasing and badgering them.

It was not, however, among the verbs and adjectives that the American word-coiners of the first half of the century achieved their gaudiest innovations, but among the substantives. Here they had temptation and excuse in plenty, for innumerable new objects and relations demanded names, and here they exercised their fancy without restraint. Setting aside loan words, which will be considered later, three main varieties of new nouns were thus produced. The first consisted of English words rescued from obsolescence or changed in meaning, the second of compounds manufactured of the common materials of the mother tongue, and the third of entirely new inventions. Of the first class, good specimens are /deck/ (of cards), /gulch/, /gully/ and /billion/, the first three old English words restored to usage in America and the last a sound English word changed in meaning. Of the second class, examples are offered by /gum-shoe/, /mortgage-shark/, /dug-out/, /shot-gun/, /stag-party/, /wheat-pit/, /horse-sense/, /chipped-beef/, /oyster-supper/, /buzz-saw/, /chain-gang/ and /hell-box/. And of the third there are instances in /buncombe/, /greaser/, /conniption/, /bloomer/, /campus/, /galoot/, /maverick/, /roustabout/, /bugaboo/ and /blizzard/.

Of these coinages, perhaps those of the second class are most numerous and characteristic. In them American exhibits one of its most marked tendencies: a habit of achieving short cuts in speech by a process of agglutination. Why explain laboriously, as an Englishman might, that the notes of a new bank (in a day of innumerable new banks) are insufficiently secure? Call [Pg081] them /wild-cat/ notes and have done! Why describe a gigantic rain storm with the lame adjectives of everyday? Call it a /cloud-burst/ and immediately a vivid picture of it is conjured up. /Rough-neck/ is a capital word; it is more apposite and savory than the English /navvy/, and it is overwhelmingly more American.[18] /Square-meal/ is another. /Fire-eater/ is yet another. And the same instinct for the terse, the eloquent and the picturesque is in /boiled-shirt/, /blow-out/, /big-bug/, /claim-jumper/, /spread-eagle/, /come-down/, /back-number/, /claw-hammer/ (coat), /bottom-dollar/, /poppy-cock/, /cold-snap/, /back-talk/, /back-taxes/, /calamity-howler/, /cut-off/, /fire-bug/, /grab-bag/, /grip-sack/, /grub-stake/, /pay-dirt/, /tender-foot/, /stocking-feet/, /ticket-scalper/, /store-clothes/, /small-potatoes/, /cake-walk/, /prairie-schooner/, /round-up/, /snake-fence/, /flat-boat/, /under-the-weather/, /on-the-hoof/, and /jumping-off-place/. These compounds (there must be thousands of them) have been largely responsible for giving the language its characteristic tang and color. Such specimens as /bell-hop/, /semi-occasional/, /chair-warmer/ and /down-and-out/ are as distinctively American as baseball or the quick-lunch.

The spirit of the language appears scarcely less clearly in some of the coinages of the other classes. There are, for example, the English words that have been extended or restricted in meaning, /e. g./, /docket/ (for court calendar), /betterment/ (for improvement to property), /collateral/ (for security), /crank/ (for fanatic), /jumper/ (for tunic), /tickler/ (for memorandum or reminder),[19] /carnival/ (in such phrases as /carnival of crime/), /scrape/ (for fight or difficulty),[20] /flurry/ (of snow, or in the market), /suspenders/, /diggings/ (for habitation) and /range/. Again, there are the new assemblings of English materials, /e. g./, /doggery/, /rowdy/, /teetotaler/, /goatee/, /tony/ and /cussedness/. Yet again, there are the purely artificial words, /e. g./, /sockdolager/, /hunkydory/, /scalawag/, /guyascutis/, /spondulix/, /slumgullion/, /rambunctious/, /scrumptious/, [Pg082] /to skedaddle/, /to absquatulate/ and /to exfluncticate/.[21] In the use of the last-named coinages fashions change. In the 40's /to absquatulate/ was in good usage, but it has since disappeared. Most of the other inventions of the time, however, have to some extent survived, and it would be difficult to find an American of today who did not know the meaning of /scalawag/ and /rambunctious/ and who did not occasionally use them. A whole series of artificial American words groups itself around the prefix /ker/, for example, /ker-flop/, /ker-splash/, /ker-thump/, /ker-bang/, /ker-plunk/, /ker-slam/ and /ker-flummux/. This prefix and its onomatopoeic daughters have been borrowed by the English, but Thornton and Ware agree that it is American. Its origin has not been determined. As Sayce says, "the native instinct of language breaks out wherever it has the chance, and coins words which can be traced back to no ancestors."

In the first chapter I mentioned the superior imaginativeness revealed by Americans in meeting linguistic emergencies, whereby, for example, in seeking names for new objects introduced by the building of railroads, they surpassed the English /plough/ and /crossing-plate/ with /cow-catcher/ and /frog/. That was in the 30's. Already at that early day the two languages were so differentiated that they produced wholly distinct railroad nomenclatures. Such commonplace American terms as /box-car/, /caboose/, /air-line/ and /ticket-agent/ are still quite unknown in England. So are /freight-car/, /flagman/, /towerman/, /switch/, /switching-engine/, /switch-yard/, /switchman/, /track-walker/, /engineer/, /baggage-room/, /baggage-check/, /baggage-smasher/, /accommodation-train/, /baggage-master/, /conductor/, /express-car/, /flat-car/, /hand-car/, /way-bill/, /expressman/, /express-office/, /fast-freight/, /wrecking-crew/, /jerk-water/, /commutation-ticket/, /commuter/, /round-trip/, /mileage-book/, /ticket-scalper/, /depot/, /limited/, /hot-box/, iron-horse, /stop-over/, /tie/, /rail/, /fish-plate/, /run/, /train-boy/, /chair-car/, /club-car/, /diner/, /sleeper/, /bumpers/, /mail-clerk/, /passenger-coach/, /day-coach/, /excursionist/, [Pg083] /excursion-train/, /railroad-man/, /ticket-office/, /truck/ and /right-of-way/, not to mention the verbs, /to flag/, /to derail/, /to express/, /to dead-head/, /to side-swipe/, /to stop-over/, /to fire/ (/i. e./, a locomotive), /to switch/, /to side-track/, /to railroad/, /to commute/, /to telescope/ and /to clear the track/. These terms are in constant use in America; their meaning is familiar to all Americans; many of them have given the language everyday figures of speech.[22] But the majority of them would puzzle an Englishman, just as the English /luggage-van/, /permanent-way/, /goods-waggon/, /guard/, /carrier/, /booking-office/, /return-ticket/, /railway-rug/, /R. S. O./ (railway sub-office), /tripper/, /line/, /points/, /shunt/, /metals/ and /bogie/ would puzzle the average untravelled American.

In two other familiar fields very considerable differences between English and American are visible; in both fields they go back to the era before the Civil War. They are politics and that department of social intercourse which has to do with drinking. Many characteristic American political terms originated in revolutionary days, and have passed over into English. Of such sort are /caucus/ and /mileage/. But the majority of those in common use today were coined during the extraordinarily exciting campaigns following the defeat of Adams by Jefferson. Charles Ledyard Norton has devoted a whole book to their etymology and meaning;[23] the number is far too large for a list of them to be attempted here. But a few characteristic specimens may be recalled, for example, the simple agglutinates: /omnibus-bill/, /banner-state/, /favorite-son/, /anxious-bench/, /gag-rule/, /office-seeker/ and /straight-ticket/; the humorous metaphors: /pork-barrel/, /pie-counter/, /wire-puller/, /land-slide/, /carpet-bagger/, /lame-duck/ and /on the fence/; the old words put to new uses: /plank/, /platform/, /machine/, /precinct/, /slate/, /primary/, /floater/, /repeater/, /bolter/, /stalwart/, /filibuster/, /regular/ and /fences/; the new coinages: /gerrymander/, /heeler/, /buncombe/, /roorback/, /mugwump/ and /to bulldoze/; the new derivatives: /abolitionist/, /candidacy/, /boss-rule/, [Pg084] /per-diem/, /to lobby/ and /boodler/; and the almost innumerable verbs and verb-phrases: /to knife/, /to split a ticket/, /to go up Salt River/, /to bolt/, /to eat crow/, /to boodle/, /to divvy/, /to grab/ and /to run/. An English candidate never /runs/; he /stands/. To /run/, according to Thornton, was already used in America in 1789; it was universal by 1820. /Platform/ came in at the same time. /Machine/ was first applied to a political organization by Aaron Burr. The use of /mugwump/ is commonly thought to have originated in the Blaine campaign of 1884, but it really goes back to the 30's. /Anxious-bench/ (or /anxious-seat/) at first designated only the place occupied by the penitent at revivals, but was used in its present political sense in Congress so early as 1842. /Banner-state/ appears in /Niles' Register/ for December 5, 1840. /Favorite-son/ appears in an ode addressed to Washington on his visit to Portsmouth, N. H., in 1789, but it did not acquire its present ironical sense until it was applied to Martin Van Buren. Thornton has traced /bolter/ to 1812, /filibuster/ to 1863, /roorback/ to 1844, and /split-ticket/ to 1842. /Regularity/ was an issue in Tammany Hall in 1822.[24] There were /primaries/ in New York city in 1827, and hundreds of /repeaters/ voted. In 1829 there were /lobby-agents/ at Albany, and they soon became /lobbyists/; in 1832 /lobbying/ had already extended to Washington. All of these terms are now as firmly imbedded in the American vocabulary as /election/ or /congressman/.

In the department of conviviality the imaginativeness of Americans has been shown in both the invention and the naming of new and often highly complex beverages. So vast has been the production of novelties, in fact, that England has borrowed many of them, and their names with them. And not only England: one buys /cocktails/ and /gin-fizzes/ in "American bars" that stretch from Paris to Yokohama. /Cocktail/, /stone-fence/ and /sherry-cobbler/ were mentioned by Irving in 1809;[25] by Thackeray's day they were already well-known in England. Thornton traces the /sling/ to 1788, and the /stinkibus/ and /anti-fogmatic/, [Pg085] both now extinct, to the same year. The origin of the /rickey/, /fizz/, /sour/, /cooler/, /skin/, /shrub/ and /smash/, and of such curious American drinks as the /horse's neck/, /Mamie Taylor/, /Tom-and-Jerry/, /Tom-Collins/, /John-Collins/, /bishop/, /stone-wall/, /gin-fix/, /brandy-champarelle/, /golden-slipper/, /hari-kari/, /locomotive/, /whiskey-daisy/, /blue-blazer/, /black-stripe/, /white-plush/ and /brandy-crusta/ is quite unknown; the historians of alcoholism, like the philologists, have neglected them.[26] But the essentially American character of most of them is obvious, despite the fact that a number have gone over into English. The English, in naming their drinks, commonly display a far more limited imagination. Seeking a name, for example, for a mixture of whiskey and soda-water, the best they could achieve was /whiskey-and-soda/. The Americans, introduced to the same drink, at once gave it the far more original name of /high-ball/. So with /ginger-ale/ and /ginger-pop/. So with /minerals/ and /soft-drinks/. Other characteristic Americanisms (a few of them borrowed by the English) are /red-eye/, /corn-juice/, /eye-opener/, /forty-rod/, /squirrel-whiskey/, /phlegm-cutter/, /moon-shine/, /hard-cider/, /apple-jack/ and /corpse-reviver/, and the auxiliary drinking terms, /speak-easy/, /sample-room/, /blind-pig/, /barrel-house/, /bouncer/, /bung-starter/, /dive/, /doggery/, /schooner/, /shell/, /stick/, /duck/, /straight/, /saloon/, /finger/, /pony/ and /chaser/. Thornton shows that /jag/, /bust/, /bat/ and /to crook the elbow/ are also Americanisms. So are /bartender/ and /saloon-keeper/. To them might be added a long list of common American synonyms for /drunk/, for example, /piffled/, /pifflicated/, /awry-eyed/, /tanked/, /snooted/, /stewed/, /ossified/, /slopped/, /fiddled/, /edged/, /loaded/, /het-up/, /frazzled/, /jugged/, /soused/, /jiggered/, /corned/, /jagged/ and /bunned/. Farmer and Henley list /corned/ and /jagged/ among English synonyms, but the former is obviously an Americanism derived from /corn-whiskey/ or /corn-juice/, and Thornton says that the latter originated on this side of the Atlantic also. [Pg086]

§ 4

/Loan-Words/--The Indians of the new West, it would seem, had little to add to the contributions already made to the American vocabulary by the Algonquins of the Northeast. The American people, by the beginning of the second quarter of the nineteenth century, knew almost all they were destined to know of the aborigine, and they had names for all the new objects that he had brought to their notice and for most of his peculiar implements and ceremonies. A few translated Indian terms, /e. g./, /squaw-man/, /big-chief/, /great-white-father/ and /happy-hunting ground/, represent the meagre fresh stock that the western pioneers got from him. Of more importance was the suggestive and indirect effect of his polysynthetic dialects, and particularly of his vivid proper names, /e. g./, /Rain-in-the-Face/, /Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Wife/ and /Voice-Like-Thunder/. These names, and other word-phrases like them, made an instant appeal to American humor, and were extensively imitated in popular slang. One of the surviving coinages of that era is /Old-Stick-in-the-Mud/, which Farmer and Henley note as having reached England by 1823.

Contact with the French in Louisiana and along the Canadian border, and with the Spanish in Texas and further West, brought many more new words. From the Canadian French, as we have already seen, /prairie/, /batteau/, /portage/ and /rapids/ had been borrowed during colonial days; to these French contributions /bayou/, /picayune/, /levee/, /chute/, /butte/, /crevasse/, and /lagniappe/ were now added, and probably also /shanty/ and /canuck/. The use of /brave/ to designate an Indian warrior, almost universal until the close of the Indian wars, was also of French origin.

From the Spanish, once the Mississippi was crossed, and particularly after the Mexican war, in 1846, there came a swarm of novelties, many of which have remained firmly imbedded in the language. Among them were numerous names of strange objects: /lariat/, /lasso/, /ranch/, /loco/ (weed), /mustang/, /sombrero/, /canyon/, /desperado/, /poncho/, /chapparel/, /corral/, /broncho/, /plaza/, [Pg087] /peon/, /cayuse/, /burro/, /mesa/, /tornado/, /sierra/ and /adobe/. To them, as soon as gold was discovered, were added /bonanza/, /eldorado/, /placer/ and /vigilante/. /Cinch/ was borrowed from the Spanish /cincha/ in the early Texas days, though its figurative use did not come in until much later. /Ante/, the poker term, though the etymologists point out its obvious origin in the Latin, probably came into American from the Spanish. Thornton's first example of its use in its current sense is dated 1857, but Bartlett reported it in the form of /anti/ in 1848. /Coyote/ came from the Mexican dialect of Spanish; its first parent was the Aztec /coyotl/. /Tamale/ had a similar origin, and so did /frijole/ and /tomato/. None of these is good Spanish.[27] As usual, derivatives quickly followed the new-comers, among them /peonage/, /broncho-buster/, /ranchman/ and /ranch-house/, and the verbs /to ranch/, /to lasso/, /to corral/, /to ante up/, and /to cinch/. /To vamose/ (from the Spanish /vamos/, let us go), came in at the same time. So did /sabe/. So did /gazabo/.

This was also the period of the first great immigrations, and the American people now came into contact, on a large scale, with peoples of divergent race, particularly Germans, Irish Catholics from the South of Ireland (the Irish of colonial days "were descendants of Cromwell's army, and came from the North of Ireland"),[28] and, on the Pacific Coast, Chinese. So early as the 20's the immigration to the United States reached 25,000 in a year; in 1824 the Legislature of New York, in alarm, passed a restrictive act.[29] The Know-Nothing movement of the 50's need not concern us here. Suffice it to recall that the immigration of 1845 passed the 100,000 mark, and that that of 1854 came within sight of 500,000. These new Americans, most of them Germans and Irish, did not all remain in the East; a great many spread through the West and Southwest with the other pioneers. Their effect upon the language was not large, [Pg088] perhaps, but it was still very palpable, and not only in the vocabulary. Of words of German origin, /saurkraut/ and /noodle/, as we have seen, had come in during the colonial period, apparently through the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch, /i. e./, a mixture, much debased, of the German dialects of Switzerland, Suabia and the Palatinate. The new immigrants now contributed /pretzel/, /pumpernickel/, /hausfrau/, /lager-beer/, /pinocle/, /wienerwurst/, /dumb/ (for stupid), /frankfurter/, /bock-beer/, /schnitzel/, /leberwurst/, /blutwurst/, /rathskeller/, /schweizer/ (cheese), /delicatessen/, /hamburger/ (/i. e./, steak), /kindergarten/ and /katzenjammer/.[30] From them, in all probability, there also came two very familiar Americanisms, /loafer/ and /bum/. The former, according to the Standard Dictionary, is derived from the German /laufen/; another authority says that it originated in a German mispronounciation of /lover/, /i. e./, as /lofer/.[31] Thornton shows that the word was already in common use in 1835. /Bum/ was originally /bummer/, and apparently derives from the German /bummler/.[32] Both words have produced derivatives: /loaf/ (noun), /to loaf/, /corner-loafer/, /common-loafer/, /to bum/, /bum/ (adj.) and /bummery/, not to mention /on the [Pg089] bum/. /Loafer/ has migrated in England, but /bum/ is still unknown there in the American sense. In English, indeed, /bum/ is used to designate an unmentionable part of the body and is thus not employed in polite discourse.

Another example of debased German is offered by the American /Kriss Kringle/. It is from /Christkindlein/, or /Christkind'l/, and properly designates, of course, not the patron saint of Christmas, but the child in the manger. A German friend tells me that the form /Kriss Kringle/, which is that given in the Standard Dictionary, and the form /Krisking'l/, which is that most commonly used in the United States, are both quite unknown in Germany. Here, obviously, we have an example of a loan-word in decay. Whole phrases have gone through the same process, for example, /nix come erous/ (from /nichts kommt heraus/) and /'rous mit 'im/ (from /heraus mit ihm/). These phrases, like /wie geht's/ and /ganz gut/, are familiar to practically all Americans, no matter how complete their ignorance of correct German. Most of them know, too, the meaning of /gesundheit/, /kümmel/, /seidel/, /wanderlust/, /stein/, /speck/, /maennerchor/, /schützenfest/, /sängerfest/, /turnverein/, /hoch/, /yodel/, /zwieback/, and /zwei/ (as in /zwei bier/). I have found /snitz/ (=/schnitz/) in /Town Topics/.[33] /Prosit/ is in all American dictionaries.[34] /Bower/, as used in cards, is an Americanism derived from the German /bauer/, meaning the jack. The exclamation, /ouch!/ is classed as an Americanism by Thornton, and he gives an example dated 1837. The New English Dictionary refers it to the German /autsch/, and Thornton says that "it may have come across with the Dunkers or the Mennonites." /Ouch/ is not heard in English, save in the sense of a clasp or buckle set with precious stones (=OF /nouche/), and even in that sense it is archaic. /Shyster/ is very probably German also; Thornton has traced it back to the 50's.[35] /Rum-dumb/ is grounded upon the [Pg090] meaning of /dumb/ borrowed from the German; it is not listed in the English slang dictionaries.[36] Bristed says that the American meaning of /wagon/, which indicates almost any four-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicle in this country but only the very heaviest in England, was probably influenced by the German /wagen/. He also says that the American use of /hold on/ for /stop/ was suggested by the German /halt an/, and White says that the substitution of /standpoint/ for /point of view/, long opposed by all purists, was first made by an American professor who sought "an Anglicized form" of the German /standpunkt/. The same German influence may be behind the general facility with which American forms compound nouns. In most other languages, for example, Latin and French, the process is rare, and even English lags far behind American. But in German it is almost unrestricted. "It is," says L. P. Smith, "a great step in advance toward that ideal language in which meaning is expressed, not by terminations, but by the simple method of word position."

The immigrants from the South of Ireland, during the period under review, exerted an influence upon the language that was vastly greater than that of the Germans, both directly and indirectly, but their contributions to the actual vocabulary were probably less. They gave American, indeed, relatively few new words; perhaps /shillelah/, /colleen/, /spalpeen/, /smithereens/ and /poteen/ exhaust the unmistakably Gaelic list. /Lallapalooza/ is also probably an Irish loan-word, though it is not Gaelic. It apparently comes from /allay-foozee/, a Mayo provincialism, signifying a sturdy fellow. /Allay-foozee/, in its turn, comes from the French /Allez-fusil/, meaning "Forward the muskets!"--a memory, [Pg091] according to P. W. Joyce,[37] of the French landing at Killala in 1798. Such phrases as /Erin go bragh/ and such expletives as /begob/ and /begorry/ may perhaps be added: they have got into American, though they are surely not distinctive Americanisms. But of far more importance than these few contributions to the vocabulary were certain speech habits that the Irish brought with them--habits of pronunciation, of syntax and even of grammar. These habits were, in part, the fruit of efforts to translate the idioms of Gaelic into English, and in part borrowings from the English of the age of James I. The latter, preserved by Irish conservatism in speech,[38] came into contact in America with habits surviving, with more or less change, from the same time, and so gave those American habits an unmistakable reinforcement. The Yankees, so to speak, had lived down such Jacobean pronunciations as /tay/ for /tea/ and /desave/ for /deceive/, and these forms, on Irish lips, struck them as uncouth and absurd, but they still clung, in their common speech, to such forms as /h'ist/ for /hoist/, /bile/ for /boil/, /chaw/ for /chew/, /jine/ for /join/,[39] /sass/ for /sauce/, /heighth/ for /height/ and /rench/ for /rinse/ and /lep/ for /leap/, and the employment of precisely the same forms by the thousands of Irish immigrants who spread through the country undoubtedly gave them a certain support, and so protected them, in a measure, from the assault of the purists. And the same support was given to /drownded/ for /drowned/, /oncet/ for /once/, /ketch/ for /catch/, /ag'in/ for /against/ and /onery/ for /ordinary/. [Pg092]

Certain usages of Gaelic, carried over into the English of Ireland, fell upon fertile soil in America. One was the employment of the definite article before nouns, as in French and German. An Irishman does not say "I am good at Latin," but "I am good at /the/ Latin." In the same way an American does not say "I had measles," but "I had /the/ measles." There is, again, the use of the prefix /a/ before various adjectives and gerunds, as in /a-going/ and /a-riding/. This usage, of course, is native to English, as /aboard/ and /afoot/ demonstrate, but it is much more common in the Irish dialect, on account of the influence of the parallel Gaelic form, as in /a-n-aice/=/a-near/, and it is also much more common in American. There is, yet again, a use of intensifying suffixes, often set down as characteristically American, which was probably borrowed from the Irish. Examples are /no-siree/ and /yes-indeedy/, and the later /kiddo/ and /skiddoo/. As Joyce shows, such suffixes, in Irish-English, tend to become whole phrases. The Irishman is almost incapable of saying plain yes or no; he must always add some extra and gratuitous asseveration.[40] The American is in like case. His speech bristles with intensives: /bet your life/, /not on your life/, /well I guess/, /and no mistake/, and so on. The Irish extravagance of speech struck a responsive chord in the American heart. The American borrowed, not only occasional words, but whole phrases, and some of them have become thoroughly naturalized. Joyce, indeed, shows the Irish origin of scores of locutions that are now often mistaken for native Americanisms, for example, /great shakes/, /dead/ (as an intensive), /thank you kindly/, /to split one's sides/ (/i. e./, laughing), and /the tune the old cow died of/, not to mention many familiar similes and proverbs. Certain Irish pronunciations, Gaelic rather than archaic English, got into American during the nineteenth century. Among them, one recalls /bhoy/, which entered our political slang in the middle 40's and survived into our own time. Again, there is the very characteristic American word /ballyhoo/, signifying [Pg093] the harangue of a /ballyhoo-man/, or /spieler/ (that is, barker) before a cheap show, or, by metaphor, any noisy speech. It is from /Ballyhooly/, the name of a village in Cork, once notorious for its brawls. Finally, there is /shebang/. Schele de Vere derives it from the French /cabane/, but it seems rather more likely that it is from the Irish /shebeen/.

The propagation of Irishisms in the United States was helped, during many years, by the enormous popularity of various dramas of Irish peasant life, particularly those of Dion Boucicault. So recently as 1910 an investigation made by the /Dramatic Mirror/ showed that some of his pieces, notably "Kathleen Mavourneen," "The Colleen Bawn" and "The Shaugraun," were still among the favorites of popular audiences. Such plays, at one time, were presented by dozens of companies, and a number of Irish actors, among them Andrew Mack, Chauncey Olcott and Boucicault himself, made fortunes appearing in them. An influence also to be taken into account is that of Irish songs, once in great vogue. But such influences, like the larger matter of American borrowings from Anglo-Irish, remain to be investigated. So far as I have been able to discover, there is not a single article in print upon the subject. Here, as elsewhere, our philologists have wholly neglected a very interesting field of inquiry.

From other languages the borrowings during the period of growth were naturally less. Down to the last decades of the nineteenth century, the overwhelming majority of immigrants were either Germans or Irish; the Jews, Italians and Slavs were yet to come. But the first Chinese appeared in 1848, and soon their speech began to contribute its inevitable loan-words. These words, of course, were first adopted by the miners of the Pacific Coast, and a great many of them have remained California localisms, among them such verbs as /to yen/ (to desire strongly, as a Chinaman desires opium) and /to flop-flop/ (to lie down), and such nouns as /fun/, a measure of weight. But a number of others have got into the common speech of the whole country, /e. g./, /fan-tan/, /kow-tow/, /chop-suey/, /ginseng/, /joss/, /yok-a-mi/ and /tong/. Contrary to the popular opinion, /dope/ and /hop/ are not from the Chinese. [Pg094] Neither, in fact, is an Americanism, though the former has one meaning that is specially American, /i. e./, that of information or formula, as in /racing-dope/ and /to dope out/. Most etymologists derive the word from the Dutch /doop/, a sauce. In English, as in American, it signifies a thick liquid, and hence the viscous cooked opium. /Hop/ is simply the common name of the /Humuluslupulus/. The belief that hops have a soporific effect is very ancient, and hop-pillows were brought to America by the first English colonists.

The derivation of /poker/, which came into American from California in the days of the gold rush, has puzzled etymologists. It is commonly derived from /primero/, the name of a somewhat similar game, popular in England in the sixteenth century, but the relation seems rather fanciful. It may possibly come, indirectly, from the Danish word /pokker/, signifying the devil. /Pokerish/, in the sense of alarming, was a common adjective in the United States before the Civil War; Thornton gives an example dated 1827. Schele de Vere says that /poker/, in the sense of a hobgoblin, was still in use in 1871, but he derives the name of the game from the French /poche/ (=/pouche/, /pocket/). He seems to believe that the bank or pool, in the early days, was called the /poke/. Barrère and Leland, rejecting all these guesses, derive /poker/ from the Yiddish /pochger/, which comes in turn from the verb /pochgen/, signifying to conceal winnings or losses. This /pochgen/ is obviously related to the German /pocher/ (=/boaster/, /braggart/). There were a good many German Jews in California in the early days, and they were ardent gamblers. If Barrère and Leland are correct, then /poker/ enjoys the honor of being the first loan-word taken into American from the Yiddish.

§ 5

/Pronunciation/--Noah Webster, as we saw in the last chapter, sneered at the broad /a/, in 1789, as an Anglomaniac affectation. In the course of the next 25 years, however, he seems to have suffered a radical change of mind, for in "The American Spelling Book," published in 1817, he ordained it in /ask/, /last/, /mass/, /aunt/, [Pg095] /grant/, /glass/ and their analogues, and in his 1829 revision he clung to this pronunciation, beside adding /master/, /pastor/, /amass/, /quaff/, /laugh/, /craft/, etc., and even /massive/. There is some difficulty, however, in determining just what sound he proposed to give the /a/, for there are several /a/-sounds that pass as broad, and the two main ones differ considerably. One appears in /all/, and may be called the /aw/-sound. The other is in /art/, and may be called the /ah/-sound. A quarter of a century later Richard Grant White distinguished between the two, and denounced the former as "a British peculiarity." Frank H. Vizetelly, writing in 1917, still noted the difference, particularly in such words as /daunt/, /saunter/ and /laundry/. It is probable that Webster, in most cases, intended to advocate the /ah/-sound, as in /father/, for this pronunciation now prevails in New England. Even there, however, the /a/ often drops to a point midway between /ah/ and /aa/, though never actually descending to the flat /aa/, as in /an/, /at/ and /anatomy/.

But the imprimatur of the Yankee Johnson was not potent enough to stay the course of nature, and, save in New England, the flat /a/ swept the country. He himself allowed it in /stamp/ and /vase/. His successor and rival, Lyman Cobb, decided for it in /pass/, /draft/, /stamp/ and /dance/, though he kept to the /ah/-sound in /laugh/, /path/, /daunt/ and /saunter/. By 1850 the flat /a/ was dominant everywhere West of the Berkshires and South of New Haven, and had even got into such proper names as /Lafayette/ and /Nevada/.[41]

Webster failed in a number of his other attempts to influence American pronunciation. His advocacy of /deef/ for /deaf/ had popular support while he lived, and he dredged up authority for it out of Chaucer and Sir William Temple, but the present pronunciation gradually prevailed, though /deef/ remains familiar in the common speech. Joseph E. Worcester and other rival lexicographers stood against many of his pronunciations, and he took the field against them in the prefaces to the successive editions of his spelling-books. Thus, in that to "The Elementary Spelling [Pg096] Book," dated 1829, he denounced the "affectation" of inserting a /y/-sound before the /u/ in such words as /gradual/ and /nature/, with its compensatory change of /d/ into a French /j/ and of /t/ into /ch/. The English lexicographer, John Walker, had argued for this "affectation" in 1791, but Webster's prestige, while he lived, remained so high in some quarters that he carried the day, and the older professors at Yale, it is said, continued to use /natur/ down to 1839.[42] He favored the pronunciation of /either/ and /neither/ as /ee-ther/ and /nee-ther/, and so did most of the English authorities of his time. The original pronunciation of the first syllable, in England, probably made it rhyme with /bay/, but the /ee/-sound was firmly established by the end of the eighteenth century. Toward the middle of the following century, however, there arose a fashion of an /ai/-sound, and this affectation was borrowed by certain Americans. Gould, in the 50's, put the question, "Why do you say /i/-ther and /ni/-ther?" to various Americans. The reply he got was: "The words are so pronounced by the best-educated people in England." This imitation still prevails in the cities of the East. "All of us," says Lounsbury, "are privileged in these latter days frequently to witness painful struggles put forth to give to the first syllable of these words the sound of /i/ by those who have been brought up to give it the sound of /e/. There is apparently an impression on the part of some that such a pronunciation establishes on a firm foundation an otherwise doubtful social standing."[43] But the vast majority of Americans continue to say /ee-ther/ and not /eye-ther/. White and Vizetelly, like Lounsbury, argue that they are quite correct in so doing. The use of /eye-ther/, says White, is no more than "a copy of a second-rate British affectation."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Studies in History; Boston, 1884.

[2] Benson J. Lossing: Our Country....; New York, 1879.

[3] The thing went, indeed, far beyond mere hope. In 1812 a conspiracy was unearthed to separate New England from the republic and make it an English colony. The chief conspirator was one John Henry, who acted under the instructions of Sir John Craig, Governor-General of Canada.

[4] Maine was not separated from Massachusetts until 1820.

[5] /Vide/ Andrew Jackson...., by William Graham Sumner; Boston, 1883, pp. 2-10.

[6] Indiana and Illinois were erected into territories during Jefferson's first term, and Michigan during his second term. Kentucky was admitted to the union in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, Ohio in 1803. Lewis and Clark set out for the Pacific in 1804. The Louisiana Purchase was ratified in 1803, and Louisiana became a state in 1812.

[7] Barrett Wendell: A Literary History of America; New York, 1900.

[8] "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?" /Edinburgh Review/, Jan., 1820.

[9] /Cf./ As Others See Us, by John Graham Brooks; New York, 1908, ch. vii. Also, The Cambridge History of American Literature, vol. i, pp. 205-8.

[10] Our Dictionaries and Other English Language Topics; New York, 1890, pp. 30-31.

[11] It is curious to note that the center of population of the United States, according to the last census, is now "in southern Indiana, in the western part of Bloomington city, Monroe county." Can it be that this early declaration of literary independence laid the foundation for Indiana's recent pre-eminence in letters? /Cf./ The Language We Use, by Alfred Z. Reed, /New York Sun/, March 13, 1918.

[12] Support also came from abroad. Czar Nicholas I, of Russia, smarting under his defeat in the Crimea, issued an order that his own state papers should be prepared in Russian and American--not English.

[13] A Plea for the Queen's English; London, 1863; 2nd ed., 1864; American ed., New York, 1866.

[14] J. R. Ware, in Passing English of the Victorian Era, says that /to burgle/ was introduced to London by W. S. Gilbert in The Pirates of Penzance (April 3, 1880). It was used in America 30 years before.

[15] This process, of course, is philologically respectable, however uncouth its occasional products may be. By it we have acquired many everyday words, among them, /to accept/ (from /acceptum/), /to exact/ (from /exactum/), /to darkle/ (from /darkling/), and /pea/ (from /pease/=/pois/).

[16] All authorities save one seem to agree that this verb is a pure Americanism, and that it is derived from the name of Charles Lynch, a Virginia justice of the peace, who jailed many Loyalists in 1780 without warrant in law. The dissentient, Bristed, says that /to linch/ is in various northern English dialects, and means to beat or maltreat.

[17] The correct form of this appears to be /halloo/ or /holloa/, but in America it is pronounced /holler/ and usually represented in print by /hollo/ or /hollow/. I have often encountered /holloed/ in the past tense. But the Public Printer frankly accepts /holler/. /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/, May 12, 1917, p. 2309. The word, in the form of /hollering/, is here credited to "Hon." John L. Burnett, of Alabama. There can be no doubt that the hon. gentleman said /hollering/, and not /holloaing/, or /holloeing/, or /hollowing/, or /hallooing/. /Hello/ is apparently a variation of the same word.

[18] /Rough-neck/ is often cited, in discussions of slang, as a latter-day invention, but Thornton shows that it was used in Texas in 1836.

[19] This use goes back to 1839.

[20] Thornton gives an example dated 1812. Of late the word has lost its final /e/ and shortened its vowel, becoming /scrap/.

[21] /Cf./ Terms of Approbation and Eulogy.... by Elise L. Warnock, /Dialect Notes/, vol. iv, part 1, 1913. Among the curious recent coinages cited by Miss Warnock are /scallywampus/, /supergobosnoptious/, /hyperfirmatious/, /scrumdifferous/ and /swellellegous/.

[22] /E.g./, /single-track mind/, /to jump the rails/, /to collide head-on/, /broad-gauge man/, /to walk the ties/, /blind-baggage/, /underground-railroad/, /tank-town/.

[23] Political Americanisms....; New York and London, 1890.

[24] Gustavus Myers: The History of Tammany Hall; 2nd ed.; New York, 1917, ch. viii.

[25] Knickerbocker's History of New York; New York, 1809, p. 241.

[26] Extensive lists of such drinks, with their ingredients, are to be found in the Hoffman House Bartender's Guide, by Charles Mahoney, 4th ed.; New York, 1916; in The Up-to-date Bartenders' Guide, by Harry Montague; Baltimore, 1913; and in Wehman Brothers' Bartenders' Guide; New York, 1912. An early list, from the /Lancaster (Pa.) Journal/ of Jan. 26, 1821, is quoted by Thornton, vol. ii, p. 985.

[27] Many such words are listed in Félix Ramos y Duarte's Diccionaro de Mejicanismos, 2nd ed. Mexico City, 1898; and in Miguel de Toro y Gisbert's Americanismos; Paris, n. d.

[28] Prescott F. Hall: Immigration.... New York, 1913, p. 5.

[29] Most of the provisions of this act, however, were later declared unconstitutional. Several subsequent acts met the same fate.

[30] The majority of these words, it will be noted, relate to eating and drinking. They mirror the profound effect of German immigration upon American drinking habits and the American cuisine. It is a curious fact that loan-words seldom represent the higher aspirations of the creditor nation. French and German have borrowed from English, not words of lofty significance, but such terms as /beefsteak/, /roast-beef/, /pudding/, /grog/, /jockey/, /tourist/, /sport/, /five-o'clock-tea/, /cocktail/ and /sweepstakes/. "The contributions of England to European civilization, as tested by the English words in Continental languages," says L. P. Smith, "are not, generally, of a kind to cause much national self-congratulation." Nor would a German, I daresay, be very proud of the German contributions to American.

[31] /Vide/ a paragraph in /Notes and Queries/, quoted by Thornton, vol. i, p. 248.

[32] Thornton offers examples of this form ranging from 1856 to 1885. During the Civil War the word acquired the special meaning of looter. The Southerners thus applied it to Sherman's men. /Vide/ Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. xii, p. 428; Richmond, 1884. Here is a popular rhyme that survived until the early 90's:

Isidor, psht, psht! Vatch de shtore, psht, psht! Vhile I ketch de /bummer/ Vhat shtole de suit of clothes!

/Bummel-zug/ is common German slang for slow train.

[33] Jan. 24, 1918, p. 4.

[34] Nevertheless, when I once put it into a night-letter a Western Union office refused to accept it, the rules requiring all night-letters to be in "plain English." Meanwhile, the English have borrowed it from American, and it is actually in the Oxford Dictionary.

[35] The word is not in the Oxford Dictionary, but Cassell gives it and says that it is German and an Americanism. The Standard Dictionary does not give its etymology. Thornton's first example, dated 1856, shows a variant spelling, /shuyster/, thus indicating that it was then recent. All subsequent examples show the present spelling. It is to be noted that the suffix /-ster/ is not uncommon in English, and that it usually carries a deprecatory significance, as in /trickster/, /punster/, /gamester/, etc.

[36] The use of /dumb/ for stupid is widespread in the United States. /Dumb-head/, obviously from the German /dummkopf/, appears in a list of Kansas words collected by Judge J. C. Ruppenthal, of Russell, Kansas. (/Dialect Notes/, vol. iv, pt. v, 1916, p. 322.) It is also noted in Nebraska and the Western Reserve, and is very common in Pennsylvania. /Uhrgucker/ (=/uhr-gucken/) is also on the Kansas list of Judge Ruppenthal.

[37] English As We Speak It in Ireland, 2nd ed.; London and Dublin, 1910, pp. 179-180.

[38] "Our people," says Dr. Joyce, "are very conservative in retaining old customs and forms of speech. Many words accordingly that are discarded as old-fashioned--or dead and gone--in England, are still flourishing--alive and well, in Ireland. [They represent] ... the classical English of Shakespeare's time," pp. 6-7.

[39] Pope rhymed /join/ with /mine/, /divine/ and /line/; Dryden rhymed /toil/ with /smile/. William Kenrick, in 1773, seems to have been the first English lexicographer to denounce this pronunciation. /Tay/ survived in England until the second half of the eighteenth century. Then it fell into disrepute, and certain purists, among them Lord Chesterfield, attempted to change the /ea/-sound to /ee/ in all words, including even /great/. /Cf./ the remarks under /boil/ in A Desk-Book of Twenty-Five Thousand Words Frequently Mispronounced, by Frank H. Vizetelly; New York, 1917. Also, The Standard of Pronunciation in English, by T. S. Lounsbury; New York, 1904, pp. 98-103.

[40] Amusing examples are to be found in Donlevy's Irish Catechism. To the question, "Is the Son God?" the answer is not simply "Yes," but "Yes, certainly He is." And to the question, "Will God reward the good and punish the wicked?", the answer is "Certainly; there is no doubt He will."

[41] Richard Meade Bache denounced it, in /Lafayette/, during the 60's. /Vide/ his Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech, 2nd ed., Philadelphia, 1869, p. 65.

[42] R. J. Menner: The Pronunciation of English in America, /Atlantic Monthly/, March, 1915, p. 361.

[43] The Standard of Pronunciation in English, pp. 109-112.

[Pg097]

IV

American and English Today

§ 1

/The Two Vocabularies/--By way of preliminary to an examination of the American of today I offer a brief list of terms in common use that differ in American and English. Here are 200 of them, all chosen from the simplest colloquial vocabularies and without any attempt at plan or completeness:

/American/ /English/

ash-can dust-bin

baby-carriage pram

backyard garden

baggage luggage

baggage-car luggage-van

ballast (railroad) metals

bath-tub bath

beet beet-root

bid (noun) tender

bill-board hoarding

boarder paying-guest

boardwalk (seaside) promenade

bond (finance) debenture

boot Blucher, or Wellington

brakeman brakesman

bucket pail

bumper (car) buffer

bureau chest of drawers

calendar (court) cause-list

campaign (political) canvass

can (noun) tin

candy sweets

cane stick

canned-goods tinned-goods

car (railroad) carriage, van or waggon

checkers (game) draughts

chicken-yard fowl-run

chief-clerk head-clerk

city-editor chief-reporter

city-ordinance by-law

clipping (newspaper) cutting

coal-oil paraffin

coal-scuttle coal-hod

commission-merchant factor

conductor (of a train) guard

corn maize, or Indian corn

corner (of a street) crossing

corset stays

counterfeiter coiner

cow-catcher plough

cracker biscuit

cross-tie sleeper

delicatessen-store Italian-warehouse

department-store stores

Derby (hat) bowler

dime-novel shilling-shocker

druggist chemist

drug-store chemist's-shop

drummer bagman

dry-goods-store draper's-shop

editorial leader, or leading-article

elevator lift

elevator-boy lift-man

excursionist tripper

express-company carrier

filing-cabinet nest-of-drawers

fire-department fire-brigade

fish-dealer fishmonger

floor-walker shop-walker

fraternal-order friendly-society

freight goods

freight-agent goods-manager

freight-car goods-waggon

frog (railway) crossing-plate

garters (men's) sock-suspenders

gasoline petrol

grade (railroad) gradient

grain corn

grain-broker corn-factor

grip hold-all

groceries stores

hardware-dealer ironmonger

haystack haycock

headliner topliner

hod-carrier hodman

hog-pen piggery

hospital (private) nursing-home

huckster coster (monger)

hunting shooting

Indian Red Indian

Indian Summer St. Martin's Summer

instalment-business credit-trade

instalment-plan hire-purchase plan

janitor caretaker

legal-holiday bank-holiday

letter-box pillar-box

letter-carrier postman

livery-stable mews[1]

locomotive engineer engine-driver

lumber deals

mad angry

Methodist Wesleyan

molasses treacle

monkey-wrench spanner

moving-picture-theatre cinema

napkin (dinner) serviette

necktie tie, or cravat

news-dealer news-agent

newspaper-man pressman, or journalist

oatmeal porridge

officeholder public-servant

orchestra (seats in a theatre) stalls

overcoat great-coat

package parcel

parlor drawing-room

parlor-car saloon-carriage

patrolman (police) constable

pay-day wage-day

peanut monkey-nut

pie (fruit) tart

pitcher jug

poorhouse workhouse

post-paid post-free

potpie pie

prepaid carriage-paid

press (printing) machine

program (of a meeting) agenda

proof-reader corrector-of-the-press

public-school board-school

quotation-marks inverted-commas

railroad railway

railroad-man railway-servant

rails line

rare (of meat) underdone

receipts (in business) takings

Rhine-wine Hock

road-bed (railroad) permanent-way

road-repairer road-mender

roast joint

roll-call division

rooster cock

round-trip-ticket return-ticket

rutabaga mangel-wurzel

saleswoman shop-assistant

saloon public-house

scarf-pin tie-pin

scow lighter

sewer drain

shirtwaist blouse

shoe boot

shoemaker bootmaker

shoestring bootlace

shoe-tree boot-form

sick ill

sidewalk pavement

silver (collectively) plate

sled sledge

sleigh sledge

soft-drinks minerals

spigot tap

squash vegetable-marrow

stem-winder keyless-watch

stockholder shareholder

stocks shares

store-fixtures shop-fittings

street-cleaner crossing-sweeper

street-railway tramway

subway tube, or underground

suspenders (men's) braces

sweater jersey

switch (noun, railway) points

switch (verb, railway) shunt

taxes (municipal) rates

taxpayer (local) ratepayer

tenderloin (of beef) under-cut

ten-pins nine-pins

thumb-tack drawing-pin

ticket-office booking-office

tinner tinker

tin-roof leads

track (railroad) line

trained-nurse hospital-nurse

transom (of door) fanlight

trolley-car tramcar

truck (vehicle) lorry

truck (of a railroad car) bogie

trunk box

typewriter (operator) typist

typhoid-fever enteric

undershirt vest

vaudeville-theatre music-hall

vegetables greens

vest waistcoat

warden (of a prison) governor

warehouse stores

wash-rag face-cloth

wash-stand wash-hand-stand

wash-wringer mangle

waste-basket waste-paper-basket

whipple-tree[2] splinter-bar

witness-stand witness-box

wood-alcohol methylated-spirits

[Pg102]

§ 2

/Differences in Usage/--The differences here listed, most of them between words in everyday employment, are but examples of a divergence in usage which extends to every department of daily life. In his business, in his journeys from his home to his office, in his dealings with his family and servants, in his sports and amusements, in his politics and even in his religion the American uses, not only words and phrases, but whole syntactical constructions, that are unintelligible to the Englishman, or intelligible only after laborious consideration. A familiar anecdote offers an example in miniature. It concerns a young American woman living in a region of prolific orchards who is asked by a visiting Englishman what the residents do with so much fruit. Her reply is a pun: "We eat all we can, and what we can't we can." This answer would mystify nine Englishmen out of ten, for in the first place it involves the use of the flat American /a/ in /can't/ and in the second place it applies an unfamiliar name to the vessel that every Englishman knows as a /tin/, and then adds to the confusion by deriving a verb from the substantive. There are no such things as /canned-goods/ in England; over there they are /tinned/. The /can/ that holds them is a /tin/; /to can/ them is /to tin/ them.... And they are counted, not as /groceries/, but as /stores/, and advertised, not on /bill-boards/ but on /hoardings/.[3] And the cook who prepares them for the table is not /Nora/ or /Maggie/, but /Cook/, and if she does other work in addition she is not a /girl for general housework/, but a /cook-general/, and not /help/, but a /servant/. And the boarder who eats them is not a /boarder/ at all, but a /paying-guest/, though he is said /to board/. And the grave of the tin, once it is emptied, is not the /ash-can/, but the /dust-bin/, and the man who carries it away is not the /garbage-man/ or the /ash-man/ or the /white-wings/, but the /dustman/.