The Language in the Making—All this jingoistic bombast, however, was directed toward defending, not so much the national vernacular as the national beautiful letters. True enough, an English attack upon a definite American locution always brought out certain critical minute-men, but in the main they were anything but hospitable to the racy neologisms that kept crowding up from below, and most of them were eager to be accepted as masters of orthodox English and very sensitive to the charge that their writing was bestrewn with Americanisms. A glance through the native criticism of the time will show how ardently even the most uncompromising patriots imitated the Johnsonian jargon then fashionable in England. Fowler and Griswold followed pantingly in the footsteps of Macaulay; their prose is extraordinarily ornate and self-conscious, and one searches it in vain for any concession to colloquialism. Poe, the master of them all, achieved a style so elephantine that many an English leader-writer must have studied it with envy. A few bolder spirits, as we have seen, spoke out for national freedom in language as well as in letters—among them, Channing—but in the main the Brahmins of the time were conservatives in[Pg073]that department, and it is difficult to imagine Emerson or Irving or Bryant sanctioning the innovations later adopted so easily by Howells. Lowell and Walt Whitman, in fact, were the first men of letters, properly so called, to give specific assent to the great changes that were firmly fixed in the national speech during the half century between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. Lowell did so in his preface to the second series of "The Biglow Papers." Whitman made his declaration in "An American Primer." In discussing his own poetry, he said: "It is an attempt to give the spirit, the body and the man, new words, new potentialities of speech—an American, a cosmopolitan (for the best of America is the best cosmopolitanism) range of self-expression." And then: "The Americans are going to be the most fluent and melodious-voiced people in the world—and the most perfect users of words. The new times, the new people, the new vistas need a new tongue according—yes, and what is more, they will have such a new tongue." To which, as everyone knows, Whitman himself forthwith contributed many daring (and still undigested) novelties,e. g.,camerado,romanza,AdamicandThese States.
Meanwhile, in strong contrast to the lingering conservatism above there was a wild and lawless development of the language below, and in the end it forced itself into recognition, and profited by the literary declaration of independence of its very opponents. "Thejus et norma loquendi," says W. R. Morfill, the English philologist, "do not depend upon scholars." Particularly in a country where scholarship is still new and wholly cloistered, and the overwhelming majority of the people are engaged upon novel and highly exhilarating tasks, far away from schools and with a gigantic cockiness in their hearts. The remnants of the Puritan civilization had been wiped out by the rise of the proletariat under Jackson, and whatever was fine and sensitive in it had died with it. What remained of an urbane habit of mind and utterance began to be confined to the narrowing feudal areas of the south, and to the still narrower refuge of the Boston Brahmins, now, for the first time, a definitely recognized caste ofintelligentsia, self-charged with carrying the[Pg074]torch of culture through a new Dark Age. The typical American, in Paulding's satirical phrase, became "a bundling, gouging, impious" fellow, without either "morals, literature, religion or refinement." Next to the savage struggle for land and dollars, party politics was the chief concern of the people, and with the disappearance of the old leaders and the entrance of pushing upstarts from the backwoods, political controversy sank to an incredibly low level. Bartlett, in the introduction to the second edition of his Glossary, describes the effect upon the language. First the enfranchised mob, whether in the city wards or along the western rivers, invented fantastic slang-words and turns of phrase; then they were "seized upon by stump-speakers at political meetings"; then they were heard in Congress; then they got into the newspapers; and finally they came into more or less good usage. Much contemporary evidence is to the same effect. Fowler, in listing "low expressions" in 1850, described them as "chiefly political." "The vernacular tongue of the country," said Daniel Webster, "has become greatly vitiated, depraved and corrupted by the style of the congressional debates." Thornton, in the appendix to his Glossary, gives some astounding specimens of congressional oratory between the 20's and 60's, and many more will reward the explorer who braves the files of theCongressional Globe. This flood of racy and unprecedented words and phrases beat upon and finally penetrated the retreat of theliterati, but the purity of speech cultivated there had little compensatory influence upon the vulgate. The newspaper was now enthroned, andbelles lettreswere cultivated almost in private, and as a mystery. It is probable, indeed, that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Ten Nights in a Bar-room," both published in the early 50's, were the first contemporary native books, after Cooper's day, that the American people, as a people, ever read. Nor did the pulpit, now fast falling from its old high estate, lift a corrective voice. On the contrary, it joined the crowd, and Bartlett denounces it specifically for its bad example, and cites, among its crimes against the language, such inventions asto doxologizeandto funeralize.[Pg075]To these novelties, apparently without any thought of their uncouthness, Fowler adds tomissionateandconsociational.
As I say, the pressure from below broke down the defenses of the purists, and literally forced a new national idiom upon them. Pen in hand, they might still achieve laborious imitations of Johnson and Macaulay, but their mouths began to betray them. "When it comes to talking," wrote Charles Astor Bristed for Englishmen in 1855, "the most refined and best educated American, who has habitually resided in his own country, the very man who would write, on some serious topic, volumes in which no peculiarity could be detected, will, in half a dozen sentences, use at least as many words that cannot fail to strike the inexperienced Englishman who hears them for the first time." Bristed gave a specimen of the American of that time, calculated to flabbergast his inexperienced Englishman; you will find it in the volume of Cambridge Essays, already cited. His aim was to explain and defend Americanisms, and so shut off the storm of English reviling, and he succeeded in producing one of the most thoughtful and persuasive essays on the subject ever written. But his purpose failed and the attack kept up, and eight years afterward the Very Rev. Henry Alford, D.D., dean of Canterbury, led a famous assault. "Look at those phrases," he said, "which so amuse us in their speech and books; at their reckless exaggeration and contempt for congruity; and then compare the character and history of the nation—its blunted sense of moral obligation and duty to man; its open disregard of conventional right where aggrandizement is to be obtained; and I may now say, its reckless and fruitless maintenance of the most cruel and unprincipled war in the history of the world."[13]In his American edition of 1866 Dr. Alford withdrew this reference to the Civil War and somewhat ameliorated his indignation otherwise, but he clung to the main counts in his indictment, and most Englishmen, I daresay, still give them a certain support. The American is no longer a[Pg076]"vain, egotistical, insolent, rodomontade sort of fellow"; America is no longer the "brigand confederation" of theForeign Quarterlyor "the loathsome creature, ... maimed and lame, full of sores and ulcers" of Dickens; but the Americanism is yet regarded with a bilious eye, and pounced upon viciously when found. Even the friendliest English critics seem to be daunted by the gargantuan copiousness of American inventions in speech. Their position, perhaps, was well stated by Capt. Basil Hall, author of the celebrated "Travels in North America," in 1827. When he argued that "surely such innovations are to be deprecated," an American asked him this question: "If a word becomes universally current in America, why should it not take its station in the language?" "Because," replied Hall in all seriousness, "there are words enough in our language already."
§ 3
The Expanding Vocabulary—A glance at some of the characteristic coinages of the time, as they are revealed in theCongressional 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 quotesto doxologizefrom theChristian Disciple, a quite reputable religious paper of the 40's.To citizenizewas 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 funeralizeandto missionate, along withconsociational, were contributions of the backwoods pulpit; perhaps it also producedhell-roaringandhellion, 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 fencessub 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,-ousand-ment. Such inventions asto obligate,to concertize,to questionize,retiracy,savagerous,coatee(a sort of diminutive for coat) andcitifiedappeared in the popular vocabulary, and even got into more or less good usage. Fowler, in 1850, citedpublishmentandreleasementwith 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]andto 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 toto affiliate,to itemize,to resurrectorto Americanizetoday, 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 asto corner(i. e., the market),to bossandto lynch.[16]Nor perhaps toto 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 yankandto 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 collideandto feaze, were[Pg078]archaic English terms brought to new birth; a few others,e. g.,to holler[17]andto muss, were obviously mere corruptions. But a good many others,e. g.,to bulldoze,to hornswoggleandto 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 areto fill the bill,to fizzle out,to make tracks,to peter out,to plank down,to go back on,to keep tab,to light outandto back water. Side by side with them we have inherited such common coins of speech asto 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 seatandto 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 asto 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 jumporenter 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) andto get the bulge on. And in many others the authentic American is no less plain, for example, into 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 slideandto come out at the little end of the horn.To play possumbelongs to this list. To it Thornton addsto knock into a cocked hat, despite its English sound, andto have an ax to grind.To go for, both in the sense of belligerency and in that of partisanship, is also American, and so isto 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 arenon-committal,highfalutin,well-posted,down-town,played-out,flat-footed,whole-souledandtrue-blue. The first appears in a Senate debate of 1841;highfalutinin 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 ofslimin the sense of meagre, as inslim chance,slim attendanceandslim support, goes back still further. The English usesmallin place of it. Other, and less respectable contributions of the time arebrash,brainy,peart,locoed,pesky,picayune,scary,well-heeled,hardshell(e. g., Baptist),low-flung,codfish(to indicate opprobrium) andgo-to-meeting. The use ofplumbas an adjective, as inplumb 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 ofplumpit still survives, for example, in "she fellplumpinto his arms." But this last is also good English.
The characteristic American substitution ofmadforangrygoes 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 theCongressional 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. Butas mad as a March hareis English, and connotes insanity, not mere anger. The English meaning of the word is preserved inmad-houseandmad-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 aredeck(of cards),gulch,gullyandbillion, 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 bygum-shoe,mortgage-shark,dug-out,shot-gun,stag-party,wheat-pit,horse-sense,chipped-beef,oyster-supper,buzz-saw,chain-gangandhell-box. And of the third there are instances inbuncombe,greaser,conniption,bloomer,campus,galoot,maverick,roustabout,bugabooandblizzard.
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]themwild-catnotes and have done! Why describe a gigantic rain storm with the lame adjectives of everyday? Call it acloud-burstand immediately a vivid picture of it is conjured up.Rough-neckis a capital word; it is more apposite and savory than the Englishnavvy, and it is overwhelmingly more American.[18]Square-mealis another.Fire-eateris yet another. And the same instinct for the terse, the eloquent and the picturesque is inboiled-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, andjumping-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 asbell-hop,semi-occasional,chair-warmeranddown-and-outare 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 ascarnival of crime),scrape(for fight or difficulty),[20]flurry(of snow, or in the market),suspenders,diggings(for habitation) andrange. Again, there are the new assemblings of English materials,e. g.,doggery,rowdy,teetotaler,goatee,tonyandcussedness. Yet again, there are the purely artificial words,e. g.,sockdolager,hunkydory,scalawag,guyascutis,spondulix,slumgullion,rambunctious,scrumptious,[Pg082]to skedaddle,to absquatulateandto exfluncticate.[21]In the use of the last-named coinages fashions change. In the 40'sto absquatulatewas 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 ofscalawagandrambunctiousand who did not occasionally use them. A whole series of artificial American words groups itself around the prefixker, for example,ker-flop,ker-splash,ker-thump,ker-bang,ker-plunk,ker-slamandker-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 Englishploughandcrossing-platewithcow-catcherandfrog. 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 asbox-car,caboose,air-lineandticket-agentare still quite unknown in England. So arefreight-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,truckandright-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 telescopeandto 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 Englishluggage-van,permanent-way,goods-waggon,guard,carrier,booking-office,return-ticket,railway-rug,R. S. O.(railway sub-office),tripper,line,points,shunt,metalsandbogiewould 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 arecaucusandmileage. 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-seekerandstraight-ticket; the humorous metaphors:pork-barrel,pie-counter,wire-puller,land-slide,carpet-bagger,lame-duckandon the fence; the old words put to new uses:plank,platform,machine,precinct,slate,primary,floater,repeater,bolter,stalwart,filibuster,regularandfences; the new coinages:gerrymander,heeler,buncombe,roorback,mugwumpandto bulldoze; the new derivatives:abolitionist,candidacy,boss-rule,[Pg084]per-diem,to lobbyandboodler; 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 grabandto run. An English candidate neverruns; hestands. Torun, according to Thornton, was already used in America in 1789; it was universal by 1820.Platformcame in at the same time.Machinewas first applied to a political organization by Aaron Burr. The use ofmugwumpis commonly thought to have originated in the Blaine campaign of 1884, but it really goes back to the 30's.Anxious-bench(oranxious-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-stateappears inNiles' Registerfor December 5, 1840.Favorite-sonappears 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 tracedbolterto 1812,filibusterto 1863,roorbackto 1844, andsplit-ticketto 1842.Regularitywas an issue in Tammany Hall in 1822.[24]There wereprimariesin New York city in 1827, and hundreds ofrepeatersvoted. In 1829 there werelobby-agentsat Albany, and they soon becamelobbyists; in 1832lobbyinghad already extended to Washington. All of these terms are now as firmly imbedded in the American vocabulary aselectionorcongressman.
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 buyscocktailsandgin-fizzesin "American bars" that stretch from Paris to Yokohama.Cocktail,stone-fenceandsherry-cobblerwere mentioned by Irving in 1809;[25]by Thackeray's day they were already well-known in England. Thornton traces theslingto 1788, and thestinkibusandanti-fogmatic,[Pg085]both now extinct, to the same year. The origin of therickey,fizz,sour,cooler,skin,shrubandsmash, and of such curious American drinks as thehorse'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-plushandbrandy-crustais 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 waswhiskey-and-soda. The Americans, introduced to the same drink, at once gave it the far more original name ofhigh-ball. So withginger-aleandginger-pop. So withmineralsandsoft-drinks. Other characteristic Americanisms (a few of them borrowed by the English) arered-eye,corn-juice,eye-opener,forty-rod,squirrel-whiskey,phlegm-cutter,moon-shine,hard-cider,apple-jackandcorpse-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,ponyandchaser. Thornton shows thatjag,bust,batandto crook the elboware also Americanisms. So arebartenderandsaloon-keeper. To them might be added a long list of common American synonyms fordrunk, for example,piffled,pifflicated,awry-eyed,tanked,snooted,stewed,ossified,slopped,fiddled,edged,loaded,het-up,frazzled,jugged,soused,jiggered,corned,jaggedandbunned. Farmer and Henley listcornedandjaggedamong English synonyms, but the former is obviously an Americanism derived fromcorn-whiskeyorcorn-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-fatherandhappy-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-WifeandVoice-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 isOld-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,portageandrapidshad been borrowed during colonial days; to these French contributionsbayou,picayune,levee,chute,butte,crevasse, andlagniappewere now added, and probably alsoshantyandcanuck. The use ofbraveto 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,sierraandadobe. To them, as soon as gold was discovered, were addedbonanza,eldorado,placerandvigilante.Cinchwas borrowed from the Spanishcinchain 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 ofantiin 1848.Coyotecame from the Mexican dialect of Spanish; its first parent was the Azteccoyotl.Tamalehad a similar origin, and so didfrijoleandtomato. None of these is good Spanish.[27]As usual, derivatives quickly followed the new-comers, among thempeonage,broncho-buster,ranchmanandranch-house, and the verbsto ranch,to lasso,to corral,to ante up, andto cinch.To vamose(from the Spanishvamos, let us go), came in at the same time. So didsabe. So didgazabo.
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,saurkrautandnoodle, 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 contributedpretzel,pumpernickel,hausfrau,lager-beer,pinocle,wienerwurst,dumb(for stupid),frankfurter,bock-beer,schnitzel,leberwurst,blutwurst,rathskeller,schweizer(cheese),delicatessen,hamburger(i. e., steak),kindergartenandkatzenjammer.[30]From them, in all probability, there also came two very familiar Americanisms,loaferandbum. The former, according to the Standard Dictionary, is derived from the Germanlaufen; another authority says that it originated in a German mispronounciation oflover,i. e., aslofer.[31]Thornton shows that the word was already in common use in 1835.Bumwas originallybummer, and apparently derives from the Germanbummler.[32]Both words have produced derivatives:loaf(noun),to loaf,corner-loafer,common-loafer,to bum,bum(adj.) andbummery, not to mentionon the[Pg089]bum.Loaferhas migrated in England, butbumis still unknown there in the American sense. In English, indeed,bumis 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 AmericanKriss Kringle. It is fromChristkindlein, orChristkind'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 formKriss Kringle, which is that given in the Standard Dictionary, and the formKrisking'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(fromnichts kommt heraus) and'rous mit 'im(fromheraus mit ihm). These phrases, likewie geht'sandganz gut, are familiar to practically all Americans, no matter how complete their ignorance of correct German. Most of them know, too, the meaning ofgesundheit,kümmel,seidel,wanderlust,stein,speck,maennerchor,schützenfest,sängerfest,turnverein,hoch,yodel,zwieback, andzwei(as inzwei bier). I have foundsnitz(=schnitz) inTown Topics.[33]Prositis in all American dictionaries.[34]Bower, as used in cards, is an Americanism derived from the Germanbauer, 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 Germanautsch, and Thornton says that "it may have come across with the Dunkers or the Mennonites."Ouchis not heard in English, save in the sense of a clasp or buckle set with precious stones (=OFnouche), and even in that sense it is archaic.Shysteris very probably German also; Thornton has traced it back to the 50's.[35]Rum-dumbis grounded upon the[Pg090]meaning ofdumbborrowed from the German; it is not listed in the English slang dictionaries.[36]Bristed says that the American meaning ofwagon, which indicates almost any four-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicle in this country but only the very heaviest in England, was probably influenced by the Germanwagen. He also says that the American use ofhold onforstopwas suggested by the Germanhalt an, and White says that the substitution ofstandpointforpoint of view, long opposed by all purists, was first made by an American professor who sought "an Anglicized form" of the Germanstandpunkt. 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; perhapsshillelah,colleen,spalpeen,smithereensandpoteenexhaust the unmistakably Gaelic list.Lallapaloozais also probably an Irish loan-word, though it is not Gaelic. It apparently comes fromallay-foozee, a Mayo provincialism, signifying a sturdy fellow.Allay-foozee, in its turn, comes from the FrenchAllez-fusil, meaning "Forward the muskets!"—a memory,[Pg091]according to P. W. Joyce,[37]of the French landing at Killala in 1798. Such phrases asErin go braghand such expletives asbegobandbegorrymay 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 astayforteaanddesavefordeceive, and these forms, on Irish lips, struck them as uncouth and absurd, but they still clung, in their common speech, to such forms ash'istforhoist,bileforboil,chawforchew,jineforjoin,[39]sassforsauce,heighthforheightandrenchforrinseandlepforleap, 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 todrowndedfordrowned,oncetforonce,ketchforcatch,ag'inforagainstandoneryforordinary.[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 attheLatin." In the same way an American does not say "I had measles," but "I hadthemeasles." There is, again, the use of the prefixabefore various adjectives and gerunds, as ina-goinganda-riding. This usage, of course, is native to English, asaboardandafootdemonstrate, but it is much more common in the Irish dialect, on account of the influence of the parallel Gaelic form, as ina-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 areno-sireeandyes-indeedy, and the laterkiddoandskiddoo. 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), andthe 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 recallsbhoy, which entered our political slang in the middle 40's and survived into our own time. Again, there is the very characteristic American wordballyhoo, signifying[Pg093]the harangue of aballyhoo-man, orspieler(that is, barker) before a cheap show, or, by metaphor, any noisy speech. It is fromBallyhooly, the name of a village in Cork, once notorious for its brawls. Finally, there isshebang. Schele de Vere derives it from the Frenchcabane, but it seems rather more likely that it is from the Irishshebeen.
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 theDramatic Mirrorshowed 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 asto yen(to desire strongly, as a Chinaman desires opium) andto flop-flop(to lie down), and such nouns asfun, 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-miandtong. Contrary to the popular opinion,dopeandhopare 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 inracing-dopeandto dope out. Most etymologists derive the word from the Dutchdoop, a sauce. In English, as in American, it signifies a thick liquid, and hence the viscous cooked opium.Hopis simply the common name of theHumuluslupulus. 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 ofpoker, which came into American from California in the days of the gold rush, has puzzled etymologists. It is commonly derived fromprimero, 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 wordpokker, 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 thatpoker, in the sense of a hobgoblin, was still in use in 1871, but he derives the name of the game from the Frenchpoche(=pouche,pocket). He seems to believe that the bank or pool, in the early days, was called thepoke. Barrère and Leland, rejecting all these guesses, derivepokerfrom the Yiddishpochger, which comes in turn from the verbpochgen, signifying to conceal winnings or losses. Thispochgenis obviously related to the Germanpocher(=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, thenpokerenjoys the honor of being the first loan-word taken into American from the Yiddish.
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