Part 10

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