The American Language
/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/,