The American Language
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/.