The American Language
eight town-names embodying the word /burnt/, innumerable names
embodying /grove/, /barren/, /plain/, /fork/, /center/, /cross-roads/,
/courthouse/, /cove/ and /ferry/, and a great swarm of /Cold Springs/,
/Coldwaters/, /Summits/, /Middletowns/ and /Highlands/. The flora and
fauna of the land are enormously represented. There are twenty-two
/Buffalos/ beside the city in New York, and scores of /Buffalo
Creeks/, /Ridges/, /Springs/ and /Wallows/. The /Elks/, in various
forms, are still more numerous, and there are dozens of towns,
mountains, lakes, creeks and country districts named after the
/beaver/, /martin/, /coyote/, /moose/ and /otter/, and as many more
named after such characteristic flora as the /paw-paw/, the
/sycamore/, the /cottonwood/, the /locust/ and the /sunflower/. There
is an /Alligator/ in Mississippi, a /Crawfish/ in Kentucky and a /Rat
Lake/ on the Canadian border of Minnesota. The endless search for
mineral wealth has besprinkled the map with such names as /Bromide/,
/Oil City/, /Anthracite/, /Chrome/, /Chloride/, /Coal Run/,
/Goldfield/, /Telluride/, /Leadville/ and /Cement/.
There was a time, particularly during the gold rush to California,
when the rough humor of the country showed itself in the invention of
extravagant and often highly felicitous place-names, but with the
growth of population and the rise of civic spirit they have tended to
be replaced with more seemly coinages. [Pg295] /Catfish/ creek, in
Wisconsin, is now the /Yahara/ river; the /Bulldog/ mountains, in
Arizona, have become the /Harosomas/; the /Picketwire/ river, as we
have seen, has resumed its old French name of /Purgatoire/. As with
natural features of the landscape, so with towns. Nearly all the old
/Boozevilles/, /Jackass Flats/, /Three Fingers/, /Hell-For-Sartains/,
/Undershirt Hills/, /Razzle-Dazzles/, /Cow-Tails/, /Yellow Dogs/,
/Jim-Jamses/, /Jump-Offs/, /Poker Citys/ and /Skunktowns/ have yielded
to the growth of delicacy, but /Tombstone/ still stands in Arizona,
/Goose Bill/ remains a postoffice in Montana, and the Geographic Board
gives its imprimatur to the /Horsethief/ trail in Colorado, to
/Burning Bear/ creek in the same state, and to /Pig Eye/ lake in
Minnesota. Various other survivors of a more lively and innocent day
linger on the map: /Blue Ball/, Ark., /Cowhide/, W. Va.,
/Dollarville/, Mich., /Oven Fork/, Ky., /Social Circle/, Ga., /Sleepy
Eye/, Minn., /Bubble/, Ark., /Shy Beaver/, Pa., /Shin Pond/, Me.,
/Rough-and-Ready/, Calif., /Non Intervention/, Va., /Noodle/, Tex.,
/Nursery/, Mo., /Number Four/, N. Y., /Oblong/, Ill., /Stock Yards/,
Neb., /Stout/, Iowa, and so on. West Virginia, the wildest of the
eastern states, is full of such place-names. Among them I find
/Affinity/, /Annamoriah/ (/Anna Maria?/), /Bee/, /Bias/, /Big
Chimney/, /Billie/, /Blue Jay/, /Bulltown/, /Caress/, /Cinderella/,
/Cyclone/, /Czar/, /Cornstalk/, /Duck/, /Halcyon/, /Jingo/, /Left
Hand/, /Ravens Eye/, /Six/, /Skull Run/, /Three Churches/, /Uneeda/,
/Wide Mouth/, /War Eagle/ and /Stumptown/. The Postal Guide shows two
/Ben Hurs/, five /St. Elmos/ and ten /Ivanhoes/, but only one
/Middlemarch/. There are seventeen /Roosevelts/, six /Codys/ and six
/Barnums/, but no /Shakespeare/. /Washington/, of course, is the most
popular of American place-names. But among names of postoffices it is
hard pushed by /Clinton/, /Centerville/, /Liberty/, /Canton/, /Marion/
and /Madison/, and even by /Springfield/, /Warren/ and /Bismarck/.
The Geographic Board, in its laudable effort to simplify American
nomenclature, has played ducks and drakes with some of the most
picturesque names on the national map. Now and then, as in the case of
/Purgatoire/, it has temporarily departed from this policy, but in the
main its influence has been thrown against the fine old French and
Spanish names, and against the [Pg296] more piquant native names no
less. Thus, I find it deciding against /Portage des Flacons/ and in
favor of the hideous /Bottle portage/, against /Cañada del Burro/ and
in favor of /Burro canyon/ against /Canos y Ylas de la Cruz/ and in
favor of the barbarous /Cruz island/. In /Bougére landing/ and /Cañon
City/ it has deleted the accents. The name of the /De Grasse river/ it
has changed to /Grass/. /De Laux/ it has changed to the intolerable
/Dlo/. And, as we have seen, it has steadily amalgamated French and
Spanish articles with their nouns, thus achieving such forms as
/Duchesne/, /Eldorado/, /Deleon/ and /Laharpe/. But here its policy is
fortunately inconsistent, and so a number of fine old names has
escaped. Thus, it has decided in favor of /Bon Secours/ and against
/Bonsecours/, and in favor of /De Soto/, /La Crosse/ and /La Moure/,
and against /Desoto/, /Lacrosse/ and /Lamoure/. Here its decisions are
confused and often unintelligible. Why /Laporte/, Pa., and /La Porte/,
Iowa? Why /Lagrange/, Ind., and /La Grange/, Ky.? Here it would seem
to be yielding a great deal too much to local usage.
The Board proceeds to the shortening and simplification of native names
by various devices. It deletes such suffixes as /town/, /city/ and
/courthouse/; it removes the apostrophe and often the genitive /s/ from
such names as /St. Mary's/; it shortens /burgh/ to /burg/ and /borough/
to /boro/; and it combines separate and often highly discreet words. The
last habit often produces grotesque forms, /e. g./, /Newberlin/,
/Boxelder/, /Sabbathday lake/, /Fallentimber/, /Bluemountain/,
/Westtown/, /Threepines/ and /Missionhill/. It apparently cherishes a
hope of eventually regularizing the spelling of /Allegany/. This is now
/Allegany/ for the Maryland county, the Pennsylvania township and the
New York and Oregon towns, /Alleghany/ for the mountains, the Colorado
town and the Virginia town and springs, and /Allegheny/ for the
Pittsburgh borough and the Pennsylvania county, college and river. The
Board inclines to /Allegheny/ for both river and mountains. Other Indian
names give it constant concern. Its struggles to set up
/Chemquasabamticook/ as the name of a Maine lake in place of
/Chemquasabamtic/ and /Chemquassabamticook/, and /Chatahospee/ as the
name of an Alabama creek in place of /Chattahospee/, [Pg297]
/Hoolethlocco/, /Hoolethloces/, /Hoolethloco/ and /Hootethlocco/ are
worthy of its learning and authority.[44]
The American tendency to pronounce all the syllables of a word more
distinctly than the English shows itself in geographical names. White,
in 1880,[45] recorded the increasing habit of giving full value to the
syllables of such borrowed English names as /Worcester/ and /Warwick/.
I have frequently noted the same thing. In Worcester county, Maryland,
the name is usually pronounced /Wooster/, but on the Western Shore of
the state one hears /Worcest-'r/.[46] /Norwich/ is another such name;
one hears /Nor-wich/ quite as often as /Norrich/.[47] Yet another is
/Delhi/; one often hears /Del-high/. White said that in his youth the
name of the /Shawangunk/ mountains, in New York, was pronounced
/Shongo/, but that the custom of pronouncing it as spelled had arisen
during his manhood. So with /Winnipiseogee/, the name of a lake; once
/Winipisaukie/, it gradually came to be pronounced as spelled. There
is frequently a considerable difference between the pronunciation of a
name by natives of a place and its pronunciation by those who are
familiar with it only in print. /Baltimore/ offers an example. The
natives always drop the medial /i/ and so reduce the name to two
syllables; the habit identifies them. /Anne Arundel/, the name of a
county in Maryland, [Pg298] is usually pronounced /Ann 'ran'l/ by its
people. /Arkansas/, as everyone knows, is pronounced /Arkansaw/ by the
Arkansans, and the Nevadans give the name of their state a flat /a/.
The local pronunciation of /Illinois/ I have already noticed. /Iowa/,
at home, is often /Ioway/.[48] Many American geographical names offer
great difficulty to Englishmen. One of my English acquaintances tells
me that he was taught at school to accent /Massachusetts/ on the
second syllable, to rhyme the second syllable of /Ohio/ with /tea/,
and to sound the first /c/ in /Connecticut/. In Maryland the name of
/Calvert/ county is given a broad /a/, whereas the name of /Calvert/
street, in Baltimore, has a flat /a/. This curious distinction is
almost always kept up. A Scotchman, coming to America, would give the
/ch/ in such names as /Loch Raven/ and /Lochvale/ the guttural Scotch
(and German) sound, but locally it is always pronounced as if it were
/k/.
Finally, there is a curious difference between English and American
usage in the use of the word /river/. The English invariably put it
before the proper name, whereas we almost as invariably put it after.
/The Thames river/ would seem quite as strange to an Englishman as
/the river Chicago/ would seem to us. This difference arose more than
a century ago and was noticed by Pickering. But in his day the
American usage was still somewhat uncertain, and such forms as /the
river Mississippi/ were yet in use. Today /river/ almost always goes
after the proper name.
§ 4
/Street Names/--"Such a locality as 'the /corner/ of /Avenue H/ and
/Twenty-third/ street,'" says W. W. Crane, "is about as distinctively
American as Algonquin and Iroquois names like /Mississippi/ and
/Saratoga/."[49] Kipling, in his "American Notes,"[50] gives testimony
to the strangeness with which the [Pg299] number-names, the phrase
"the corner of," and the custom of omitting /street/ fall upon the ear
of a Britisher. He quotes with amazement certain directions given to
him on his arrival in San Francisco from India: "Go six blocks north
to [the] corner of /Geary/ and /Markey/ [/Market?/]; then walk around
till you strike [the] corner of /Gutter/ and /Sixteenth/." The English
always add the word /street/ (or /road/ or /place/ or /avenue/) when
speaking of a thoroughfare; such a phrase as "/Oxford/ and /New Bond/"
would strike them as incongruous. The American custom of numbering and
lettering streets is almost always ascribed by English writers who
discuss it, not to a desire to make finding them easy, but to sheer
poverty of invention. The English apparently have an inexhaustible
fund of names for streets; they often give one street more than one
name. Thus, /Oxford/ street, London, becomes the /Bayswater/ road,
/High/ street, /Holland Park/ avenue, /Goldhawke/ road and finally the
/Oxford/ road to the westward, and /High Holborn/, /Holborn/ viaduct,
/Newgate/ street, /Cheapside/, the /Poultry/, /Cornhill/ and
/Leadenhall/ street to the eastward. The Strand, in the same way,
becomes /Fleet/ street, /Ludgate/ hill and /Cannon/ street.
Nevertheless, there is a /First/ avenue in /Queen's Park/, and
parallel to it are /Second/, /Third/, /Fourth/, /Fifth/ and /Sixth/
avenues--all small streets leading northward from the Harrow road,
just east of Kensal Green cemetery. I have observed that few Londoners
have ever heard of them. There is also a /First/ street in Chelsea--a
very modest thoroughfare near Lennox gardens and not far from the
Brompton Oratory.
Next to the numbering and lettering of streets, a fashion apparently
set up by Major Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's plans for Washington, the
most noticeable feature of American street nomenclature, as opposed to
that of England, is the extensive use of such designations as
/avenue/, /boulevard/, /drive/ and /speedway/. /Avenue/ is used in
England, but only rather sparingly; it is seldom applied to a mean
street, or to one in a warehouse district. In America the word is
scarcely distinguished in meaning from /street/.[51] /Boulevard/,
/drive/ and /speedway/ are almost [Pg300] unknown to the English, but
they use /road/ for urban thoroughfares, which is very seldom done in