American Language Supplement 1

by H. L. Mencken

  1 It is given in AL4, pp. 98 and 99. A reviewer in Harper’s Magazine in 1855 alleged that it was really drawn up by G. W. Gibbs, a professor at Yale, “whose studies in the department of comparative philology entitle the productions of his pen on this subject to peculiar respect.” Fowler, who married Noah Webster’s widowed daughter, Harriet Webster Cobb, in 1825, has been rather neglected by American literary historians. He was professor of rhetoric at Amherst and introduced the study of Anglo-Saxon there some years before Francis J. Child began teaching it at Harvard. He gave his father-in-law help with the checking and proofreading of the American Dictionary, 1828, and after the lexicographer’s death in 1843 quarrelled violently with another son-in-law, Chauncey A. Goodrich, for control of it. In this combat he suffered defeat. “Goodrich,” says Warfel, p. 418, “was quietly foxlike, while Fowler was brusque, pompous, and leonine in his rages.” Fowler’s English Language, first published in 1850, was the accepted American authority on linguistics until the appearance of William Dwight Whitney’s Language and the Study of Language in 1867, and even afterward it maintained a high place as a college textbook. It was commonly called Fowler’s English Grammar. The revised edition of 1855 was a tome of 754 pages.

  1 Bartlett’s list is given in AL4, p. 98.

  2 Farmer’s list is given in AL4, p. 100.

  3 Clapin was a Canadian, and had published earlier a Dictionnaire canadien-français; Montreal, 1894, in which some attention was paid to Americanisms. In an appendix to his New Dictionary of Americanisms were reprinted four magazine articles on Americanisms and slang — Americanisms, by a mysterious Dr. Aubrey (possibly a pseudonym), Leisure Hour (London), 1887, pp. 827–29; Wild Flowers of English Speech in America, by Edward Eggleston, Century Magazine, 1894, pp. 848–56; The Philology of Slang, by E. B. Tylor, Macmillan’s Magazine, 1874, pp. 502–13; and The Function of Slang, by Brander Matthews, Harper’s Monthly, July, 1893, pp. 304–12 (reprinted in Parts of Speech; New York, 1901, pp. 185–213). Clapin’s classification of Americanisms is in AL4, p. 100.

  4 Thornton’s list is given in AL4, pp. 100 and 101.

  5 American English, New York, 1921. Tucker’s list is given in AL4, p. 101.

  6 Elwyn’s list is made up almost wholly of English dialect words in use in America, and he leans heavily upon J. T. Brockett’s Glossary of North Country Words; third ed.; Newcastle and London, 1846.

  7 Chicago, 1891.

  8 First published in Harper’s Magazine, 1891, pp. 214–22; republished in Americanisms and Briticisms, With Other Essays on Other Isms; New York, 1892, pp. 1 ff.

  9 Two vols.; New York, 1925. In the Chapter on Vocabulary in Vol. I Krapp discussed Americanisms at great length, but did not undertake a formal classification of them. He was greatly inclined to pooh-pooh them. “Professor Krapp,” said Dr. John M. Manly, in a review of his book in the New Republic, Jan. 20, 1926, “maintains that the vocabulary of English has remained practically unchanged during its three hundred years of existence in America. This attitude of course involves a very summary treatment of new words and phrases and new meanings of old words and phrases.… Any American who has tried to travel or shop in England … will testify that the whole phraseology of common life is different in the two countries, and any American scholar who has written for British periodicals or books will testify to a constant sense of the difference between British and American usage in what is commonly called literary English.” But despite his obsession, Krapp’s writings on the subject are very valuable. They are listed in Bibliography of the Writings of George Philip Krapp, by Elliott V. K. Dobbie, American Speech, Dec, 1934, pp. 252–54.

  1 The Growth of American English, I, S. P. E. Tracts, No. LV1; Oxford. 1940, p. 204.

  2 Oxford, 1935. p. vi.

  III

  THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN

  1. THE FIRST LOAN-WORDS

  104. [The earliest Americanisms were probably words borrowed bodily from the Indian languages — words, in the main, indicating natural objects that had no counterparts in England.] Most of these came from the Indian languages of the Algonquian group. This group was only one of nearly sixty known to exist north of the Rio Grande, but the Indians who spoke it covered most of the region invaded by the first settlers, and out of it came the native personages who most dramatically appealed to the colonial imagination, for example, King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh and Pocahontas. In 1902 the late Alexander F. Chamberlain, professor of anthropology at Clark University, compiled a list of 132 words borrowed from Algonquian dialects, of which 36 survive in the American of today.1 The latter were the following, to each of which I have appended the date of the first example of its use given by the DAE:

  Caribou, 1610. Muskellunge, or maskinouge, 1794

  Caucus, 1745. Opossum, 1610.

  Chinquapin, 1676. Papoose, 1634.

  Chipmunk, 1841. Pecan, 1778.

  Hickory, 1634. Pemmican, 1804.

  Hominy, 1629. Persimmon, 1612.

  Mackinaw, 1827. Podunk, 1666.

  Menhaden, 1643. Poke (plant), 1634.

  Moccasin, 1612. Pone, 1612.

  Moose, 1613. Porgy (fish), 1775.

  Mugwump, 1832. Powwow, 1624.

  Raccoon, 1608. Tammany, 1771.

  Sachem, 1622 Terrapin, 1672.

  Scuppernong, 1825. Toboggan, 1829.

  Skunk, 1634. Tomahawk, 1612.

  Squash, 1643. Totem, 1609.

  Squaw, 1634. Wigwam, 1628.

  Succotash, 1751. Woodchuck, 1674.

  Some of these, e.g., chipmunk, mugwump and Tammany, are probably materially older than the DAE’s first examples. The other words on Chamberlain’s list have either become obsolete or survive only in dialects. Some specimens follow, with the dates of the DAE’s first examples:

  Apishamore (“used in the West for a saddle-blanket made of buffalo-calf skins”), 1830.

  Cantico (a dance or jollification, surviving until 1867), 1670.

  Carcajou (a wolverine), 1744.

  Cashaw or cushaw (a squash), 1698.

  Chebacco (a fishing-boat), 1835.

  Chebog (a name for the menhaden), not listed in DAE.

  Chogset (a New England name for the blue perch), 1842.

  Cisco (a Great Lakes fish resembling the herring), 1848.

  Cockarouse (a chief or leader, surviving until 1743), 1624.

  Cohosh (the baneberry), 1796.

  Hackmatack (an evergreen tree), 1792.

  Killhag, or culheag (an animal trap made of logs), 1784.

  Kinnikinnick (a mixture of tobacco with other dried leaves), 1817.

  Kiskitomas (the hickory nut), 1810.

  Mananosay, or maninose (the soft clam), 1843.

  Manito, or manitou (a deity), 1671.

  Maycock, or macock (a squash or melon), 1588.

  Mocuck, or mocock (a basket in which maple-sugar is kept), 1822.

  Moonack (the woodchuck), 1666.

  Musquash (a muskrat), 1616.

  Namaycush (a Great Lakes trout), 1787.

  Netop (a friend or crony), 1643.

  Nocake (parched corn), 1634.

  Peag (shell used as ornament or money), 1648.

  Pembina (the wild cranberry), 1824.

  Pocosin (a swamp), 1634.

  Poccoon (a plant yielding pigment), c. 1618.

  Quahog, or quahaug (a hard clam), 1799.

  Quickhatch (the wolverine), 1743.

  Roanoke (a Virginia name for wampum), 1624.

  Sagakomi (a substitute for tobacco), 1703.

  Sagamite (a gruel made of hominy), 1698.

  Sagamore (a chief), 1613.

  Samp (corn porridge), 1643.

  Sannup (a married male Indian), 1628.

  Scuppaug, or scup (a marine fish), 1807.

  Seawan (shell beads), 1627.

  Squantersquash (an early name for the squash, obsolete by the middle of the Seventeenth Century), 1634.

  Squantum (a spirit), 1630.

  Squeteague, or suittee (the weakfish), 1803.


  Supawn (corn-meal mush), 1780.

  Tamarack (the red larch), 1805.

  Tuckahoe (an edible root), 1612.

  Tuckernuck (a picnic), not listed.

  Wabash (to cheat, once used in the West), 1859.

  Wampum (shell money), 1647.

  Wangan (a boat), 1848.

  Wapatoo, or wappatoo (a bulbous root), 1805.

  Wauregan (good, fine, showy), 1643.

  Weequash (to spear eels by night), 1792.

  Wendigo (a fabulous giant), not listed.

  Werowance (in Maryland and Virginia, a chief), 1588.

  Whiskey-jack, or whiskey-john (in Canada and parts of the Northwest, a blue-jay: the word is a corruption of the Cree wisketjan), 1839.

  In this case, as in that of the surviving Algonquian loans, some of the DAE’s dates probably fall considerably short of showing the earliest use of the words. “The Indian elements in American English,” said Chamberlain in his paper, “is much larger than is commonly believed to be the case.… In the local speech of New England, especially among the fishermen of its coasts and islands, many words of Algonquian origin, not familiar to the general public, are still preserved, and many more were once current, but have died out within the last 100 years.”

  The etymologies of the early Indian loan-words are sometimes obscure:1 the DAE is often content to ascribe them to “an Algonquian source,” which is hardly illuminating. Some of them, e.g., caribou, mackinaw and toboggan, seem to have come into colonial English by way of Canadian French. Webster 1934 suggests that caribou may be derived from a Micmac word, khalibu, signifying pawer or scratcher. Weekley spells the Indian word kaleboo, and says that it referred to the fact that “the deer shovels away the snow with its hoofs to get at the moss on which it feeds.” Some sense of the French associations of caribou must have lingered into the Eighteenth Century, for in 1744 a writer quoted by the DAE spelled the plural cariboux. Early variants were caribo, carraboo and carriboo. The etymology of caucus, which is most likely not of Indian origin, is discussed in Chapter IV. Chinquapin is applied to both the dwarf chestnut of the region east of the Mississippi (Castanae pumila) and the giant Castanopsis chrysophalla of the Pacific Coast. The former is hardly more than a shrub, but the latter is an evergreen that may reach a height of 150 feet. There are also several minor varieties of chinquapin, not to mention a chinquapin oak and a chinquapin perch. Chipmunk is related by Webster to the Ojibway atchitamon, meaning a squirrel and referring to the animal’s habit of coming down a tree head first. The DAE’s first example is from Cooper’s “The Deerslayer.” Soon afterward the word appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine as chipmuck, and the latter form survived into the 80s. Hickory, according to Webster, comes from pawcohiccora, a word used by the Indians of Virginia to designate a dish made of the pounded nuts. The early colonists spelled it pokickery or pohickery and applied it to the tree, and presently it was shortened to hiccory and hickery and finally became hickory. It has produced many derivatives, e.g., hickory-nut, -stick, -shirt, -shad, -elm, -borer, -pine and -pole. Hickory was also the name of a strong cotton cloth formerly much in use for making worktrousers and shirts. The hickory tree is a native of North America, but has been introduced into Europe. Its genus includes the pecan.

  Hominy, according to the DAE, is derived from an Algonquian word, rockahominy; Webster 1934 says that the form prevailing among the Virginia Indians was rokahamen, a compound of three words — rok, meal; aham, pounded; and mem, grain; Weekley says that the original was rockahomonie, “of which the first element means maize.” In the DAE’s first quotation, from John Smith, milke homini is described as “bruized Indian corne pounded, and boiled thicke, and milke for the sauce.” Smith added: “but boiled with milke the best of all.” Among the other early spellings were omine, homine, homminy and homonoy. The later settlers used lye water to soften the hulls of the grain, and by 1821 lye-hominy was recorded. Many other obvious derivatives have been in use at different times, e.g., hominy-sifter, -pot, -bread, -bean, -mill, -cake, -grits, -block (a sort of pestle), and -mortar. A traveler of 1746 recorded that the name of great hominy was given to a dish which included meat or fowl. Some of the early settlers used cider instead of water for cooking hominy. Mackinaw, which entered American by way of the Canadian French word mackinac, is derived by the DAE from the Ojibway mitchimakinak, meaning a large turtle. The same word provided the names of the Strait of Mackinac and the Michigan island, country, fort and town. Mackinaw was applied in the 20s to the gaudy blankets which the government provided for the Indians of the vicinity, and soon afterward was used to designate a gun and a boat. The mackinaw jacket, so called because it was made of blanket material in loud designs, apparently did not appear until toward the end of the Nineteenth Century. Menhaden was borrowed from the Indians of the lower New England coast and according to Webster 1934 appeared in the Massachusetts dialect as munnoquohteau, meaning that which enriches the soil. The Indians buried one of the fish in each hill of corn, and the custom was borrowed by the settlers. Roger Williams, in 1643, called the fish a munnawhat-teaug and described it as somewhat like a herring. It has many other names, e.g., bunker, marshbanker, mosbanker, mossbonker, mossy-bunker, skippaug, Long Island herring, American sardine, pogy, bony fish, bugfish, bughead, fatback, yellowtail, savega, gre entail, Sam Day, mud shad and shadine. It is still taken for fertilizer, and also yields an oil and a cattle food. Its young are often canned under the guise of sardines.

  Moccasin comes from a New England Indian word variously rendered by the early chronicles as mockasin, mockison, and mogasheen. Weekley says that there were different forms in different dialects, and Webster 1934 cites mohkisson and mocussin. The object designated, a soft-soled shoe, seems to have been borrowed by the settlers along with the word: they quickly found by experience that it was better suited for wilderness travel than their leather boots. The name was eventually transferred to a flower and a snake. Moose was apparently borrowed from the Passamaquoddy Indians of the Maine coast, but there were analogous forms in other dialects. The spelling, in the early days, included mus, moos and even mouse. The original Indian word seems to have had some reference to the animal’s habit of stripping off the bark of trees for food. A number of derivatives are listed in the dictionaries, e.g., moose-berry, -bird, -bush, -deer, -elm, -flower, -maple, -tick and -wood, along with such obvious forms as moose-hunter, -hide, -meat, -horn, -skin, -tongue and -yard. Mugwump is discussed in Chapter IV, Section 2. Muskellunge is the name of a pike much sought by sportsmen in the Great Lakes region. The DAE says that the name comes from the Ojibway word mashkinoje and Webster agrees. Its variants include muschilongue, muskalonge, muskanounge and muskinunge. Opossum is from a word that occurred in different Indian dialects as apasum and wabassim. On its first appearance in American records it was written apossoun, but opassum and opposum soon followed. The shortened form, possown, appeared by 1613, and possum, which is in almost universal use today, followed in 1666. To play possum is traced by the DAE to 1822, and to possum to 1846. During the great movement into the West the pioneers sometimes called persimmon-beer possum-toddy. It is a part of American folklore that the colored people are extraordinarily fond of possum meat; the DAE records, on the authority of a traveler of 1824, that one of their favorite dishes in that era was possum fat and hominy. Papoose comes from a word signifying a suckling baby in all the Algonquian dialects. Pecan comes from one meaning any hard-shelled nut, and may have reached American English by way of Spanish. In the early days, it was spelled peccane, pecanne, peccan, pecaun, pekaun or pecon. Pemmican, from the Cree word pimmikkan, meaning fat, was brought in by the movement into the West, and is not recorded before the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Persimmon, from an Indian word reported to to have been pasiminan or pasimenan, has been traced by J. Louis Kuethe, in its present form, to 1676.1 Some of the early spellings were posimon, parsimmon, pursimond and putchamin. Persimmon-beer is recorded in 1737. During the early years of the Nineteenth Century a numb
er of phrases embodying persimmon were in wide use, e.g., a huckleberry to a persimmon and to bring down the persimmon, but they are now obsolete. Poke, from the Indian word uppowoc, was first applied to the tobacco plant, but has since been transferred to the skunk cabbage, to a plant whose berries are used in dyeing, to a species of hellebore, and to various common weeds. The DAE traces pokeberry to 1774, pokeroot to 1687 and pokeweed to 1751.

  Pone, most often encountered in cornpone, is derived from an Algonquian word signifying anything baked. John Smith, in 1612, wrote it ponap, but it had acquired its present spelling before the end of the Seventeenth Century. The DAE’s first example of cornpone comes from Bartlett, 1859, but it must be much older. Pone, in the regions where it is still in common use, signifies especially a bread made in small oval loaves, flat on the bottom and rounded on the top. Porgy (or porgee, pargie, pogy, or paugie) is listed as an Indian loanword by Chamberlain, but the DAE marks it “of obscure origin” and Webster intimates that it may be derived from the Spanish pargo, designating the same fish. Powwow comes from the Indians of the New England coast: it first appeared as powah, but had acquired its present spelling by 1744. It was applied, at first, to an Indian medicine man, and was then transferred to a ceremonial rite by the Indians, and finally to any of their meetings. It began to be used to designate a meeting of whites early in the Nineteenth Century, and today usually has the special significance of a political palaver. The earliest meaning of the term is still preserved in the Pennsylvania German region, where a powwow-man (or -woman) designates a witchdoctor. This use was also common in New England in the early days, and the DAE records that a powwower was fined Λ5 in Massachusetts in 1646. The DAE says that raccoon is derived from the Algonquian word arakunem, signifying a creature that scratches with its hands. Sachem, like powwow and wigwam, has been preserved in the argot of politics, and especially in that of Tammany Hall. Webster derives it from sachimau and says that it also gave rise to sagamore, of the same meaning (i.e., a chief), now almost vanished from American speech, though it survives in proper names. Scuppernong, the name of one of the principal varieties of American grapes, comes from an Indian word, askuponong, signifying the place of the magnolias. It first appeared in American use as a proper name for a river and lake in North Carolina, and was later applied to the grapes growing in the vicinity. Skunk is derived by Weekley from an Algonquian word sengankw or segongw, the original significance of which was apparently “he who urinates.” It is applied to several species of the genus Mephitis, all of them characterized by the ejection of a foul-smelling secretion when disturbed. The word has been transferred to various animals and plants, e.g., skunk-cabbage (or -weed), skunk-bird, skunk-bear, skunk-duck, skunk-current, skunk-grape and skunk-spruce. Its application as a pejorative to human beings is traced by the DAE to 1840. It also appears as a verb, signifying to defeat an opponent (e.g., in a card game), to slink from danger, and to evade a debt. A noun derived from this verb, skunker, is also known, though the DAE does not list it. Squash is a shortened form of a Narragansett Indian word which Weekley gives as asquutasquash, the original significance of which seems to have been any fruit or vegetable eaten green. It appeared in the early chronicles as isquotersquash and squantersquash, but had acquired its present form by 1683. Its derivatives include squash-bug, -beetle, -borer and -vine.