American Language Supplement 1

by H. L. Mencken

  [It is] about the size of a white-tailed deer. Has ears like a rabbit and teeth like a mountain lion. It has telescopic legs which enable it to easily graze on hills. It has a long tail which it wraps around rocks when its legs fail to telescope together. It feeds on rocks and lichens, the rocks enabling it to digest the tough and leathery lichens. It is never seen except after a case of snake-bite.

  Gyastacutas, as Thornton shows on the authority of H. H. Riley,4 was also used in the 50s to designate a drum used by the callithumpian bands of the period. This drum, says Riley, was made of “a nail-keg with a raw hide strained over it.… Inside of the keg, attached to the center of this drumhead, a string hung, with which the instrument was worked by pulling in the string and letting fly.” There were many other mythical beasts in those days, and the memory of some of them survives today, especially in the Northwest. The argopelter, according to Brown, lives in the hollows of trees, and amuses itself by throwing chunks of wood at passing lumbermen. The flitter-bick is a flying squirrel of such rapid flight that when it hits an ox between the eyes the blow is sufficient to kill. The gumberoo is a creature larger than a bear, with a hide so tough that it turns bullets. The hodag is a ferocious animal known to have killed and eaten man: it has formidable horns and claws and sleeps by leaning against a tree. The lufferlang has triple-jointed legs and a bushy tail springing from the middle of its back. The rumptifusel, which is large and bellicose, rests by wrapping its thin body about a tree. The shagamaw has the fore legs of a bear and the hind legs of a moose, and is given to devouring the clothing of lumbermen. The tripodero has tripod legs and its beak is like the barrel of a gun, with a sight at the end. The gillygaloo is a bird that lays square eggs. The goofus is another that flies backward. The pinnacle-grouse has only one wing. The hoop-snake sticks its tail into its mouth and rolls along at high speed.1 Other strange creatures are reported by other scientists, notably the milamo, a super-crane so large that it can swallow earthworms as thick as inner tubes; the wiffle-poofle, a cross between an eel and a gila monster; the club-tailed glyptodont, a ferocious variety of kangaroo;2 the squonk, a pathological monstrosity, for it is covered with warts and moles, and weeps constantly in self-pity; the splinter-cat, which feeds on raccoons; the billdad, which has the hind legs of a kangaroo, webbed feet, and a bill like a hawk, and the cactus-cat, which has sharp knives attached to its forelegs, and gets drunk on the fermented sap of the cactus.3

  The list of such fabulous creatures, nearly all of them apparently dating from the 1841–1861 period, might be lengthened almost endlessly. The kiamuck, mentioned in association with the guyascutus in 1869,1 but without any description of its habits, appears to be extinct and forgotten, but many other survive, at least as names, e.g., the phillyloo-bird,2 the galliwampus, the swamp-gahoon, the hicklesnifter, the willopus-wallopus, the cattywampus, the hidebehind, the bim-bam, the kankagee, the swamp-swiver, the tree-squeak, the whiffenpaff, the screbonil, the bowger, the whangdoodle3 and the whiffle-cat.4

  From Maine comes news of two extinct creatures, the gazerium and the snydae. Both, according to Richard G. Kendall, a specialist in unearthly zoölogy highly esteemed in that great State, were found only along the Kennebec river, and were favorite delicacies of the Kennebec Indians and the early white settlers. Kendall says that the gazerium resembled a shrimp, but had two legs forward and only one aft, and that it fed chiefly upon the snydae, which were minute forms of marine life. The snydae, in turn, fed upon the eggs of the gazerium, so the two species gradually exterminated each other. He adds:

  The Kennebecs usually cooked the gazerium in deep fat. It tasted something like a French fried potato, with just a hint of the flavor of cocktail sauce imparted to it by its diet of snydae.5

  The marvellous tricks and habits of such creatures are frequently discussed by other newspaper scientificos. A few weeks after Kendall’s monograph on the gazerium and snydae appeared in Portland, Maine, a contributor to the eminent Oregonian of the other Portland wrote learnedly about the sidehill gouger, ricaboo racker, or lunkus, of that section — obviously identical with the guyascutus, or, at all events, closely analogous.1 It had, however, a faculty that the Eastern guyascutus apparently lacked: it could, when pursued, turn itself inside out, and so escape in an opposite direction. Nor is the record of such marvels complete, even to this day. So recently as March 8, 1944, Harry Gwynn Morehouse of Trenton, N. J., announced the discovery of a hitherto unknown one in the mangrove swamps surrounding Princeton University. He gave it the name of the glycobenphene, and sent me a colored picture of it. The picture shows a reptile with red legs, a yellow body, and blue scales along its backbone. It is engaged in constant warfare, says Morehouse, with a dragon-like enemy, the hychlorothene, but so far he has been unable to obtain an accurate portrait of the latter. In 1939 the United Press reported from Glastonbury, Conn., that a mysterious beast said to resemble a lion, a cougar, a panther, and a boar was terrifying the people there, and that some learned man among them had given it the name of the glawackus.2 In November, 1944, a similar creature roved the vicinity of Frizzleburg, Md., and was reported to have fought and routed a bull.

  In two other fields of word-making the period from 1800 to the Civil War was especially productive, to wit, in those of drinking terms and political terms. Perhaps a majority of the former, still in constant use by American boozers, date from it, but for the sake of convenience I shall consider all American drinking terms, of whatever date, together. Here the DAE offers a great deal less help than it should, for its editors seem to have been somewhat shy of the rich and inspiring vocabulary of bibbing. Indeed, they do not list rickey, fizz and sour at all, which is almost like discussing political terms without mentioning graft and buncombe. Cooler, which the DAE traces to 1840, is defined lamely as “a cooling, spirituous drink,” and in the first quotation, taken from the New Orleans Picayune, there is an effort to connect it with the julep. This is an absurdity, for every American schoolboy should know that a cooler, save when it is concocted obscenely of Scotch whiskey, contains, must contain and always has contained lemon juice, which would be as out of place in a julep as catsup or gasoline. The true father of the mint-julep is the smash, which the DAE traces, in the form of brandy-smash, to 1850, though it is unquestionably very much older. The DAE’s first example of mint-julep is dated 1809, and comes from the writings of Washington Irving, who was the first American writer of flag rank to mention other eminent American drinks, e.g., the sherry-cobbler and the stone-fence, the latter now virtually obsolete. Julep, of course, is not an Americanism, for the NED traces it to c. 1400, and shows that it came from the Spanish and Portuguese julepe by the way of the French. But the English julep of those early days was only a sweet and harmless chaser used to wash down unpleasant medicines, whereas the julep of today is something quite else again, and the honest NED marks it “ U. S.”1

  Eric Partridge, in his “Slang Today and Yesterday,”2 says that rickey arose in America about 1880, but makes no attempt upon its etymology. Many older bartenders allege that it was invented by a Washington colleague of the Golden Age and named after a client named Jim Rickey, a Kentucky colonel, but the encyclopedias are as prudishly silent about this colonel as they are about his once famous comrade-in-arms, Col. William Campbell Preston Breckenridge. Charles V. Wheeler, in his valuable “Life and Letters of Henry William Thomas, Mixologist,”3 says that the scene of the invention was Hancock’s bar at 1234 Pennsylvania avenue, but does not give the date. He says that the rickey was “originally made of whiskey,” and that is why the title gin-ricky was specified at times. Albert Stevens Crockett, a high authority on bar life in America, agrees with this in general, but differs radically in particular. He says that Col. Rickey’s given name was Joe, not Jim, and that he was actually a Texan, “though some have claimed Kentucky as his spot of origin.” He was a lobbyist in Washington, and usually used Shoomaker’s, not Hancock’s, bar in Pennsylvania avenue for operating upon congressmen and other public officials. T
he lime, in those days, was a novelty to bartenders, though it had been used for many years by sailors as an antiscorbutic. One day, when the colonel appeared at Shoomaker’s, the bartender who always served him squeezed a lime into a tall glass, added cracked ice, poured in a jigger of gin, hosed the mixture from a seltzer-siphon, and shoved it before the colonel. “The colonel,” says Crockett, “took a deep one, and liked it. Coming up for air, he smacked his lips, said the current equivalent of ‘Oh, boy!’, gulped what was left, and demanded another. The bartender thereupon christened the drink the gin-rickey in honor of his patron. The rum-rickey and the rye-rickey came later.”1 The standard rickey of today is made of any ardent spirits (including applejack), lime juice and soda-water. There are also quack rickeys containing syrups and even some that are decorated with slices of orange or pineapple, but they are not served in bars of any tone. The addition of sugar converts a rickey into a Tom Collins, which is supposed to have been named after its inventor, a distinguished bartender of that name, and the substitution of Holland gin for dry gin makes a Tom Collins a John Collins.2 The use of Scotch whiskey and the substitution of ginger-ale for soda-water produces a Mamie Taylor, which is described by the Maestro Duffy just cited as “a popular Summer drink.” It is actually almost undrinkable. But the use of genuine ginger-beer instead of ginger-ale1 produces something that is magnificent, whether it be based upon gin, rum, rye whiskey or Bourbon.2

  As I have noted, the DAE omits all mention of the fizz and the sour. It also overlooks the fix, the skin, the shrub and the daisy. The NED likewise passes over the fizz, sour, skin, fix and daisy, but defines the shrub as “a prepared drink made with the juice of orange or lemon (or other acid fruit), sugar, and rum (or other spirit),” and traces it in English use to 1747. The modern American shrub shows substantially the same formula, but its preparation has been considerably elaborated, and no conscientious bartender undertakes to mix it impromptu. To make even the simplest shrub, indeed, takes half an hour, and the best professional opinion favors laying it away for from a few days to six weeks, to ripen.3 The flip, like the shrub, is of English origin and is listed in Johnson’s Dictionary, 1755; the NED defines it as “a mixture of beer and spirits sweetened with sugar and heated with a hot iron,” and traces it to 1695. But the American flip of today shows a considerable improvement upon this nauseous concoction. Save in the case of the ale-flip it contains no malt liquor, and when it is desired to serve it hot the heat is supplied, not by a hot iron, but by hot water. Moreover, a beaten egg has been added. Thus the American flip, though it borrows its name from an English progenitor, is essentially a national invention. It arose at some time after the Civil War, for the DAE’s examples, which go back to 1722 and run down to 1869, mention the hot iron, and its definition is substantially identical with that of the NED. The NED calls the sling an American drink, the NED Supplement traces it to c. 1793, and the DAE carries it back to 1768. In its simplest form it is a mixture of some sweetened hard liquor and either hot or cold water, but imaginative bartenders sometimes add lemon peel and bitters.4

  The sour is simply a mixture of a hard liquor, sugar, lemon and/or lime juice, and chopped ice, and is usually served strained. There are fancy forms that contain liqueurs and even eggs, but they are not favored by connoisseurs. In my early days the sour was in great request among bibuli as a morning pick-up: it was supposed to allay the gastritis that so often beset them. This theory has been exploded by the advance of medical science, and they now use the alkaline salts of sodium, magnesium, bismuth and aluminum. The fix is substantially an unstrained sour, the fizz is the same with soda-water, and the daisy is a fizz with the addition of a dash of grenadine, maraschino, or something of the sort. The DAE traces the sherry-cobbler to 1841 and calls it an American invention. The NED says that the origin of cobbler “appears to be lost.” “Various conjectures,” it adds, “are current, e.g., that it is short for cobbler’s punch, and that it ‘patches up’ the drinkers.” But cobbler’s punch, which is defined as “a warm drink of beer or ale with the addition of spirit, sugar and spice,” is traced only to 1865, and may have been borrowed from the American cobbler. The term has also been used in the United States to designate a fruit pie made in a deep pan, with a crust on top but not on the bottom. The modern sherry-cobbler consists of sherry, sugar and cracked ice, with no addition of malt liquor or spice. The sangaree, which is essentially a cobbler to which grated nutmeg has been added, is apparently not an American invention. The NED prints a quotation from the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1736, showing that one Gordon, a publican in the Strand, in London, then claimed to be its father. He made it of madeira, not sherry, and apparently spiced it. The NED says that the word comes from the Spanish sangria, meaning bleeding. Francis Grose, in his “Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” 1783, says that rack-punch1 was formerly called sangaree “in bagnios.”

  The cocktail, to multitudes of foreigners, seems to be the greatest of all the contributions of the American way of life to the salvation of humanity, but there remains a good deal of uncertainty about the etymology of its name and even some doubt that the thing itself is of American origin. The NED is content to say of it that “the real origin appears to be lost” and the DAE is significantly silent on the subject. Of the numerous etymologies that I have accumulated, the only ones showing any plausibility whatsoever are the following:

  1. That the word comes from the French coquetier, an egg-cup, and was first used in New Orleans soon after 1800.

  2. That it is derived from coquetel, the name of a mixed drink known in the vicinity of Bordeaux for centuries, and introduced to America by French officers during the Revolution.

  3. That it descends from cock-ale, a mixture of ale and the essence of 3 boiled fowl, traced by the NED to c. 1648 in England.

  4. That its parent was a later cock-ale meaning a mixture of spirits and bitters fed to fighting-cocks in training.

  5. That it comes from cock-tailed, meaning “having the tail cocked so that the short stump sticks up like a cock’s tail.”

  6. That it is a shortened form of cock-tailings, the name of a mixture of tailings from various liquors, thrown together in a common receptacle and sold at a low price.

  7. That in “the days of cock-fighting, the spectators used to toast the cock with the most feathers left in its tail after the contest,” and “the number of ingredients in the drink corresponded with the number of feathers left.”

  For the first etymology the only authority I know of is an anonymous writer in the Roosevelt Review, the house-organ of the Roosevelt Hotel, New Orleans.1 He says that the father of the cocktail was Antoine Amédée Peychaud, an apothecary who came to New Orleans from Santo Domingo after the native uprising of 1795, and opened a pharmacy at what is now 437 rue Royale. He goes on:

  Peychaud, like most of the Dominguois, was extremely sociable, and his pharmacy became a rendezvous for his fellow Masons after lodge meetings. To them he served the customary brandy-toddy, but in his individual style. To the toddy of sugar, water and cognac he added bitters which he compounded by a secret formula brought from Santo Domingo, and instead of serving the drink in the regular brandy tumbler he used the double-ended egg-cup, the coquetier (ko-kay-tay). The name was soon given to the highly-flavored drink, but guests who did not speak French called it a cocktay, and presently the usage of the world had it the now familiar cocktail.2

  The authority for the second etymology is a French writer named Marcel Boulenger, who printed an article in Le Figaro Hebdomadaire (Paris) in 1925 arguing for the abandonment of cocktail by the French,1 and the restoration of coquetel. He said that its priority had been supported in a paper read before the Académie de Médecine by a Dr. Tardieu, who cited the case of an actor who had died after drinking a coquetel au veronal.2 The third etymology has the imprimatur of Peter Tamony, well-known as a writer on the American vocabulary. He says:

  During the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries a drink called cock-ale was popular in En
gland. It was made by flavoring a cask of new ale with a red cock — the older the better — which had been pounded to a pulp and steeped in sack. The cock, together with a quantity of raisins, mace and cloves, was sacked in canvas, put in the ale, and allowed to infuse for a week or ten days. The result was bottled, and aged until used. Is it any wonder that lexicographers since the Seventeenth Century have defined cock-ale as a “pleasant drink, said to be provocative”?3

  This allegation that cock-ale was “provocative” was duly noted by Grose in 1785. The NED lists the term, and says that the concoction consisted of “ale mixed with the jelly or minced meat of a boiled cock, besides other ingredients.” Tamony is also disposed to give some credit to the fourth etymology that I have listed. I gave it in AL4 on the authority of William Henry Nugent,4 but repeat it here in Tamony’s words:

  Prior to a match [a fighting-cock] was trained and conditioned much as boxers are today. It was long ago recognized that a proper diet was important, and food, especially that given for three or four days before a match, was carefully prepared. One of the preparations, known as cock-bread-ale, was made of fine white bread mixed with ale or wine or any other spirits that were handy, and an infusion of roots and herbs. The tonic quality of this mixture was highly valued. In time it came to be more or less standard, and its name was shortened to cock-ale.

  Cockers appear to have sampled these mixtures before adding them to the dough, and when they were found of benefit to man as well as beast it appears that they were added to the ordinary potations of the day. Being a rude sort of bitters, cock-ale added tang and taste to poorly brewed or distilled grog, and thus had something to do with the standardization and popularity of mixed drinks.1

  An English correspondent, Mr. Henry Irvine, sends me the following in support of the fifth etymology:2