1 Godey’s was established in 1830. All three of the pythonesses mentioned were born between 1790 and 1810.
1 The influence of Webster is well presented by Warfel, especially p. 76 ff. There is more in The Development of Faith in the Dictionary in America, by Allen Walker Read, a paper read before the Present-Day English section of the Modern Language Association at Philadelphia, Dec. 29, 1934.
2 He was speaking of a congress of reformers of all wings, held in Boston in 1840.
3 Not recorded in England before 1877. Possibly invented by Richard Henry Dana, from whose Two Years Before the Mast the first American example comes.
4 Not recorded in England until 1855.
1 Not recorded in England until 1881.
2 In England to ship is commonly restricted to transportation by water.
3 The English always use shirt-front.
4 Apparently to shuck was not used with reference to oysters until the 70s. The DAE does not list oyster-shucker.
5 The noun shutdown is not found by the DAE before 1884.
1 The English use to shunt.
1 An interesting discussion of this and other etymologies is in Bartlett’s fourth edition, 1877.
1 The DAE traces corker to 1835–37, but omits lollapaloosa. It also omits humdinger and peacherina, but traces peach in the sense of a pretty girl to 1865 and in the sense of anything meritorious to 1896. Its first example of lulu is dated 1889, and of cracker jack 1897.
2 The DAE does not list splendacious, grandiferous and supergobsloptious, but traces scrumptious to 1830. A long list of such terms is in Terms of Approbation and Eulogy in American Dialect Speech, by Elsie L. Warnock, Dialect Notes, Vol. IV, Part I, 1913, pp. 18–20.
1 It does not refer, of course, to the intelligence of the horse, which is one of the stupidest animals on earth. The term originated, I fancy, among horse-traders, and had reference to smartness at their science.
2 Aug., 1860, p. 411.
1 Morton (1819–68) was a dentist. On Oct. 16, 1846 he administered ether to a patient undergoing, at the Massachusetts General Hospital, an operation for the removal of a tumor on the jaw. By 1848 Holmes’s anesthesia and anesthetic were being used by Sir James Young Simpson (1811–70), the Scottish surgeon who had introduced the use of chloroform in obstetrics in 1847. Holmes spelled the words anaesthetic and anaesthesia, the form still preferred in England.
2 Jan., p. 94.
1 American Speech, Oct., 1942, p. 207, runs it back to 1854, when the gum was apparently a novelty, for the Chicago Daily Democrat, Oct. 25, described it as “a new and superior preparation of spruce gum.”
2 American Speech, just cited, finds an example in 1834.
3 Whole kit is recorded in England in 1785. By 1861 whole kit and biling had become and boodle, and by 1888 and caboodle. Caboodle was first recorded by Bartlett in 1848.
4 In those early days it was sometimes called a horse-catcher. The English locomotives have never been equipped with cow-catchers. Nor with cabs.
5 Go-ahead as an adjective is traced to 1839, and as a noun to 1840.
6 Its subsequent history is recorded in Boost, by Klara H. Collitz, American Speech, Sept., 1926, pp. 661–72.
7 Buddy is discussed in The Southwestern World Box, by T. M. P., New Mexico Quarterly, Nov., 1932, p. 340.
8 The word Blizzard, American Speech, Feb., 1928, pp. 191–217. The late Frank H. Vizetelly printed a far from effective criticism of this paper in American Speech, Aug., 1928, pp. 480–90, and Read replied in Blizzard Again, American Speech, Feb., 1930, pp. 232–35.
1 Estherville is now a town of 5,000 people. It is in the northwestern part of the State, seventy miles from Fort Dodge. The Vindicator, now the Vindicator and Republican, a semi-weekly, is still its principal newspaper.
1 Such monsters, of course, go back to the infancy of humanity. The basilisk, the phoenix, the dragon and the sea-serpent will be recalled. There have been many others.
2 Adventures of a Yankee Doodle; Chapter VI: The Guyanousa; July, 1846, pp. 36–38. Randall V. Mills suggests in Frontier Humor in Oregon and Its Charicteristics, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Dec., 1942, p. 355, that the author may have been George P. Burnham, a forgotten humorist of the period. I am indebted to Miss Nellie P. Pipes, of the Oregon Historical Society, Portland, for the Mills paper.
3 The territory east of the Penobscot river had been occupied by the British during the War of 1812, and they hung on to it for years afterward. In 1839 the dispute over it almost brought on another war. In 1842 it was restored to the United States by the Ashburton treaty, but the ratifications of the two governments did not follow until some time afterward.
4 In its essence it was not new. Some time before 1846 Burnham and another humorist of the time named Francis A. Durivage, in a book called Stray Subjects Arrested and Bound Over, told of a yokel who, on a visit to Boston, saw the sign Little’s Living Age on the publisher’s door, and insisted upon seeing the creature. He would not leave until one of the publisher’s goons rushed out yelling that the age was loose.
5 The Guiaskuitas, by an Ox Driver, Oct. 16. I am indebted here to Mills, already cited, p. 354.
1 Isaac Ingalls Stevens (1818–62) was a West Pointer who served with distinction in the Mexican War. In 1852 he resigned from the Army to become governor of the new Washington Territory. On the outbreak of the Civil War he returned to the Army, and by 1862 had become a major-general. He was killed at Chantilly on Sept. 1 of that year.
2 Perhaps Camassia esculenta, the wild hyacinth.
3 Here again I am indebted to Mills.
4 A Cuter Cuss For a Pet, March 18. p. 4. The author was William H. Heath, editor of the Gazette.
1 Mr. Heath, in March, 1944, asked his father in Vermont to search the attic of the family homestead “for an old snapshot of the female of the species that was a pet of my boyhood.” Unfortunately, it could not be found.
2 Gerald Smith Says Girasticutam, Baltimore Evening Sun, March 18, 1944.
3 Created Girasticutam, Smith says; Gives Recipe, Baltimore Evening Sun, March 31, 1944.
1 Misunderstood Beast, April 8, 1944.
2 Associated Press dispatch from Baltimore, March 16, 1944.
3 Madison, Wis., 1935. Reprinted in A Treasury of American Folklore, by B. A. Botkin; New York, 1944, p. 64.
4 Puddleford and Its People; New York, 1854, p. 94.
1 The DAE traces hoop-snake to 1840.
2 I take these from Tall Tales From Texas, by Mody C. Boatwright; Dallas, Texas, 1934, quoted by Botkin, pp. 638–43.
3 Here I am indebted to Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods, With a Few Desert and Mountain Beasts, by William T. Cox; Washington, 1911, quoted by Botkin, pp. 648–50
1 Southwestern Slang, by Socrates Hyacinth, Overland Monthly, Aug., 1869, quoted by Mathews, p. 160.
2 Or philamaloo-bird. See Fields For Collectors, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Part V, 1922, p. 188.
3 The DAE’s first example of whangdoodle is from the New York Times, 1861. It was supposed to devote itself, like the squonk, to lamentation, and was one of the favorite animals of Col. Henry Watterson, who mentioned it frequently in the Louisville Courier-Journal. Sydney Porter (O. Henry, 1867–1910) was very fond of such creatures, and in one of his stories, Heart of the West, defined the galliwampus as a mammal with fins on its back and eighteen toes. He also mentioned the hickle-snifter, the willopus-wallopus and the bim-bam. See O. Henry’s Linguistic Unconventionalities, by Margaret Cannell, American Speech, Dec., 1937, p. 279.
4 The shite-poke is not imaginary. It is the common green heron, Butorides virescens. Shite-poke is traced by the DAE to 1832. Early alternative names were poke, and skouk, both recorded in 1794, and chalk-line and fly-up-the-creek, both recorded in 1844. One of the authorities cited by the DAE says that shite-poke was borrowed from the Dutch schyte-poke. It is legendary throughout the shite-poke’s territory that it lives on excrement.
5 Journal of a Journeyman, Portland Press Herald, March 20
, 1944.
1 The Sidehill Gouger Again, April 9, 1944, editorial page. I am indebted for this reference to Mr. Lewis A. McArthur of Portland.
2 American Speech, Oct., 1939, p. 238. Perhaps the sooner-dog should be added here — a hound so bellicose that it would sooner fight than eat. The DAE does not list the term. Sooner, signifying a person who occupied government land before it was thrown open for settlement, came in at the time of the opening of Oklahoma in 1889. The ring-tailed roarer was not a beast, but a man. Schele de Vere defined him as “a specially fine fellow of great size and strength.” The DAE traces the term to 1830.
1 The old and extremely bitter controversy over the spirituous content of the julep need not be gone into here. In Kentucky and its spiritual dependencies Bourbon is always used, but in the Maryland Free State it would be an indecorum verging upon indecency to use anything save rye whiskey. There is every reason to believe that in the first juleps the motive power was supplied by brandy.
2 Second ed.; London, 1935, p. 457.
3 Second edition; Washington, 1939, p. 7.
1 Private communication, March 18, 1944. Mr. Crockett first gave this piece of history to the world in In Memoriam, American Mercury, Feb., 1930, pp. 229–34, an important contribution to bar-lore. There is more such stuff in his Ghosts of the Old Waldorf; New York, 1929. I am also indebted here to Samuel Hopkins Adams and to the late Charles J. Rosebault. In a one-act dramatic sketch entitled One Evening on Newspaper Row, published by the Gridiron Club, Washington, in 1930, Col. Rickey is made to describe himself as a Missourian. One of the characters says: “Come on, fellows, let’s go round to Shoomaker’s and try that new drink that Joe Rickey has just invented.” Rickey says: “To a jigger of rye whiskey in a tall glass I add the juice of a lime, cracked ice, and fill it up with seltzer water.” Another character says: “I want a Rickey right now.” A third says: “That’s a good name for it. I want a Rickey, too.” The date is not given but seems to be c. 1885.
2 The Official Mixer’s Manual, by Patrick Gavin Duffy; New York, 1934, p. 233. Who John Collins was I do not know. Sidney J. Baker, author of A Popular Dictionary of Australian Slang; Melbourne, n.d., tells me that the John Collins was known in Australia so long ago as 1865, but he does not list it in his dictionary.
1 Ginger-beer is fermented like any-other beer, but ginger-ale is mixed in a vat.
2 Who invented this masterpiece I do not know, and so far as I am aware it has no name. I was introduced to it by Joseph Hergesheimer, c. 1925. Ginger-beer is not easily come by in America, but a few of the better purveyors stock the excellent English brand of Schweppes.
3 The Official Mixer’s Manual, before cited, p. 272, and Wehman Bros.’ Bartenders’ Guide; New York, 1912, p. 63.
4 The Official Mixer’s Manual, before cited, p. 271. Mark Twain mentioned the gin-sling in Innocents Abroad, 1869, p. 429.
1 Rack-punch was based on arrack. Richard Steele said in the Guardian, 1713, that it was sometimes laced with brandy and gunpowder.
1 The Cocktail, America’s Drink, Was Originated in New Orleans, April, 1943, pp. 30 and 31.
2 Peychaud was the inventor of the Peychaud bitters, still popular. In his cocktails he used Sazerac brandy, made by Sazerac du Forge et Fils of Limoges, and so they came to be called Sazeracs. In 1859 one John B. Schiller opened a Sazerac Coffee House at 13 Exchange alley. In 1870 Thomas H. Handy became proprietor of the place and changed its name to the Sazerac House. Simultaneously he substituted rye whiskey for brandy in the cocktail. It is still popular, but with the formula varying. In the Official Mixer’s Manual, by Duffy, p. 125, the ingredients given are rye whiskey, Peychaud bitters, absinthe, sugar and lemon peel; in The Savoy Cocktail Book, by Harry Craddock; New York, 1930, they are rye or Canadian whiskey, Angostura or Peychana (sic) bitters, absinthe, sugar and lemon peel; in The Barkeeper’s Manual, by Raymond E. Sullivan; fourth ed., Baltimore, n.d., p. 8, they are brandy, anisette, Peychard’s (sic) bitters and absinthe; in Life and Letters of Henry William Thomas, Mixologist; p. 42, they are rye whiskey, anisette, absinthe and Peychaud bitters; in Cheerio, by Charles; New York, 1930, p. 17, they are an unnamed whiskey, absinthe, syrup, unnamed bitters and mint; and in the Roosevelt Review article they are rye or Bourbon, vermouth, unnamed bitters, orange bitters, absinthe and sugar. Obviously, mixologists differ almost as much as etymologists. Sazerac is not listed by the DAE. An early example of its use is in Remembrances of the Mississippi, by T. B. Thorpe, Harper’s Magazine, Dec, 1855, p. 37, col. 1.
1 The word has got into practically all modern languages, including Japanese (English Influence on Japanese, by Sanki Ichikawa; Tokyo, 1928, p. 166), and C. K. Ogden includes it among the fifty “international words” taken into Basic English. (The System of Basic English; New York, 1934, p. 134).
2 A translation of part of Boulenger’s article, made for the Kansas City Star, was published in the Baltimore Evening Sun (editorial page), Feb. 11, 1926. In George Washington: the Image and the Man; New York, 1936, p. 377, W. E. Woodward records a story to the effect that the coquetel was brought to America by French officers stationed at a Connecticut port. I am indebted here to Mr. Cary F. Jacobs, of Smith College.
3 Origin of Words: Cocktail, San Francisco News Letter and Wasp, Aug. 4, 1939, p. 9.
4 P. 149, n. 1. Nugent printed it in Cock Fighting Today, American Mercury, May, 1929, p. 80.
1 Origin of Words: Cocktail, before cited. Tamony says that mixed drinks were by no means an American invention. In the Sixteenth Century, he reports, the Germans had concoctions called the cow’s-tail, the calf’s neck, the stamp-in-the-ashes, the crowing-cock and the swell-nose, and during the same period the English had the Humpty-Dumpty, the knock-down and the Old Pharaoh. Grose defines a Humpty-Dumpty as “ale boiled with brandy,” and a knock-me-down as a “strong ale or beer.” He omits the Old Pharaoh, but defines a Pharaoh of unstated age as “strong malt liquor.”
2 Private communication, Jan. 9, 1938.
3 Private communication, Feb. 23, 1938.
4 From cock, a valve or spigot, and tailings, dregs or leavings.
1 Author of “I Am a One Hundred Per Cent. American, Goddam!” See Chapter VII of my Heathen Days; New York, 1943.
1 It survives in the more backward sections of New Jersey as the belly-whistle. See Jerseyisms by F. B. Lee, Dialect Notes, Vol. I, Part VII, 1894, p. 328.
2 It also lists the fog-cutter, which it traces to 1833.
3 These are from his fourth edition of 1877. The list was shorter in his second edition of 1859. Angel-teat is missing.
4 English Hotels, by an American; reprinted in Every Saturday (Boston), May 30, 1868, p. 691.
5 Soda-water seems to have been invented in the Eighteenth Century, and in 1802 an English doctor quoted by the NED said that it had “long been used” in England. But the whiskey-and-soda was called whiskey-and-water down to the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Even brandy-and-water was in use, and the NED’s first example of brandy-and-soda is dated 1871.
1 Mr. Duffy was bartender at the old Ashland House in New York for twelve years, and there had the honor of serving many eminent men, including J. Pierpont Morgan the elder, E. H. Sothern, James J. Corbett, Edwin Booth and Oscar Wilde. Once he actually served William Jennings Bryan, though Bryan’s order was for Apollinaris. From the Ashland House he moved to the St. James.
2 The English did not begin to use Scotch whiskey before the middle of the last century. Before that it was simply whisky.
3 Some of these were Southern. Says Bell Irvin Wiley in The Plain People of the Confederacy; Baton Rouge (La.), 1944, pp. 26–27: “The potency of Confederate liquor, as well as the esteem in which it was held, were reflected by nicknames applied to it by the campaign-hardened butternuts; among the appellations were: How Come You, Tanglefoot, Rifle Knock-Knee, Bust Skull, Old Red Eye, and Rock Me to Sleep, Mother.”
1 The Englishman calls it spirits. What we call hard cider is rough cider to him. Many more such terms are listed in P
oppings of the Corks, by Jean Dejournette, Esquire, April, 1934, PP. 36–87.
2 Writing in the Colver Magazine, July, 1943, p. 24, William Feather offered the following on the authority of F. O. Richey: “(1) A snifter is a light drink, not greatly exceeding a sniff or smelling of the liquor. (2) A swish is a drink long enough to wet the lips and require the wiping of the lips with a handkerchief or the back of the hand. (3) A swig is a drink deep enough to exhaust some of the air in the bottle. When the bottle is removed from the lips the air makes a gurgling sound, rushing into the bottle to fill the void. (4) A snort is when you hold onto the bottle so long that when you take it down you give a snort to get the fumes out of your lungs.” I am indebted here to Mr. Fred Hamann.
3 A Long-Drink and the American Chesterfield, by Kenneth Forward, American Speech, Dec, 1939, p. 316.
4 The English call a bung-starter a beer-mallet. Says H. W. Seaman (private communication): “In March, 1935, this implement was used by a boy named Stoner to dispatch an old man named Rattenbury. Throughout the trial at the Old Bailey the word beer-mallet was used. If the thing had happened in America it would certainly have been called the Bung-Starter Mystery.”
1 Booze is an old word in English. The NED traces it, in the form of bouse, to c. 1300. Weekley suggests that it may have been reintroduced, from the analogous Dutch buizen or the German bausen, in the Sixteenth Century. Efforts have been made to relate it to the Arabic buzeh, meaning sweetmeats, but in vain. In England booze means ale or beer, not wine or spirits. An English working-man calls his favorite pub his boozer.
2 Near-beer appeared in 1920, but did not last long. It continued to be brewed, but before it reached the consumer it was usually converted into needle-beer.
3 Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P.B., by J. Louis Kuethe. American Speech, April, 1937, p. 115.
4 The designation of Southern corn-whiskey, fresh from the still. It is white in color and is said to have the power of a mule’s kick. Only native Southerners of at least the second 5 generation can drink it with any relish.
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