During World War I an effort was made by super-patriots to drive all German loans from the American vocabulary. Sauerkraut became liberty cabbage, hamburger steak became Salisbury steak, hamburger became liberty sandwich, and a few extremists even changed German measles to liberty measles.5 A similar movement got under way during World War II, but it does not seem to have prospered, for so late as the end of 1942 the Army’s model menu included spareribs and sauerkraut.1 But attacks were made from time to time on hamburger,2 kindergarten,3 and even crème vichyssoise.4 I also heard a suggestion, perhaps not altogether serious, that the reminder of things German, and hence abhorrent, in Bismarck herring be got rid of by substituting Eisenhower herring. The farthest leap of this movement was led by Lee Elmaker, publisher of the Philadelphia Daily News, who announced in August, 1942, that all German and Japanese proper names, including German and Jap, would be spelled thereafter, in his paper, with lower-case initial letters.5 This was done even when such a word began a sentence. After Pearl Harbor it was proposed in Washington that the name of the Japanese cherry-trees in a local park be changed to something less obscene, but nothing more seemly could be thought of. On March 29, 1943 the Hon. John E. Rankin of Mississippi allayed public feeling by announcing in the House that they were “not Japanese cherry-trees but Korean cherry-trees,… stolen by the Japanese from Korea just as she is now stealing everything that China has.”6 The Nazis, meanwhile, had staged a wholesale purge of foreign words in German. All the common grammatical terms, for example, were translated into German, so that grammatik itself became sprachlehre,7 and there were similar changes in most of the other arts and sciences, including especially medicine.8 World War II, of course, introduced Americans to a great many new German terms, and a few of them promise to linger on to naturalization, and even to produce derivatives,9 but most of them were also borrowed by the English, and hence do not concern us as Americanisms.10
Two undoubted Americanisms that have puzzled etymologists may also be loans from the German, to wit, to scram and hoodlum. The origins of the latter have been sought in Spanish and in various Indian languages, but in vain. The DAE says that it came into use in San Francisco c. 1872, but that its source is unknown. In a paper published in Modern Language Notes in 19351 Dr. John T. Krumpelmann suggested that it may come from a Bavarian dialect term, hodalump, of the same meaning precisely. In the San Francisco of those days, he said, “the Germans constituted the largest foreign-language” group, and many of them were Bavarians.2 The theory that to scram may be of German origin was set forth in American Speech in 1938 by Dr. G. Kirchner of Jena,3 who argued that it probably comes from “the German slang word schrammen, of exactly the same meaning.” Partridge suggests, alas only lamely, that it may come from a South Cheshire dialect word, to scramble, meaning “to get away with, with a notion of fear or stealth,” but he admits that it originated in the United States, and that the English were unaware of it until American movies introduced them to it, c. 1930. Yes-man is another Americanism that may be of German origin. The equivalent German jaherr is defined by Cassell’s New German and English Dictionary as “a compliant person, one unable to say no,” and the aforesaid Krumpelmann has shown that it was used in that sense by a German writer on America, Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postl), in ‘Die Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika” in 1827.4 H. W. Horwill is of the opinion that the influence of German on American English has been rather underestimated. It shows itself, he says, not only in vocabulary but also in idiom. He adds:
It is doubtful, however, whether such influence as German has exercised over American idiom is wholly, or even mainly, to be attributed to immigration from Germany. It is more likely to be a by-product of the fact that, for more than a single generation, the only Americans who studied abroad studied in Germany.1 Accordingly, the literary style of many American scholars, teachers and writers came to be affected by German rather than English practice.2
A number of German terms are still in common use among Americans of the learned faculties, e.g., arbeit, designating a scientific enterprise, and fach, meaning a specialty. The influence of German is also shown in the vocabulary of American musicians, e.g., in concertmaster, from konzertmeister. This term is not listed by the DAE, but the NED Supplement’s first example, dated 1889, is from an American source. The English commonly use leader.3 The use of German as an adjective has made Americanisms since the Eighteenth Century. The DAE traces German corn (rye) to 1741, German Lutheran to 1799, German Reformed (church) to 1812, German cotillion to 1839, German Methodist to 1849, German (from German cotillion) to 1863, German Jew to 1865, and German-American to 1880.4
The influence of Yiddish upon American has been felt mainly in the New York area, and many of its contributions to the vocabulary are of German origin, e.g., gefilte-fish, phooey (pfui), kibitzer,1 schul (the German word for school, but used to designate a synagogue in Yiddish), dreck (garment-workers’ term for an inferior dress), schlag (of the same general meaning),2 schnorrer (a beggar), and perhaps also the phrases so what?, for why?,3 and something else again. Contrariwise, German brought in a number of Yiddish terms before Yiddish became one of the principal languages of New York, e.g., ganov (a thief), kosher, mashuggah, mazuma,4 and tochos.5 I heard all of them used by German schoolmasters in Baltimore, c. 1888. In the early days of Hitler the Nazis made some effort to purge German of these words, but apparently it was a failure. Dr. A. A. Roback, in an interesting survey of the Yiddishisms current in New York, points out that most of them have come in on the lower levels of speech. He says:
The majority of such locutions are slang, and quite a few find a place in the underworld vocabularies. Numerous expressions derived from the Yiddish constitute the backbone of commercial lingo. There is an auction jewelry jargon as well as a furniture jargon and a shoe business cant.… [Yiddish] has not been able to influence literary English yet, simply because, as a rule, Yiddish-speaking people do not move in higher society, and if they do they find no need to resort to foreign phrases or expressions.1
Most of the Yiddishisms in the cant of criminals were not introduced by Jewish immigrants to the United States: they go back to the Europe of the Middle Ages, and Martin Luther called attention to them so long ago as 1528 in his introduction to a reprint of Gerold Edilbach’s “Liber Vagatorum,” the first dictionary of thieves’ jargon ever compiled.2 The first such compilation in English, published in 1698,3 contained several, e.g., gelt, and there were more in Grose’s “Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” 1785. Partridge says that variations of ganov have been current among English criminals since c. 1835. The contributions of Yiddish to trade argots have been mainly in the trades dominated by Jews. That of the retail furniture salesmen, for example, contains the following terms, most of them originally German:
Macher (from machen, to make, to effect, to perform). A boaster.
Momser (bastard). A general term of opprobrium.
Schlepp (from schleppen, to move, to drag). To move furniture about on the sales floor.
Schmeer (from schmieren, to smear, to grease). To flatter a customer.
Schmiss (a blow). To break off a sale.
Tzorris. Trouble caused by a complaining customer, or one in default on his instalment payments.4
Shoe salesmen have a similar lingo, and it includes a number of the terms used by the furniture salesman. One of its gems is T.L., from tochos lekker (backside kisser), signifying a salesman who tries to ingratiate himself with the boss.1 Other argots showing Yiddish influence are those of department-store salesmen and grind-shop auctioneers.2 Julius G. Rothenberg has called attention to the fact3 that not a few of the words and phrases thus borrowed have, in the original, a more or less obscene significance, e.g., to futz around, A.K. (from alte kacker), yentzer and pisher. He says that canary, often heard in New York in such phrases as “He’s giving me a canary,” is derived from the German kein (no) and the Hebrew ayin (eye) and harrah (evil), and that it thus alludes to the evil eye. Dr. Roback, in t
he paper lately cited, argues for the Yiddish origin of a number of familiar American phrases, e.g., I should worry, give me a ring, I’m telling you and it’s all right by me.4 A number of Yiddishisms in use in the New York area are understood by a great many non-Jews, e.g., mazuma (money), kosher (ritually clean), trefa (ritually unclean), goy (a non-Jew), shadchen (a marriage-broker), shmus (idle talk), bar-mitsva (the Jewish confirmation ceremony for boys), ganov (a thief), mashuggah (crazy), blintzes (a savory dish), matzoth (unleavened bread), schnozzle (a large nose), shochet (a ritual butcher), shofar (a ram’s horn blown in the synagogue on solemn holidays), mohel (one licensed to perform circumcision), tochos (the backside), yentser (a cheat), mazzaltov (good luck), momser (a bastard), shikse (a Christian woman), shekel (a woman’s wig), kishkes (the intestines), borshtsh (sour beet soup), minyan (the synagogue quorum of ten men), gefilte fish (stuffed fish), lokschen (noodles), mechulle (bankrupt), menora (a candlestick), schnorrer (a beggar or chisler), schlemihl (a ne’er-do-well), shabbath (Sabbath), shalom alechem (peace be with you), and yehudi (a Jew). Some of them have become so far naturalized that they are often given the English -s in the plural instead of the Hebrew -im, e.g., shochets instead of shochtim.5
“We may take it as a fixed rule,” said Engelbrecht Kaempfer in his “History of Japan,”1 “that the settlement of foreigners in a country will bring a corresponding proportion of foreign words into the language; these will be naturalized by degrees, and become as familiar as the native words themselves.” The truth of this is well demonstrated by the foregoing record. Every fresh wave of immigrants has brought in new loan-words, and some of them have become so thoroughly imbedded in the language that they have lost their air of foreignness, and are used to make derivatives as freely as native words, e.g., peonage (from the Spanish peon, traced by the DAE to 1849), spaghetti-joint, the turkeymallie lately noticed, and to Stevedore, from the noun (Spanish estivador, a stower of cargo). Not infrequently naturalization brings in a change in meaning, as when the Spanish silo, signifying an underground chamber for the storage of grain, came to mean, in the United States, an aboveground structure in which green crops are fermented, and rodeo, originally a cattle round-up, was transferred to an exhibition of cowboy tricks. Alfalfa, also from the Spanish, is not an Americanism, but only in the United States has it picked up such connotations as are to be seen in Alfalfa Bill.2 As I have noted in Chapter IV, Section 3, American has probably made more loans from the Spanish than from any other language. They are, indeed, coming in all the time, e.g., hoosegow, which was unheard of in 1900; politico, which has come into vogue within the past twenty years,3 and wah-wah, first reported in 1941.4 There are other belated loans from other immigrant languages, notably the Swedish smörgåsbord, which has been taken in since World War I, with the loss of its diacritical marks.1 Even the Indian languages have not ceased to yield tribute, as the case of chautauqua shows.2 From French there is a continual borrowing, e.g., brassière, which did not appear until c. 1910. The DAE traces the Italian macaroni in American use to 1802, and spaghetti has been familiar since the 80s, but ravioli is so recent that it is not listed. Policy (from Italian polizza) is traced to 1851, and apparently first appeared in England. It is now obsolete, having been supplanted by numbers. The DAE first records policy-ticket in 1872, policy-dealer in 1875, policy-backer and to play policy in 1882 and policy-shop in 1899.3
The contributions of Chinese to the American vocabulary are few in number, and most of them are confined to the Pacific Coast and its immediate hinterland. Chow is not listed by the DAE, and the NED Supplement traces it no farther back than 1886. It is Pidgin English and was probably brought to the United States by Chinese immigrants at the time of the gold rush, for chow-chow (the condiment) is recorded for 1852. Chow has never got above the status of slang, but chow-chow is in perfectly respectable usage. It reached England by 1857. Chow-mein, chop-suey and yok-a-mi are all overlooked by the DAE, but most Americans are familiar with them. Webster 1934 says that chow-mein means, primarily, a fried noodle, and is derived from the Chinese words ch’ao, to fry, and mien, flour. It has come to designate a thick stew of chicken, mushrooms and savories, with fried noodles added. Chop-suey is described by Webster as “a mélange … consisting typically of bean sprouts, onions, mushrooms, etc., and sliced meats, fried and flavored with sesame oil.” The term represents a Cantonese pronunciation of the standard Chinese tsa-sui, meaning miscellaneous pieces. The NED Supplement traces chop-suey in American use to 1904, but it is probably older. Regarding yok-a-mi I can find nothing in the authorities. Fan-tan is not listed by the DAE, but the first English example given by the NED Supplement is dated 1878, and the game was well known in California at least twenty years before. Joss and its derivations got into English in the Eighteenth Century, but they seem to have been taken into American independently. The DAE traces joss in American use to 1873, and joss-house and joss-stick to 1871. Tong, which is marked an Americanism by the DAE, came in in the early 80s and was soon followed by tong-war. Highbinder is not a loan from the Chinese. It was first used in 1806 to designate a variety of gangster then in practise in New York, and was not applied to Chinese until the late 70s. Two of the Chinese loans in use only in California and thereabout are yuen, a vegetable garden, and egg-fuyong, a popular dish.1 The Chinese, it should not be forgotten, also contributed one of the most pungent American proverbs: No checkee, no shirtee.
The other immigrant languages have contributed very little to the American vocabulary, save in areas of high immigration density. It is the custom on the Pacific Coast to ascribe to Japanese any strange word that cannot be ascribed to Chinook, but it is seldom that plausible evidence is forthcoming. The Japanese etymologies proposed, for example, for hobo and hunky-dory are far from persuasive. Tycoon was brought in by the Perry expedition of 1852–54 and seems to have come into use in the United States before the English became aware of it. It was used as an affectionate nickname for Abraham Lincoln by the members of his secretariat, and has been worked to death in recent years by Time. Hara-kiri first appeared in Harper’s Magazine in 1856,2 and jiu-jitsu seems to have been introduced by Lafcadio Hearn in 1891, but geisha (1887), jinricksha (1874), followed by rickshaw (1886), kimono (1887) and soy-bean (1802) came to the United States by way of England.3 In the Scandinavian regions of the Middle West a number of Swedish and Dano-Norwegian terms have come into wide use, but most of them show no sign of entering the general vocabulary. Some Swedish examples are given in AL4, p. 215. Dano-Norwegian examples are gubbefest, which is used in Minnesota to designate a men’s party,1 and lefsi, “a mixture of white flour, salt, water and baking-powder,” served with unsweetened coffee as a “mid-morning, mid-afternoon and midnight refreshment.”2 The Czech koláč, in the transliterated form of kolach, has got into Webster: it means “a kind of small tart usually round (kolo, a wheel or circle), made with a variant of bread dough, and filled or topped, before baking, with jam or preserve.”3 Similar loans have been made from the Finnish in North Dakota, the Portuguese in Massachusetts,4 the Polish in Chicago and Buffalo,5 and the Russian in the parts of Kansas settled by Russian-Germans.6
1 England, Century Magazine, Nov., 1882, p. 141.
2 Accompanied, apparently, by protests, for in Feb., 1883, p. 616, the editors of the Century were constrained to go to Warner’s defense. “We are willing to submit to any fairly constituted international Peace Congress,” they wrote, “whether Mr. Warner’s article … is not a good-natured, frank, mainly serious, partly humorous, literary essay. Along with its earnestness of statement is the dry humor and exaggeration of the same author’s ‘My Summer in a Garden’ and ‘Back-log Studies.’ The fact is that Mr. Warner was principally moved to write this essay on England by a cordial friendship for English people and a hearty admiration of the country. But he wrote judicially, not gushingly, not sycophantishly.” Whether or not this somewhat fawning disclaimer allayed the current indignation I do not know. but today such notions pass unnoticed, for no one can thi
nk of anything to say against them. Even in 1882 Warner’s description of the American novelist under the English hoof had to be thrown into the past tense:
3 The Gilded Age; Hartford, 1873.
1 This is true even when they tackle what they conceive to be a high-toned audience. I point, for example, to a speech made by the then Chief Justice, the Hon. Charles Evans Hughes, at a meeting of the American Law Institute in Washington, May 7, 1936. In less than 2000 words he managed to use yes-man, joy-ride, and human as a noun. See also AL4, p. 203.
2 The Gettysburg Address, so much esteemed, was not a specimen of his new style, but an evidence of literary stagefright on a great occasion. Many of its phrases — four score and seven years ago, final resting-place, honored dead, etc. — belonged to the age of Daniel Webster. But, as the anthologists are beginning to see, the address was poetry, not prose, and so criticism must stand silent before its astounding declaration that the Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg were fighting for self-determination. That, in fact, is precisely what they were fighting against. Poetry is not to be judged by the laws of evidence. It is always, at bottom, a sonorous statement of the obviously not true.
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