3 Despite her professed scorn of the intelligentsia, La Lee is an author herself. Her thriller, The G-String Murders, published in England as The Strip-Tease Murders, got friendly notices in both countries. See, for example, the London News Review, March 4, 1943. She soon followed it with another, Mother Finds a Body, and on Oct. 21, 1943 her play, The Naked Genius, was presented at the Plymouth Theatre, New York. Also, she contributed some amusing reminiscences of her early days on the stage to the New Yorker in 1943. There is a sympathetic account of her in Gypsy Rose Lee, Strip-tease Intellectual, by John Richmond, American Mercury, Jan., 1941.
4 The term appears in John Ford’s The Lover’s Melancholy, II, 1628.
1 Niminy Piminy, Bystander, Dec. 18, 1934.
2 Promoted, Liverpool Echo, Jan. 31, 1944. I am indebted here to Mr. P. E. Cleator and Mr. Edward L. Bernays.
3 London Times, June 7, 1944. I am indebted here to H. W. Seaman.
4 London Daily Express, April 29, 1944.
5 Butchers or Purveyors?, by S. W. Corley, London Times, Aug. 23, 1936.
6 Random Thoughts on Education, by Adelantemnos, Knife and Steel (the organ of the society), Dec., 1936, p. 6. This article was an eloquent plea for more vision in the retail meat trade. “It is not my job,” said the author, “to educate you; I only wish to stir the smouldering fire of your intellect into a living flame.… You may be tempted to describe these words as bovine excreta. I shall not mind.”
7 Ada S. Kellogg reported in American Notes and Queries, April, 1944, p. 10, that “a transportation company in New Jersey now refers to its drivers and motormen as salesmen, and gives this new name official sanction on placards, etc.”
8 William Hickey in the London Daily Express, Oct. 4, 1943.
1 Word-Skirmish, April 7, 1937, p. 370.
2 Lady, Woman and Person, American Speech, April, 1937, pp. 117–21. Withington returned to the subject in Woman — Lady, American Speech, Oct., 1937, p. 235. But the Ladies’ Home Journal, founded in 1883, survives and flourishes.
3 I am indebted here to Mr. Vernon L. Hoyt of Columbus, Neb. Female heads of shop committees in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union are called chairladies.
4 London Telegraph and Post, May 20, 1938.
1 And How! Liverpool Echo, Dec. 10, 1942. I am indebted here to Mr. P. E. Cleator.
2 Editorial page, Dec. 3.
3 Doctresses, Authoresses and Others, American Speech, Aug., 1930, pp. 476–81. See also The Suffix -ess, by Edwin B. Dike, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Jan., 1937, pp. 29–34.
4 Diminutions of the English Language, May, 1865, p. 464. I am indebted for this to Dr. Joseph M. Carriere of the University of Virginia.
5 English Past and Present; London, 1855. They included teacheress, singeress, servantess, neighboress and sinneress. He added pedleress, victoress, ministress, flatteress, discipless, auditress, cateress, detractress, huckstress, tutoress and farmeress from Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Addison and lesser authors.
6 Vassar had been opened in 1861 as Vassar Female Seminary, but its designation was changed to Vassar College in 1867. Its founder was Matthew Vassar, a rich and eminent brewer of Poughkeepsie.
1 The authoress notes that those marked * are her own inventions.
2 The judicious will note that this term is listed under Titles of Professions, not under Titles of Office, Rank, Respect.
1 Used by a book-store in Fifth avenue, New York.
2 Advertisement of Selfridge’s (American-owned) in the London Daily Express, March 13, 1938. It was applied to women’s hose.
3 I am told by H. W. Seaman that oral offense has been used instead of halitosis in England.
4 In England art-silk is used to designate artificial silk, and effects to designate an imitation, as in tweed effects.
5 I am indebted here to Substitutes for Substitute, by M. J. M., American Speech, Oct., 1943, p. 207.
6 Names for Horse-Meat, Life, Aug. 2, 1943.
1 Reported by Max Lerner, PM, April 2, 1943, p. 2. I am indebted here to American Notes and Queries, April, 1943, p. 7.
2 Straight Talk About Sick Minds, by Edith M. Stern, Hygeia, March, 1944, p. 195.
3 I am indebted here to Mr. W. T. Hammack, assistant director of the Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice. He says, May 12, 1937: “Very few officers in the custodial service bear arms. They are intended as leaders for groups of men and instructors in various activities undertaken for the utilization of prison labor.”
4 Counselling as Social Case Work, by Gordon Hamilton, Social Service Review, June, 1943.
5 From the name of the first such establishment, at Borstal, a village near Rochester in Kent.
6 Basil L. Q. Henriques said in The Word Borstal, London Times, Dec. 7, 1938, that “music-hall jokes about the old school tie” had brought the name into “general disrepute.”
7 Young Offenders: Hostels Instead of Approved Schools, News of the World (London), July 17, 1938.
8 Jottings by a Man About Town, Dublin Evening Mail, July 22, 1935.
1 Dartmoor’s 600 Empty Cells to be Filled Up, News of the World, April 26, 1936.
2 Dec. 6, 1936. This was at the time the Cabinet was considering a plan to force King Edward to abdicate, and public opinion was with His Majesty.
3 Beautiful Home of Poughkeepsie Newspapers to be News-Cathedral, Editor and Publisher, July 12, 1941. The newspapers were the Poughkeepsie Evening Star-Enterprise and Morning Eagle-News and the Hudson Valley Sunday Courier.
4 In Other Words, by W. E. Farbstein, New Yorker, Aug. 8, 1942.
1 Berrey and Van den Bark print a long list in The American Thesaurus of Slang, pp. 117 and 118, but do not attempt to distinguish between American and English phrases.
2 American Speech, Oct., 1936, pp. 195–202. Some Western terms are in Cowboy Euphemisms for Dying, by Mamie J. Meredith, the same, Oct., 1942, p. 213.
3 I lift this word from E. E. Ericson, who used it in the title of an article, Acthronyms; Derisive Names for Various Peoples, in Words, Oct., 1939.
1 It is possible that this was a loan from the German. The German traveler, Charles Sealsfield (Karl Postl), in Der Virey und die Aristokraten, oder Mexico in 1812, published in 1834, used froschesser. It was his habit to quote Americanisms in their original form, but this time he used German. I therefore surmise that he may have brought the term in instead of picking it up. I am indebted here to Charles Sealsfield’s Americanisms, II, by John T. Krumpelmann, American Speech, April, 1941, p. 110.
2 Three Years in California, by J. D. Borthwick; 1857, p. 252. I take this from California Gold-Rush English, by Marian Hamilton, American Speech, Aug., 1932, p. 424.
1 New Orleans Times-Picayune, Feb. 11, 1926, quoted in Creole and Cajan, by William A. Read, American Speech, June, 1926, p. 483.
2 Creole and West Indies, American Speech, March, 1927, pp. 293–94.
3 A corruption of the archaic French morbilles, pox.
4 The use of French was not confined, of course, to the English. Sebastian Brant in De Scorra Pestilenta, (1496) called syphilis mala de Franzos, and other writers of the time called it morbus Gallicas.
1 I am indebted here to Calling Names in Any Language, by Joachim Joesten, American Mercury, Dec., 1935, pp. 483–87.
2 The Hawaiian Language, by Henry P. Judd; Honolulu, 1940, p. 99. Judd says that it is also used by the Hawaiians as an adjective, in the sense of manly, strong, stable.
3 Alexander F. Chamberlain, Journal of American Folk-Lore, Oct.-Dec., 1902, p. 293.
4 A Protest From the Philippines, by M. J. M., American Speech, April, 1944, p. 148.
1 Berlin, 1901.
2 On this point I am not sure. See Harper’s Magazine, Jan., 1854, p. 269, col. 2.
3 California Gold-Rush English, by Marian Hamilton, American Speech, Aug., 1932, p. 424.
4 Says W. J. Wintemberg in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XVI, 1903, p. 128: “I am informed that the name was first applied in Pennsylva
nia, and that it owes its origin to the fact that most of the Pennsylvania Dutch voted for Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory) for President.… It is in general use as a derisive epithet.” Mr. Wintemberg adds that it appeared, in 1903, to be passing out.
1 A Note on the Epithet Hessian, Feb., p. 72.
1 “As brought,” says Grose, “at sponging or bawdy houses.”
2 Grose, in his third edition, 1785, illustrates this term with “Thank God it is no worse.”
3 The Dutch Government Beats the Dutch, by J. F. Bense, English Studies (Amsterdam), Dec., 1934., pp. 215 and 216.
4 Phases of State Legislation, Century Magazine, April, 1885, p. 827.
5 Mr. B. G. Kayfetz of West Toronto.
1 Oct., p. 236.
2 The Lingo of the Mining Camp, Nov., 1926, p. 88.
3 Dec. 3.
4 Informed of his error, he apologized in the Times on May 8. “On the authority of Mencken’s ‘American Language,’ ” he said, “a reader assures me that the slang expression for a German in the United States is squarehead or dutchman, not (as I said) bohunk, which euphonious name is applied to Hungarians and usually shortened to hunky. Fortunately, there is no hunky community in Singapore, so I need say no more than express the hope that, as between the local limeys and squareheads, my mistake has caused no ill-feeling.”
5 Czech Influence Upon the American Vocabulary, by J. B. Dudek, Czechoslovak Student Life (Lisle, Ill.), June, 1928, p. 16.
6 Some Current Substitutes For Irish, Vol. IV, Part II, pp. 146–48.
1 The NED traces wild Irish to 1399.
2 In A Pronouncing Gaelic-English Dictionary, by Neil MacAlphine; Glasgow, 1942, it is defined as “a castrated boar.”
3 To this McLaughlin appended the following note: “Professor George L. Hamilton of Cornell suggests that torc, originally meaning boar, may have been at first specifically applied to a coarse, brutal fellow, for he feels that there is a great difference between calling a person a pig and calling him a boar. However, Professor C. P. Wagner calls my attention to the French-Canadian use of verrat, boar, with no other significance than that implied in cochon.”
1 In Hanover, which was annexed by Prussia on Sept. 20, 1866, it was the custom, for several years after, for cards of invitation to bear the words Ohne Preussen (No Prussians). Every Saturday (Boston), Jan. 4, 1868, p. 30.
2 I am indebted here to Mr. Michael Gross of New York.
3 Camillo P. Merlino, associate professor of Italian in the University of Michigan, in Word Vagaries, Words, Sept., 1936, p, 7.
1 I am informed by a correspondent that guapo is used in Latin America as an adjective signifying strong.
2 Editorial Notes, American Mercury, Oct., 1926, p. lviii.
3 Wap-jawed is listed in A Second Word-List from Nebraska, by Louise Pound, Dialect Notes, Vol. III, Part IV, 1911, p. 548, and its use is illustrated in “That skirt hangs wap-jawed.” Berrey and Van den Bark give the variants wapper-jawed, wabble-jawed, wocker-jawed, whomper-jawed, whopper-jawed, wobble-jawed, womper-jawed, wop-jawed and wopper-jawed. Thomas Wright, in his Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English; London, 1857, lists wap in eight senses and wapper in two, but none of them shows any connection with wap-jawed, which may possibly be an Americanism, though it is not listed by the DAE.
4 It’s a Piece of Cake: R.A.F. Slang Made Easy, by C. H. Ward-Jackson; London, n. d., p. 63.
5 For example, Wop, by John Fair-weather, London Sunday Times, June 9, 1929; Wop, by Harold Lamb, the same, June 23, 1929; Wop: Derivation, by Robert S. Forsythe Notes and Queries, Jan. 2, 1937; Wops, by William Poulton, Newcastle Journal, Dec. 3 and 4, 1940; Why the Wops, Edinburgh Scotsman, Dec. 7, 1940; Wops, Belfast News-Letter, Jan. 1, 1941; Wop-Italian, Notes and Queries, Jan. 18, 1941.
1 The following is in The Conquest of New England by the Immigrant, by Daniel Chauncey Brewer; New York, 1926, pp. 323–24: “Up to the beginning of the Twentieth Century the alien was an alien.… The bosses had their own vernacular.… To some of these the Jew was a sheeney, the Pole a wop, and the Italian a dago.” I am indebted for this reference to Mr. Alexander Kadison.
2 William Poulton in the Newcastle Journal, just cited.
3 London Daily Express, Jan. 20, 1943. I am indebted here to Mr. P. E. Cleator.
4 Baltimore Sun Almanac, 1891, p. 100. I am indebted here to my brother, August Mencken.
5 Dialect Notes, Vol. II, Part I, 1900, p. 31.
1 Its first quotation is from the New York Herald, Jan. 13, 1896: “The average Pennsylvanian contemptuously refers to these immigrants as hikes and hunks. The hikes are Italians and Sicilians.” A second quotation is from the Century Magazine, 1898: “The Italians are termed bikes.”
2 I am indebted for this to Mr. Harry G. Green of Chicago and Mr. Michael Gross of New York. Lukschen also means extremely elongated in Yiddish and is applied to any tall man.
3 Louisiana Gleanings, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Part VI, 1923, p. 243.
1 Feb. 11, p. 30.
2 By Robert Max Garrett of Seattle; Vol. V, Part III, p. 84.
3 Our Stakes in the Japanese Exodus, by Paul S. Taylor, Survey Graphic, Sept., 1942.
4 I am indebted here to Mr. Masami Nakachi of Manzanar, Calif. “Twenty years hence,” he says, “we may hear of san-sei, third generation.”
5 For example, Dr. C. Walter Young, of the Johns Hopkins University, who addressed the Baltimore Evening Sun on the subject under date of May 5, 1931. (His letter was published on the editorial page, May 7.) He said that he had induced the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune to abandon Jap “three years ago.”
1 The NED reports it in colloquial use in England, c. 1880.
2 p. 151.
3 Its use is forbidden to broadcasters for the B.B.C. Albert Deutsch in Minorities, PM, Sept. 17, 1942: “Who but the very meanest among us can ever again refer to the great and valiant Chinese as chinks? The spectacle of the sturdy, heroic people pouring out their life-blood for freedom forever blots out the pat caricature of the wily, tricky heathen Chinee portrayed by Bret Harte.”
1 This tale is quoted in The Southwestern Word Box, by T. M. P., New Mexico Quarterly (Albuquerque), Aug., 1932, p. 267, but the author does not vouch for it.
2 Popular Tribunals, by Hubert H. Bancroft; New York, 1887; Vol. I, p. 151.
3 American Speech, Oct., 1937, p. 241.
4 I am indebted here to Mr. C. H. Calhoun, of Balboa Heights, C. Z.
5 The Psychology of Prison Language, by James Hargan, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Oct.-Dec, 1935, p. 362.
1 I am indebted here to Messrs. George Weller and C. V. L. Smith.
2 The DAE, in borrowing part of this, dates it c. 1840. Haliburton began his Sam Slick sketches in the Nova Scotian of Halifax in 1835. They appeared in book form in three series, 1837, 1838 and 1840.
3 An extract from the novel was printed in the New Masses, Aug. 6, 1935, under the title of Deportation Special. From it I take this: “Then out with you, go back where you came from, you dago, you hunky, you scoovy, you heinie, you mick, you sheenie, you limey! Get out and stay out!”
4 For this I am indebted to Mr. William H. Davenport, of New Haven, Conn.
1 The first two examples of to jew down are from the proceedings of Congress. Mark Twain used it in Life on the Mississippi, 1883, p. 473, and Frank Norris in Vandover and the Brute, c. 1895 (published 1914), p. 259.
2 His circular letter, addressed to “leading literary men, persons and organizations of national importance, and deans of principal universities,” was dated July 21, 1936. One of the definitions of Jew in the College Standard Dictionary, 1941, is “any usurious money-lender; an opprobrious use applied irrespective of race.” This is marked slang. The Winston Simplified Dictionary; Advanced Edition; 1926, defines Jew, inter alia, as “any one who deals craftily, or drives hard bargains.” In these senses the word is seldom used in the United States. The English still say of a spendthrift borrower that he is in the hands of the Jews, but the American term is
loan-sharks.
1 A discussion of the historical difference between Hebrew and Jew, by Dr. Solomon Solis Cohen, is in AL4, pp. 298–99.
2 Twenty-second ed.; New York, n. d., p. 562.
3 New York, 1943, p. 200.
1 New York, 1925.
2 Private communication, June 25.
1 Cambridge, Mass.; 1933, p. 33.
2 You Speak Yiddish, Too!, Better English, Feb., 1938, p. 52.
1 In the course of a speech in the House of Representatives on Jan. 26, 1944 (Congressional Record, p. A446) the Hon. John E. Rankin of Mississippi reported that he had been given the following definition by “a Jewish friend”: “A kike is a Jew that is so detestable that the other Jews are ashamed of him, the Gentiles despise him, and the intelligent Negroes have contempt for him.”
2 In the South many prudent Jews joined it. This course offered them their only means of escape from its afflictions.
3 A List of Briticisms, Feb. 1942, p. 8.
1 Editor’s Drawer, May, p. 854.
1 Resort Ads Reformed, Editor and Publisher, Aug. 7, 1943. The Editor ansd Publisher was not altogether in favor of this censorship. It said: “The religious observances and dietary laws which make it difficult for orthodox Jews to share accommodations with those of other creeds were the base upon which the now out-ruled practices stood. That base has not changed, and instead of the words that offended tender sensibilities, the advertisers have found others to indicate the character of their enterprises. The Editor and Publisher does not believe that racial or religious discrimination is indicated when a hotel advertises that it is prepared to cater to either a preponderantly Christian or Jewish clientele. A good part of vacation joys are based upon association with congenial people, and that is true for people of every religious faith. If the elimination of words which imply inferiority of one racial group to others can be accomplished without limiting the advertisers’ right to choose their patronage groups it is a job worth doing.”
2 American Speech, Dec., 1936, p. 374.
3 He succeeded Booker T. Washington in 1915, retired in 1935, and died in 1940. The origin of his military title I do not know. The Times’ announcement of its conversion at his hands was embodied in the following editorial:
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