American Language Supplement 2

by H. L. Mencken

  4 Ger. ausbrennan, to burn out.

  5 Ger. schiessen, to shoot, to burst forth.

  6 Ger. sich kräusen, to curl.

  7 Ger. geburtstag, birthday; salztag, salt-day.

  8 Ger. kühl, cool, and schiff, a vessel.

  9 Ger. lautern, to clear or refine.

  10 Ger. ruh, rest.

  11 Ger. schlauch, a hose.

  12 Sometimes todsäufer. A German term meaning dead-drinker. One of a totsäufer’s chief duties is to weep for the brewery at the funerals of saloonkeepers. See my Happy Days; New York, 1940, p. 44, n. 2.

  13 All these come from Lexicon of Trade Jargon. See also Handbook of Brick Masonry Construction, by John A. Mulligan; New York, 1942, pp. 491–508.

  14 It is common for workmen to call incompetent fellows by the designations of workers in other trades. The terms most commonly in use are shoemaker and blacksmith.

  1 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  2 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  1 Language of the Trade, by Ernest A. Dewey, Labor Today, Sept., 1941, p. 19.

  2 These come mainly from Western Words, by Ramon F. Adams; Norman (Okla.), 1944, and The Language of the Mosshorn, by Don McCarthy; Billings (Mont.), 1936. Adams points out, p. x, that the cowboy vocabulary is by no means uniform over the cattle country. The popularity of Western fiction has made most Americans familiar with many range terms, but I have included some of them in order to discuss their origin. W. Cabell Greet says in A Standard American Language?, New Republic, May 25, 1938, p. 68, that the speech of the cattlemen “derives from the Southern hill type,” i.e., that of Appalachia.

  3 Says Mary Dale Buckner, in Ranch Diction of the Texas Panhandle, American Speech, Feb., 1933, p. 29: “The cowboy and ranchman would use any amount of circumlocution to avoid calling a spade a spade in the presence of ladies.”

  4 This is probably an Americanism, though the DAE does not list it. The NED’s first example is from William Cullen Bryant’s translation of the Iliad, 1870.

  5 Sp. bronco, rough, rude. Traced by the DAE to c. 1850.

  6 Cowboy Lingo of the Texas Big Bend, by Haldeen Braddy, Dialect Notes, Vol. VI, Part XV, Dec., 1937, p. 620. Buckaroo is from the Spanish vaquero, of the same meaning. Traced by the DAE to c. 1861.

  7 Sp. chaperejo.

  8 This term is discussed by Stephens, J., in South Kansas Railway vs. Isaacs, 49 Southwestern Reporter, p. 691. I am indebted here to Judge Theodore Mack, of Fort Worth, Tex.

  9 Lasso is from the Sp. lazo and lariat from the Sp. la reata, both meaning a rope. The former is traced by the DAE to 1833 and the latter to 1835.

  10 From the Spanish. As a noun traced by the DAE to 1839 and as a verb to 1847.

  11 Harold W. Bentley says in A Dictionary of Spanish Terms in English; New York, 1932, p. 87, that it is from the Sp. adobe, a mud brick. Another, but improbable etymology, is in Dogie, American Speech, Oct., 1936, p. 218.

  1 The DAE traces tenderfoot to 1875 and dude in this sense to 1885. A ranch which entertains visitors is a dude-ranch, traced to 1921. There is a Dude Ranchers’ Association in the Northwest, and it has published a quarterly, the Dude Rancher, at Billings, Mont., since 1926.

  2 From Joseph Justin, the name of an early maker whose workshop still survives at Fort Worth.

  3 From the name of Levi Strauss, who began to make overalls in San Francisco in 1850.

  4 From loco-weed (Astragalus mollissims or Aragallus lamberti), which causes severe nervous symptoms in cattle eating it.

  5 AL4, p. 189. Traced by the DAE to 1869.

  6 John M. Hendrix, in The Nester, Cattleman, March, 1946, p. 84: “A name given to those intrepid souls who broke away from the credit system of East Texas to gain a foothold in the cattle country.”

  7 From Sp. rodear, to surround, to gather together. Traced by the DAE in the first sense to 1851. The rodeo in the second sense has now taken the place of the old-time Wild West show. McCarthy, before cited, says that the word is pronounced ró-de-o in Montana and Wyoming, and ro-dáy-o elsewhere.

  8 Mr. Bruce Nelson, of Bismarck, N. D., tells me that the Indians used to mount from that side.

  9 Both come from the name of the maker, John Batterson Stetson, of Philadelphia (1830–1906). A. L. Campa says in Ten-Gallon Hats, American Speech, Oct., 1939, p. 201, that ten-gallon does not refer to the cubic capacity of such a hat, but to the braid —Sp. galón.

  1 Cowboy Lingo Has Enriched Our Language, by Nat McKelvey, Everybody’s Digest, Aug., 1945, p. 86: “Hollywood stole stinker from the cowboy. Originally, he was a newcomer who skinned the buffalo the hunters killed.”

  2 The literature of cattlemen’s speech before 1939 is listed in Burke, pp. 99–100 and 145–46. Later studies worth consulting are Bronc Peelers, by John L. Sinclair, New Mexico, Feb., 1939, pp. 18–20; the glossary in Wyoming: a Guide to Its History, Highways and People; New York, 1941, pp. 459–66; Nebraska Cowboy Talk, by Rudolph Umland, American Speech, Feb., 1942, pp. 73–75; Stock Jargon, in Nevada: a Guide to the Silver State; Portland (Ore.), n. d., pp. 75–78; Southwestern Speech, by Haldeen Braddy, American Speech, Dec., 1945, p. 306; Lingo of the Cowpoke, in the programme of the National Western Stock Show; Denver, Jan. 13–21, 1945, p. 42, and Waddies’ Lingo, by James F. Bender, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 20, 1946, p. 35. I am indebted for friendly aid to Messrs. Don Bloch, J. N. Beffel, L. J. Carrel, Don McCarthy, Fred Hamann, Frank Foster and Thomas Caldecott Chubb.

  3 The itinerant chautauqua is now extinct, though the Mother Church, established in 1874 at Chautauqua, N. Y., still exists. Many of the old-time chautauquans have become radio-crooners or public jobholders. I present a few specimens of their argot as relics of a past day, like those of the telegraphers. The itinerant chautauqua flourished from 1904 to 1932. See notes on it by J. R. Schultz in American Notes & Queries, Feb., 1942, p. 167, and Dec., 1943, p. 142.

  4 Said by J. R. Schultz, in Chautauqua Talk, American Speech, Aug., 1932, p. 408, to have been named after its inventor, Dr. Ott, a lecturer.

  5 This comes from the paper by J. R. Schultz, before cited, and from another by the same, American Speech, Oct., 1934, pp. 232–34. Schultz says that a performer working one was said to be on the sevens. This recalls on the—circus and on the heavy.

  1 These come mainly from The Language of the Buckeye, by Norman E. Eliason, American Speech, Dec., 1937, pp. 270–74.

  2 A Reporter at Large, New Yorker, Feb. 15, 1947, p. 59.

  3 A cigarmaker is said to break a bunch, not to make it.

  4 Traced by the DAE to 1893, but much older. Named after the Conestoga-wagon. See Supplement I, p. 233, and The Stogie Comes Into Its Own, by Richard McCardell, Facts, Aug., 1945, p. 83.

  5 A discussion of the names, mostly Spanish, of cigar shapes and colors would take us too far afield. The former are described, with illustrations, in Tobaccoland, by Carl Avery Werner; New York, 1922, pp. 386–96. Colors run from claro, the lightest, through colorado claro, colorado, colorado maduro (the typical tobacco color) and maduro to oscuro, the darkest. The machine is driving out the old-time cigarmakers. They have a rich folklore, and believe that every member of the craft, at death, is transmogrified into a jackass. Whenever a jackass passed a cigar-shop, c. 1890, the men stopped work and gave him three cheers, always professing to recognize some departed comrade.

  6 So far as I know, there is no report in print upon the argot used by clergymen in their professional bull-sessions. The Catholic Language, by Benjamin Musser, Ecclesiastical Review, Dec., 1926, pp. 573–83, is an amusing account of the errors made by non-Catholics (and by many Catholics) in using the technical terms of Holy Church. I have borrowed a few terms from it for the brief list below. For the speech of Quakers see the papers listed in AL4, p. 450, n. 1, and p. 589, n. 1. For that of Mormons see the latter note. I have also added a few terms not confined to the clergy, nor even to the saved.

  1 Sunday-school was coined by Robert Raikes (1735–1811), publisher of the Gloucester (England) Journal, who opened t
he first Sunday-school at Gloucester in 1780.

  2 The Episcopacy of Zion Methodist Will be Celebration Highlight, Pittsburgh Courier, July 27, 1946: “Bishops Lynwood Westinghouse Kyles, George Clinton Clement were among the outstanding episcopates of modern days.”

  3 Apparently obsolete. See Converted Catholic Magazine, Oct., 1943, p. 204.

  4 Novitiate in this sense is denounced by Father Musser, before cited, as an error made by “nine out of ten non-Catholics,” but the NED shows that it has been in good usage in England since 1655.

  5 AL4, p. 179, n. 3.

  6 Billy Sunday: Tabernacles and Sawdust Trails, by T. T. Frankenberg; Columbus (O.), 1917, p. 81: “The phrase originated during Mr. Sunday’s first campaign on Puget Sound. The use of sawdust and shavings made a particular appeal to the lumbermen who predominated in that region.” See also American Notes & Queries, Feb., 1946, p. 168.

  7 He is supposed to have an extraordinary facility for getting ecclesiastical preferment.

  8 These come from Cocker Cant, Baltimore Evening Sun, April 24, 1939, Sect. II, p. 17; English Cock-fighting, Living Age, June, 1937, pp. 350–52; Rooster Fight, by Wayne Gard, Southwest Review, Autumn, 1936, pp. 65–70, and High-Flyers, by Peter Tamony, San Francisco News-Letter & Wasp, July 28, 1939, p. 9.

  1 Cock-fighting has given the general speech many phrases, e.g., dead game, to stand the gaff, pitted against and to crow over.

  2 Some of these come from Life in a Putty-Knife Factory, by H. Allen Smith; Garden City (N.Y.), 1943, p. 158.

  3 This list is based upon one by F. O. Richey, published in the William Feather Magazine, Sept., 1943. The variants are from Johns Hopkins Jargon, by J. Louis Kuethe, American Speech, June, 1932, p. 331; a note by William Feather in the William Feather Magazine, Feb., 1944, and Cries of Crap Shooters, by Clinton Sanders, American Notes & Queries, June, 1942, pp. 42–43.

  4 Kuethe and Feather: eighter from Decatur.

  5 Kuethe, Feather and Sanders add from Boston, and Sanders offers an etymology.

  6 Kuethe omits the big.

  7 This is from Kuethe. Feather gives Nina from Carolina, or from Argentina. Richey says that “a nine seems to have no name.”

  8 Kuethe: cat-eyes.

  1 Kuethe: Captain Jimmy Hicks of the Horse Marines.

  2 Kuethe adds from Kokomo. A writer in American Notes & Queries, June, 1941, p. 43, suggests that this may be rhyming slang from little fo’ (four). This is disputed by D. W. Maurer in the same, Jan., 1945, p. 160. A writer in American Notes & Queries, Oct., 1943, p. 112, says that Little Joe picked the cotton is “a commonly accepted form.”

  3 Kuethe makes it Phoebe the preacher’s daughter.

  4 In Viggerish, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 31, 1943, p. 2, David Shilman suggests that it is an English loan from vicarage, suggested by the collection of tithes.

  5 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  6 These come mainly from Department Store Technical Expressions, by Alice Smart, American Speech, Dec., 1938, pp. 312–13 and Consumer Vocabulary, by Mamie Meredith, the same, Feb., 1939, p. 80.

  7 Ger. dreck, dirt.

  8 i.e., just looking.

  9 Mooch is old English slang for one who idles and hangs about. Partridge says that it may have some relation to the French mucher, to hide, or skulk.

  10 Miss Smart says that they are circled in red on the order-list.

  11 Ger. schlag, a blow or shock. Like many other terms in the vocabularies of the Jewish trades, it probably came in through Yiddish.

  1 These terms come from Stillers’ Argot, by Fred Hamann, American Speech, Oct., 1946, pp. 193–95; Scotch Whiskey, Forum, June, 1946, pp. 135–36 and 180–92, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  2 I take all these from A Dictionary of Dogdom Terms, by Bob Becker, Chicago Tribune, Oct. 13, 1939.

  3 The argot of farmers differs so much in different parts of the country that all I can do is to offer a few random specimens, chiefly from the Middle West. They come mainly from Middlewestern Farm English, by Russell T. Prescott, American Speech, April, 1937, pp. 102–07; Cornhusking and Other Terms, by Mamie Meredith, the same, Feb., 1938, pp. 19–24, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  1 “In the dictionary,” says Prescott, “one can find such terms as piggery and pigsty, which are rarely, if ever, used on American farms, but he will not find hog-lot or hog-house, which deserve recognition … as the terms commonly used.” This was published in 1937. Since then the DAE (1940) has listed both terms. It traces hog-lot to 1835 and hog-house to 1638.

  2 The word is an Americanism, and is traced by the DAE to 1887.

  3 For the argot of workers in the sugar-beet fields of the West see Sugar-Beet Language, by Levette J. Davidson, American Speech, Oct., 1930, pp. 10–15; for that of the hopfields, Hopfield Terms From Western New York, by J. R. Shulters, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Part V, 1922, pp. 182–83, and for that of English farmers, Pure English of the Soil, by William A. Craigie, S.P.E. Tract No. LXIV, 1945, pp. 79–107.

  4 Said to be from buffalo, and to have been suggested by the fact that the wealthy young men who belonged to the early volunteer fire-companies commonly wore buffalo-skin coats in Winter. See Running Down the Name Fire Buff, New York Sun, Nov. 16, 1937, p. 28. Other authorities say that it originated in the fact that many of the early firemen wore buff uniforms.

  1 That Word Potsy, by A. W. M., New York Sun, March 26, 1932: “From the piece of tin can, doubled and redoubled and stamped flat, which is kicked about by the juvenile player of the game potsy.”

  2 They are wide-bottomed and their ends are left outside rubber boots. The fireman sleeps with a shirt on, and when the man on watch yells “Get out!” the sleeper swings his feet out from under the blankets and steps into the turnouts.

  3 I am indebted here to Firemen Invent Their Own Slang, New York Sun, March 16, 1932; Fire Department Slanguage, by S. James Lynch, Writers’ Digest, Sept., 1941, pp. 23–24; Smoke Eaters Lingo, New Yorker, March 31, 1945, p. 41; A Preliminary Glossary of the New York City Firemen, by Leo Blond and Harold J. Jonas, American Notes & Queries, April, 1944, pp. 3–8; Where’s the Fire?, Better English, July-Aug., 1939, p. 39, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  4 These come from Schoonerisms, by David W. Maurer, American Speech, June, 1930, pp. 387–95, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  1 For the argot of crabbers see Crab Talk, by Mamie Meredith, American Speech, Aug., 1931, p. 465; for that of sealers, Sealing Nomenclature, by C. G. Porcher, the same, April, 1934, pp. 156–57, and Newfoundland Dialect Items, by George Allan England, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Part VIII, 1925, pp. 322–46, and for that of sports fishermen, Tackle Terminology, by a committee of the National Association of Angling and Casting Clubs; St. Louis, 1945.

  2 The queer lingo used in transmitting orders from table to kitchen was noted by a writer in the Detroit Free Press so long ago as Jan. 7, 1852, e.g., fried bedpost, mashed tambourine and roasted stirrups. In 1876 J. G. Holland, then editor of Scribner’s, discussed it in his Everyday Topics, p. 386. It was richly developed by the colored waiters who flourished in the 1870s and 80s but is now pretty well confined to the waitresses and countermen who glorify third-rate eating-houses. The following specimens come from Hash House Lingo, by Jack Smiley; Easton (Pa.), 1941; The Private Language of Eating Joints, Chicago Tribune, Nov. 12, 1940, p. 16; A Glossary of Café Terms, by Oran B. Bailey, American Speech, Dec., 1943, pp. 307–08; Curb Service, by Theodore Pratt, New Yorker, Jan. 8, 1938, pp. 48–49, and the Language of West Coast Culinary Workers, by Robert Shafer, American Speech, April, 1946, pp. 86–89. I am also indebted to Mr. Paul McPharlin.

  3 “A waitress,” says Shafer, before cited, “thinks any man drinking buttermilk ought to be in Arizona for his health.”

  1 Variety, Sept. 27, 1937, p. 63: “Curb-hopping is strictly an American enterprise. It originated during the 1925 Miami land boom, but since then has gained protagonists in practically every city of the United States.”

  2 Supplement I, p. 604.

  3 See also Hot
el-workers and Soda jerkers.

  4 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  1 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon. All come from New York City.

  2 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  3 Yiddish mechulle, spoiled, out of order, bankrupt. Ba’al is a generic designation for one performing a function, e.g., ba’al brith, the father of a boy at a circumcision; ba’al keria, one who reads the Torah in a synagogue.

  4 French chic, stylish.

  5 Never used for women’s garments

  6 Apparently a Yiddish loan.

  7 Ger. schneider, a tailor.

  1 Yid. schmus, talk.

  2 Most of these come from Lexicon of Trade Jargon. I am also indebted to The Glass Industry, by William Marks, Dialect Notes, Vol. I, Part VII, 1894, pp. 335–36.

  3 French tisard or tisart, the door of a glass furnace.

  4 From Lexicon of Trade Jargon.

  5 These come mainly from Golf Gab, by Anne Angel, American Speech, Sept., 1926, pp. 627–33, and A Caddy’s Compendium, by Margaret Erskine Cahill, the same, April, 1937, pp. 155–56.

  6 Associated Press dispatch from Jacksonville, Fla., March 15, 1946: “Professional Golfers Association tournament manager Fred Corcoran today coined a long-needed golfing term – bat, meaning one over par.”

  7 Peter Tamony says in Birdie and Eagle, San Francisco News-Letter & Wasp, June 9, 1939, p. 5, that it came in c. 1908, at first as bird. It is denounced as an Americanism, now in use in England, in Golf, by Bernard Darwin, Country Life (London), April 27, 1940. Bird, in the sense of any person or thing of excellence, is traced by the DAE to 1842.

  1 An Americanism. It came in with birdie.

  2 The full vocabulary of golf would fill pages. Some of its terms, e.g., stymie, have got into the general speech. It has also engendered African golf, crap-shooting, and barnyard-golf, horseshoe-pitching.

  3 The argot of nurses, interns and orderlies is mainly borrowed from that of their lords, the doctors, and hence runs to abbreviations, e.g., GU and TB, and cant terms designed to reassure patients, e.g., lues, syphilis, and new growth, cancer. The following come mainly from Hospital Talk, by Dorothy Barkley, American Speech, April 1927, pp. 312–14; Hospital Lingo, by Dorothy E. House, the same, Oct., 1938, pp. 227–29, and Lexicon of Trade Jargon. I have also borrowed a few from Berrey and Van den Bark, and am indebted to Dr. Kingsley Roberts, Mrs. Margaret R. George, Miss M. L. Hudson and Mr. John P. Trimmer.