The South has retained fully as many old Eng lish words and pronunciations as New England, and has originated some of the most ex pressive terms used in ordinary conversation, a number of which, by migration, have been domesticated in the West and on the Pacific coast. Among them are afeared, afraid; am ber, expectoration produced by chewing tobacco ( Va., Carolina) ; beast, horse; branch, a stream of any size; bucket, pail ; brogan, a kind of boat (Chesapeake Bay) ; castaway, overturned; een tricol, central (Va.) ; to chunk, to throw a mis sile; coppen, cow-pens; coin plectcd, having a cer tain kind of complexion; condeript, thrown into fits (Ky.) ; corn-dodger; cracker, a poor white (Ga., Fla.) ; dinghy, a kind of row-boat (Fla.) ; dismal, a swampy tract of land (N. C.) ; doeious, for docile; donocI, or donnock, a stone (South west) ; rscalan, a kind of coin (La.) ; evening, afternoon (also in Illinois) : fca:c or fee:e, an excited state: lice or phyec, a small dog. cur: French, anything distasteful (Va., Md.) ; grund py, groundpea (Tenn.) : gum or bee-guni, a hive made from a hollow tree: gumbo,okra, or a dish made of it : gumbo, a patois; hammock or hum mock, a peculiar kind of land, often hilly (Fla., Tex.); hoc cake, a corn cake once baked on a hoe; ho/pcn, helped (biblical) ; honey-fogling, for cheating or coaxing: hot, hit; howdy, how do you do?; human, for person; -Iconic's, James (Ind., Va.) ; hirer, cover: lane, any inclosed road: lightwood, pine chips or knots; marooning, pic nicking or traveling by carriage; manimoxed, seriously injured; marvel, for marble; maverick, an unbranded yearling (Texas and Southwest) ; million, melon; neederssity, necessity; or'nary, contemptible; paint, a spotted horse; pearl, lively, brisk; pine-tag, pine needle; a polt, a blow; pone, bread of Indian meal; powerful, very; quarters, farm buildings or out-houses in habited by negroes; caner sniffle, a malignant act (Ga.) ; rantankerous, quarrelsome (Ga.) ; to reckon, to suppose or conclude; rock, stone; roustabout; •avigerous or surrigrous, fierce, alert: slash, low ground or an opening in the woods: right smart, great or considerable; to set-iliac, to flinch (Tex.) ; shygodlin, obliquely (Tex.) ; st•ns'', a narrow channel of water; taek•y, neglected or dowdy: to terrify, to co erce; to tote, to carry; trash, worthless or low born persons, especially poor white trash; to up, used as a verb; used, used to: you all, of any number of persons; you-uns, for you.
The West, using the term in its old sense,which included the interior States as well as the North west and Southwest, in addition to words derived from the French and Spanish, some of which have already been cited, has brought into its vocabu lary many peculiar words and expressions. Such are after-clap, a demand made after a bargain is closed; Arkansas toothpick, a kind of bowie knife ; bad inan, a murderer; bell mare, the horse leading a drove of mules (Southwest) ; to bear off, to separate a stray "brand" by rid ing between it and the herd (Southwest) ; bode wash (bois de roche), dried cow-dung used as fuel (Southwest) ; to build, to make shoes (Ohio) ; to buss, to strike; catawampous or eatawamptious, terribly or completely; country, for State or section; cowbrute (Mo.) ; dog gery, a grogshop; drink, river; galoot, to take a gird, for to make an effort; to hustle; keener, a sharp man; lace! (lave), get up! or rise up! (Mississippi Valley) : loeocd, for fren zied, Sp. loco (Kansas and Southwest) ; long sweetening, molasses (Iowa, from New England); main traveled road, highway; naked possessor, one without title to his farm (Southwest) ; old ermost, oldest; plumb sure; to pull foot, to hasten; to raise, to obtain; robbilw, pemmi can boiled with flour and water (Northwest) ; to slosh 'round, to brag, also to frequent saloons (South and West) ; sugar or sugar-tree, maple; sun-up, sunrise: swinger, the middle horses in a team of six; tenderfoot, a new-coiner; to trash (to cover) a trail; every whipstick, for continually, often; to want down or up (Ill.) ;
worm (or snake) fence; to zit, to sound like a bullet striking the water. The Pacific slope is responsible for adobe, soil from which adobe bricks are made; to back, to camp out without ladies (Cal.) ; Bostons, white men in gen eral (Or. Indian) ; coulee, a rocky valley (Or.) ; claim, land to which one has a legal right; claim-jumper, one who forcibly takes an other's claim; to coyote, to sink a small shaft (Cal.) ; diggings, a particular locality; hardpan ; heeled, for armed; pay-streak, a profitable lode or vein; rusher, a person going to the mines; tunglefoot, bad liquor. Local usage differs great ly in connection with articles in common use. The Eastern paper bag is in the central West a sack; a sciatic or pail is a bucket. The British perambulator is in the East a baby carriage, and in the Central West a baby buggy or cab. A comfortable is a comfort. A distinction, further more, should be made between words that are used in large cities and those that are in the main confined to small communities. In the country, people hire help and keep girls; in the cities they have servants or maids; the city nurse is lengthened in the country to nurse girl. The original English folks is now a provincialism in this country. It should be noted that most of the New England words and forms used by Low ell in the Biglou' Papers are provincialisms. Some Eastern provincialisms are in general use in the Central West.
Early writers on Americanisms were wont to stamp every odd or vulgar word and expression as American, with the lamentable result. as Richard Grant White complained, of creating a belief that there is a distinctive American lan guage, "a barbarous, hybrid dialect, grafted upon English stock;" the truth being that most of the so-called Americanisms were brought to this country by its early settlers. English, Scotch Irish, Dutch, Germans, etc., and that many of them are now used only by the unlettered. The language of the "stage Yankee," and that of the characters in dialect-stories, Northern and South ern, are with few exceptions English, provincial or obsolete in the mother country, and not "American" in the true sense of the word. In the county of Suffolk, according to Lounsbury, the following "Americanisms" were current as re cently as 1S23: Apple-fritters, by gum, chow, cute, damnation, gal, gawky, boss, ninny-hammer, ride like blazes, sass (sauce), sappy, and ton tram. White prepared a long list of words and phrases supposed to be indigenous, and proved their British origin by citing early dates at which they appear in literature, or the names of authors in whose works they occur. Selecting from this list, and indicating by the letter "a." words known to be ancient, b' "iii." such as are still used in provincial speech, and by "Bible," King James' version, we submit the following: To admire, in the sense of to wish eagerly (Chap man's Homer, 1655) ; to advocate (Milton); apart, aside (Bulwer) ; baggage, luggage (Field ing, T. Hughes) ; blizzard (m.) ; blow, boastful talk (a. ins) ; to bolt, to rush or escape (Dry den) ; bosom, applied to .a man (Shakespeare) ; bull-doze (W. Scott) ; bureau, for chest of drawers (Fielding, Hare) ; by the skin of one's teeth ( Bible ) ; cataniount ( a. ) ; chum ( 1530, m. ) ; chore, light work (Ben Jonson) ; clean gone (Bible) ; elcrer, good-natured ( Elizabethan writ ers) ; conclude, resolve (Tyndale, Fronde) : cre vasse (Chaucer) ; deck of cards (Shakespeare) ; divine, clergyman (W. Scott, G. Eliot) ; elect, for conclude or determine (Lord Thurlow, kin) ; to enjoy poor health (m.) ; fall, for au tumn (Cairne, 1552; Fronde) ; feel to, as in the expression, "I feel to rejoice" (m.) ; to fellOw ship (Chancey) ; fix, to put in place or order (Farquhar, Sterile); fleshy, stout (Chaucer, Prof. Owen) ; folks, people ( Byron, Podoer Lyt ton) ; gent (Pope) ; a good time (Swift) ; grain, any cereal (Wiclif) ; guess, think or suppose (Wiclif, Milton, A. Trollope) ; gumption (a.