Diary in America Volume I Part 21

The word great is oddly used for fine, splendid.

"She's the _greatest_ gal in the whole Union."

But there is one word which we must surrender up to the Americans as their _very own_, as the children say. I will quote a pa.s.sage from one of their papers:--

"The editor of the _Philadelphia Gazette_ is wrong in calling absquatiated a Kentucky _phrase_ (he may well say phrase instead of _word_.) It may prevail there, but its origin was in South Carolina, where it was a few years since regularly derived from the Latin, as we can prove from undoubted authority. By the way, there is a little _corruption_ is the word as the _Gazette_ uses it, _absquatalized_ is the true reading."

Certainly a word worth quarrelling about!

"Are you cold, miss?" said I to a young lady, who pulled the shawl closer over her shoulders.

"_Some_," was the reply.

The English _what_? implying that you did not hear what was said to you, is changed in America to the word _how_?

"I reckon", "I calculate", "I guess," are all used as the common English phrase, "I suppose." Each term is said to be peculiar to different states, but I found them used everywhere, one as often as the other. _I opine_, is not so common.

A specimen of Yankee dialect and conversation:--

"Well now, I'll tell you--you know Marble Head?"

"Guess I do."

"Well, then, you know Sally Hackett."

"No, indeed."

"Not know Sally Hackett? Why she lives at Marble Head."

"Guess I don't."

"You don't mean to say that?"

"Yes, indeed."

"And you really don't know Sally Hackett?"

"No, indeed."

"I guess you've heard talk of her?"

"No, indeed."

"Well, that's considerable odd. Now, I'll tell you--Ephraim Bagg, he that has the farm three miles from Marble Head--just as--but now, are you sure you don't know Sally Hackett?"

"No, indeed."

"Well, he's a pretty substantial man, and no mistake. He has got a heart as big as an ox, and everything else in proportion, I've a notion.

He loves Sal, the worst kind; and if she gets up there, she'll think she has got to Palestine (Paradise); ain't she a screamer? I were thinking of Sal myself, for I feel lonesome, and when I am thrown into my store promiscuous alone, I can tell you I have the blues, the worst kind, no mistake--I can tell you that. I always feel a kind o' queer when I sees Sal, but when I meet any of the other gals I am as calm and cool as the milky way," etcetera, etcetera.

The verb "to fix" is universal. It means to do anything.

"Shall I _fix_ your coat or your breakfast first?" That is--"Shall I brush your coat, or _get ready_ your breakfast first!"

_Right away_, for immediately or at once, is very general.

"Shall I fix it right away?"--i.e. "Shall I do it immediately?"

In the West, when you stop at an inn, they say--

"What will you have? Brown meal and common doings, or white wheat and chicken _fixings_;"--that is, "Will you have pork and brown bread, or white bread and fried chicken?"

Also, "Will you have a _feed_ or a _check_?"--A dinner, or a luncheon?

In _full blast_--something in the extreme.

"When she came to meeting, with her yellow hat and feathers, wasn't she _in fall blast_?"

But for more specimens of genuine Yankee, I must refer the reader to Sam Slick and Major Downing, and shall now proceed to some farther peculiarities.

There are two syllables--um, hu--which are very generally used by the Americans as a sort of reply, intimating that they are attentive, and that the party may proceed with his narrative; but, by inflection and intonation, these two syllables are made to express dissent or a.s.sent, surprise, disdain, and (like Lord Burleigh's nod in the play) a great deal more. The reason why these two syllables have been selected is, that they can be p.r.o.nounced without the trouble of opening your mouth, and you may be in a state of listlessness and repose while others talk.

I myself found them very convenient at times, and gradually got into the habit of using them.

The Americans are very local in their phrases, and borrow their similes very much from the nature of their occupations and pursuits. If you ask a Virginian or Kentuckian where he was born, he will invariably tell you that he was _raised_ in such a county--the term applied to horses, and, in breeding states, to men also.

When a man is tipsy (spirits being made from grain), they generally say he is _corned_.

In the West, where steam-navigation is so abundant, when they ask you to drink they say, "Stranger, will you take in wood?"--the vessels taking in wood as fuel to keep the steam up, and the person taking in spirits to keep _his_ steam up.

The roads in the country being cut through woods, and the stumps of the trees left standing, the carriages are often brought up by them. Hence the expression of, "Well, I am _stumped_ this time."

I heard a young man, a farmer in Vermont, say, when talking about another having gained the heart of a pretty girl, "Well, how he contrived to _fork_ into her young affections, I can't tell; but I've a mind to _put my whole team on_, and see if I can't run him off the road."

The old phrase of "straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel," is, in the Eastern states, rendered "straining at a _gate_, and swallowing a _saw-mill_."

To strike means to attack. "The Indians have struck on the frontier,"--"A rattle-snake _struck_ at me."

To make tracks--to walk away. "Well, now, I shall make tracks;"--from foot-tracks in the snow.

Clear out, quit, and put--all mean "be off." "Captain, now, you _hush_ or _put_"--that is, "Either hold your tongue, or be off." Also, "Will you shut, mister?"--i.e. will you shut your mouth? i.e. hold your tongue?

"Curl up"--to be angry--from the panther and other animals when angry raising their hair. "Rise my dandee up," from the human hair; and a nasty idea. "Wrathy" is another common expression. Also, "Savage as a meat-axe."

Here are two real American words:--

"Sloping"--for slinking away.

"Splunging," like a porpoise.