pipe-laying, plank, primary, reconstruction, salt river, shin-plaster, spellbinder, squatter sovereignty, Greenbacker, wire-puller, Yazoo fraud.
Words derived from foreign languages are numerous, and one philologist (W. W. Crane) asserts that, though few are intelligible to English people, they are more extensively used by Englishmen than is generally supposed, and “form the really distinctive features of what may be termed the American language.” Thus, from the Spanish we have in corrupted or contracted form, creole (criollo), garrote (garrota), jerked beef (charqui), key, a small island (cayo), lasso (lazo), mustang (mesteño), pickaninny, contracted to pickney in S. C. (pequeño niño), Sambo (Zambo, a person of negro and Indian blood); stampede (estampedo); and such literally appropriated words as adobe, bonanza, cañon, and mesa. From the French have been obtained among many, bayou (boyau, a trench), cache or cash (cacher), chowder (chandière), shivaree (charivari), metif, an Indian half-breed (métif or métis), and the identical butte, levee, portage, prairie, and voyageur. From the Dutch have come boss, an overseer or superior (baas); cold slaw, cabbage salad (kool slaa); cruller (kruller, to twist); hook, a point of land (hoek, a corner); noodles, an imitation of macaroni (noodlejes); overslough, to supersede or defeat (orerslaan, to skip or pretermit); stoop or stoup, the step or steps of a house (stoep). Kill, a small stream, retains both its old sound and spelling, and Santa Claus (Klaas) receives as much respect as before the slight change in his name. The Germans have contributed bummer (bummler, a braggart, a wanderer), pretzel, and dude.
From the Indian we have chinquapin, a kind of oak (Va. Algonquian che-chicnamin); hominy (Va. Algonquian, custathominy); moccasin (Mass. Algonquian, mockisin); opossum (appassum); powwow (powan, a prophet or conjurer); raccoon (Algonquian, arougheun); sachem (sakemo); skunk (Abnakis, sceancu); succotash (Nanaheganset, mesicmotash); toboggan (odabogan); tomahawk (Algonquian, tamahagan, a war-club); wigwam (Natic, weeewahm) . Among words introduced or invented by the Southern negroes are: brottus, a small gift (Ga.); buccra, a white man; corn (harvest) songs (Md.); cracklings or goody-bread, bread containing roasted pork-rinds; enty? is that so? (Sea Islands); goober, a peanut (W. African guja, or Guinea gobbe-gobbe, Va. and N. C.); lagniappe, a tradesman's gratuity (Sp. ñapa, La.); moonack, a mythical animal; pickaninny, and pinder, a peanut (Fla.); while the Chinese word kowtow or kotow, salutation by prostration, has (or had) a limited use in the sense of obsequious politeness.
In the matter of pronunciation, slight differences exist. The word trait, for instance, is pronounced tray by the English, the i in sliver is lengthened by them, and schedule is commonly pronounced shedule. We may mention here that cheerful retains in some parts of the South its old pronunciation, cherful. In the pronunciation of proper names, English and American usages frequently disagree. In England Ralph is pronounced Rafe; Brownell, Parnell, etc., are accented on the first syllable; the last syllable of Gladstone is sounded short. With English surnames and geographical names cultivated Americans should seek to follow English usage. In Christian names Englishmen generally use only the first, while Americans always give the full form. In England we read of Ralph Emerson, Edgar Poe, etc. What have been termed by Grant Allen “Americanisms in spelling,” examples of which are labor, offenses, and theater, are undoubtedly the result of the extensive use of Webster's spelling-books and dictionary.
Americanisms are classified by Reeves as follows: (1) Eastern dialects; (2) Southern; (3) Western; (4) Pacific or mining; and he adds as a possible (5) English-Dutch (German) of Pennsylvania. This convenient arrangement enables us to separate such words and phrases as are limited to particular sections or localities (provincialisms) from those that may be called national. Beginning with New England, we have: to admire, for to like, e.g., “I should admire to go;” to allot, or 'lot, for intend; barm, for yeast; be, for am or are; bettermost; blob, a blossom; blowth, blossoming time; bungtown copper, a counterfeit; to calculate, for to infer or suppose; empti'n's, any dregs; to fail up; to fay, for to fit; fore-chamber, a front bedroom (Me.); gawnicus, a dolt; grayslick, a glassy stretch of water (Me.); Hessian, as a term of reproach; like, without a specified object, as, “How did you like?” (a place, person); long-favored, tall; mush-muddle, a potpie (Cape Cod); pew-cart, a box-like carriage (Nantucket); pleasant, for pleasing; pokeloken, a marsh (Me.); priest, for a minister of any denomination; pung, a kind of sleigh; rifle, a whetstone for scythes; sconce, for discretion; to scep, to pour through a sieve or hole; slip, for pew; spero, a commonplace entertainment, “small doings” (Vt.); staddle, a sapling; suant or suent, level, uniform; to sugar off, to boil maple syrup down until it grains; tackling, for harness; timbers, for skeleton of a whale; torsh, the youngest child (Cape Cod); to train, to move briskly (like the militia on “training day”), to frolic; vestry, the chapel or lecture-room of a non-liturgical church; v'y'ge, for voyage; wopper (or whopper) jawed; wicket, a hut or shelter of boughs (Me.); winegar, for vinegar (Essex Co., Mass.); York shilling, ninepence. In New York State, among localisms derived from the Dutch, are bockey, a gourd-dipper; fyke, a bow-net; hoople, a child's hoop; pile, an arrow, and scup, a swing, a name still used by children of foreign parentage on the “east side” of New York City. Slip, an opening between wharves, is apparently an indigenous English word; the provincial English duff, dough or paste, signifies, in the Adirondacks, fallen and matted hemlock needles; and dimpy (probably from the English dimpsy, a kind of preserve) is the name given in some places to a tea-party, or a small social gathering at which refreshments are served. New Jersey, settled, like New York, both by English and Dutch, preserves in remote localities some Old World words, or perversions of the same; for example, blickic, a tin pail; to heir to, to inherit; jag, a small load; mux, disorder, and piece, a cold meal hastily prepared, or one for farm hands. Examples of the provincialisms of Pennsylvania, which were introduced by the English, Scotch-Irish, and Germans, and in many instances have been carried beyond her borders by emigration, are: after-night, for after candle-light; Aprile, for April (Cumberland Valley); barrick, a hill; bealing, suppurating; brickle, brittle; dipsey, the sinker of a fishline; dozy, timber brittle from decay; fouty,
