American Language Supplement 2 (54 page)

5
The Speech of Spicewood, Texas,
American Speech
, Oct., 1945, pp. 187–91.

6
Some Americanisms From Texas in 1848, Feb., 1944, pp. 69–70.

7
Also found in Maine.

8
She suggested that it might be connected with the English
larrikin
, a street rowdy. Partridge says that
larrikin
is “originally and mainly Australian.”

1
There is a glossary in Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State, in the American Guide Series; Austin, 1940, pp. 669–70. It is chiefly made up of Spanish loans, with a few cattlemen’s terms added. There is also a glossary in Sure Enough, How Come?, by Leslie Turner; San Antonio, 1943, pp. 107–09, and many localisms occur in Texas Brags, by John Randolph; Houston, 1944. See also Texas Speaks Texan, by John T. Flanagan,
Southwest Review
, Spring, 1946, pp. 191–92. I am indebted for various helps to Mrs. Elizabeth M. Stover, of Dallas; Judge Theodore Mack, of Fort Worth; Wilmer R. Park, of Lampasas; Miss Helen Sue Gaines, of Richland; Charles H. Hogan, of Kansas City (Mo.); William N. Stokes, Jr., of Houston, and Gordon Gunter, of Rockport.

2
I am indebted here to Mrs. Pauline R. Kibbe and Miss Myrtle L. Tanner.

3
The Language of the “Saints,”
American Speech
, April, 1933, pp. 30–33.

1
New York claimed it until after the Revolution, though the Green Mountain Boys had been fighting for independence since
c
. 1770. The State was admitted to the Union on March 4, 1791: it was the first to be admitted after the original thirteen.

2
Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England, by Hans Kurath; Providence (R.I.), 1939, p. 19.

3
Linguistic Atlas of New England, Map 384.

4
Words From West Brattleboro, Vt., by Wiliam E. Mead,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. III, Part VI, 1910, pp. 452–55.

5
Statement to the press at Rapid City, S. D., Aug. 2, 1927.

6
A Word-List From East Alabama, by L. W. Payne, Jr.,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. III, Part IV, 1908, p. 298. Schele de Vere, in Americanisms: The English of the New World; New York, 1872, p. 453, listed it as in universal use in the United States “by low-bred people.” The DAE traces it to 1829, when it appeared in the
Virginia Literary Museum
.

1
Fithian’s journal from 1767 to 1774 was published by the Princeton University Press in 1900. See its pp. 235–36. I am indebted here to Philip Vickers Fithian’s Observations on the Language of Virginia (1774), by Claude M. Newlin,
American Speech
, Dec., 1928, p. 110.

2
For example, on pp. 110 and 111.

3
Mrs. Anne Royall as an Observer of Dialects, by M. M. Mathews,
American Speech
, Jan., 1927, pp. 204–07.

4
For example, a sage signing himself Simeon Smallfry, who contributed a short article entitled Improprieties of Speech to the
Southern Literary Messenger
, 1857, pp. 222–23. This writer, after describing the elision of
r
in Virginia speech and the tendency to substitute the neutral vowel for
i
in such words as
possible
, cautioned his fellow Virginians against mocking Down East speech, then the chief butt of the national humorists. “As party names,” he said, “are useful in giving a bodily form at which faction may hurl its missiles, thus facilitating the indulgence of men’s natural tendency to hate and revile each other, so differences of language are hostile badges which guide, concentrate and inflame local animosity.… Difference of mere dialect is a greater cause of enmity than total difference of language, partly … because such near similarity implies relationship, and relations, when at variance, are always the bitterest enemies; partly, for the reason that slight differences commonly occasion the greatest animosities – that a heretic is deemed worse than an infidel, and a member of an opposite party in our own country is more hated than a foreign enemy.”

5
Publications of the Modern Language Association
, pp. 185–99.

6
Richmond, 1889; second ed., 1912.

7
Privately published at Davidson (N.C.), 1927. This was “a dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of Virginia in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy” in 1920. In Dec., 1925 Shew-make published part of it in
Modern Language Notes
, pp. 489–92 as Laws of Pronunciation in Eastern Virginia. He has also published Distinctive Virginia Pronunciation,
American Speech
, Feb., 1943, pp. 33–38, and a note on the
ai
diphthong,
American Speech
, April, 1945, pp. 152–53.

1
Publication of the American Dialect Society, No. 5
, May, 1946.

2
A Phonographic Expedition to Williamsburg, Va.,
American Speech
, Feb., 1931, pp. 161–72; Two Notes on Virginia Speech (with William Brown Meloney),
American Speech
, Dec., 1930, pp. 94–96; Delmarva Speech,
American Speech
, Dec., 1933, pp. 56–63.

3
Some Virginia Provincialisms,
Quarterly Journal of Speech
, April, 1940, pp. 262–69; The Sounds of Virginia Speech,
American Speech
, Dec., 1943, pp. 261–72; The Speech of the Shenandoah Valley,
American Speech
, Dec., 1937, pp. 284–88; Notes on Virginia Speech,
American Speech
, April, 1941, pp. 112–20.

4
Terms From Lynchburg, Va.,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Part IV, 1916, p. 302.

5
The Treatment of
au
in Virginia,
Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Phonetic Sciences
, 1936, pp. 122
ff
.

6
A Word-List From Virginia and North Carolina,
Publication of the American Dialect Society, No. 2
, Nov., 1944, pp. 38–52.

7
Virginia,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Part II, 1914, pp. 158–60.

8
Broad
A
in Virginia,
American Speech
, Feb., 1940, p. 38.

9
Dialect Notes on Records of Folk Songs From Virginia (with Archibald A. Hill),
American Speech
, Dec., 1933, pp. 52–56.

10
Virginia Expressions,
American Speech
, Dec., 1936, pp. 372–73.

11
A Word-List From Virginia,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Part III, 1915, pp. 177–93.

12
Comment on A Word-List From Virginia,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Part V, 1916, pp. 349–50.

13
Dialect in Eastern Virginia and Western North Carolina,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Part II, 1914, p. 167.

14
Word-Hunting in Southern Maryland and Virginia, a paper read before the Present-day English section of the Modern Language Association at Boston, Dec. 28, 1940. Not printed, but reported in summary in the Richmond (Va.)
Times-Dispatch
, Dec. 29. I have had access to it by the courtesy of Dr. Hench.

15
A Word-List From Virginia and North Carolina,
Publication of the American Dialect Society No. 6
, Nov., 1946.

1
Two Notes on Virginia Speech, before cited.

2
This is the second edition of 1912. The first edition of 1899 ran to 435. The second is augmented by the addition of a list of county names, with their derivations, and another of Indian place-names. The latter includes some names from Maryland and others that are not Indian.

1
This is not peculiar to Virginia, but is the official style of the
Congressional Record
. See Supplement I, p. 122, n. 1.

1
pp. 6, 7, 9 and 20.

2
In Survivals in American Educated Speech,
Bookman
, July, 1900, pp. 446–50, S. D. McCormick argued that this
y
was one of the hallmarks of F. F. V. (
i.e.
, first families of Virginia) speech, and “a recognized shibboleth of culture.” He said that it appeared before
a
when followed by
n
as well as
r
, as in
cyandle
and
cyandor
. Some of his examples were
cyarcass, Cyarlyle, cyardinal, cyartoon, cyartridge, cyarpenter, disgyise, gyide
(
guide
),
cyarbon, gyarlic, gyarment, cyarbuncle
and
cyargo
.

3
i.e.
, the Boston
a
.

1
This has been disputed. Said an anonymous Southerner, obviously a Virginian, writing in the Contributors’ Club,
Atlantic Monthly
, July, 1909, pp. 135–38: “We do not drop the final
r
altogether, as many writers of Southern dialect falsely assert, but we do give it the sound of
ah
.”

2
Shewmake’s dissertation includes a review of previous studies of Virginia speech, a note on its use in dialect stories, and an attempt to indicate how it would sound in a reading of part of The Pickwick Papers.

3
He had been content with three in Some Virginia Provincialisms, 1940, to wit, Tidewater, the Piedmont and the Shenandoah Valley.

1
The Peopling of Virginia, by R. Bennett Bean; Boston, 1938.

2
On the North Carolina line, due south of Charlottesville.

3
In the Shenandoah Valley.

4
Also in the Valley, about half way between Augusta county and the Potomac.

1
He has been quoted at length in Section 2 of the present chapter, in the discussion of American
a
.

1
A Word-List From Northwestern United States,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. V, Part I, pp. 22–29. This list was not confined to Washington, but included terms from Oregon and Idaho.

1
Dialect Words and Phrases From West-Central West Virginia, May, 1927, pp. 347–67. The first account of the speech of the State that I am aware of was in Dialectical Studies in West Virginia, by Sylvester Primer,
Publications of the Modern Language Association
, 1891, pp. 161–70. It was of small value.

1
West Virginia Dialect,
American Speech
, Aug., 1928, p. 456.

2
Woofter had called attention to
eetch
in 1927.

3
Idioms in West Virginia,
American Speech
, Feb., 1936, p. 63. Most of these seem to show Pennsylvania German influence.

4
West Virginia Peculiarities,
American Speech
, April, pp. 155–56.

1
But
gush
, he said, never becomes
goosh
.

2
Private communication, April 9, 1944.

3
Mr. Ben D. Keller, of Fayetteville; private communication, April 23, 1937.

4
Mixed Bloods of the Upper Monongahela Valley, West Virginia,
Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences
, Jan. 15, 1946, pp. 1–13. There are many similar groups of mixed bloods, always of low economic status, in the Eastern States, notably the Wesorts of southern Maryland, the Nanticokes of Delaware, and the Malungeons of southwestern Virginia, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. The last named are supposed to be partly of Portuguese descent.

1
Some New England Words in Wisconsin,
Language
, Oct.-Dec., 1941, pp. 324–39. In this paper Cassidy presents a map showing the main currents of immigration, and describes his method of collecting material.

2
Word-List From Southwestern Wisconsin,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. V, Part VI, pp. 233–40.

3
From Wisconsin Sources, Oct., pp. 326–27.

4
In 1942 he read a paper before the Indianapolis meeting of the Linguistic Society of America on Unstressed Final
o
in Wisconsin Speech, but so far as I know it has not been published.

1
Wisconsin’s Own Language, April 25, 1947. I am indebted for this and the following to Mr. J. A. Kapmarski.

2
Milwaukee’s Odd English, Milwaukee
Journal
, May 9, 1947.

3
Other State Languages, Milwaukee
Journal
, May 5, 1947.

4
The Territory was organized in 1868, but the State was not admitted to the Union until July 10, 1890.

5
The Yellowstone became a national park in 1872.

6
The name of a tribe of local Indians. It was given to them by the early French (Fr.
coteau
, a knoll or hillock), apparently in reference to the country they inhabited.

7
Philadelphia, pp. 223–33.

8
Badlands
is traced by the DAE, in Western use, to 1851,
butte
to 1805,
cañon
to 1834,
geyser
to 1854,
mustang
to 1808 and
pemmican
to 1804

1
Vol. III, Part VII, pp. 550–51.

2
The DAE does not list it in this sense, but traces it, in the transferred sense of a waitress, to 1898.

3
Wyoming: a Guide to its History, Highways and People; New York, 1941, pp. 459–66.

4
Note on Dialect in the Uinta Mountains of Wyoming, by Wilson O. Clough,
American Speech
, April, 1936, pp. 190–92.

5
Sourdough
, meaning a prospector who carries a lump of fermented dough to use as a leaven in making bread, was in use in California long before gold was discovered on the Yukon. It is not listed in the DAE, and neither is to
mush
. The latter, meaning to travel on foot, usually with a dog-team, is said by the NED Supplement to be “apparently from the French
marchez
or
marchons
, the command given to the dogs.”

1
American Notes & Queries
, March, 1947, p. 183.

2
I am indebted here to Mr. Nicola Cerri, Jr.

3
I am indebted here to Mr. Dery, who has not yet published his observations.