I’m intrigued by my mother’s occasional use of the Scottish “wee,” as in “I’m a wee bit cold.” Why? Because our family came from Scotland hundreds of years ago, and I’m fascinated by the idea that there might, after all these years, be a linguistic–almost archaeological–clue as to our origins.
Bartlett is known for his Dictionary of Americanisms (1848), which might provide a map as to where you are from:
| If you say this, | you may be from here: |
| plug ugly | Baltimore |
| to meet up with | Georgia |
| crotchety | New England |
| folks | New England |
| happy as a clam | New England |
| stocky | New England |
| to play hookey | New York |
| to muss (up your hair or clothes) | New York |
| pinky; to pinky swear | New York |
| pit (the stone of a fruit) | New York |
| Yes sirree bob | New York |
| to crown (Press a man’s hat down over his face) | New York |
| spook | New York |
| stoop (front step of a house) | New York |
| peaked (thin from sickness) | North |
| euphemistic oaths: dadburn, dadgummit, etc. | Northeast |
| the whole kit and caboodle | Northern States and New England |
| fizzle out | Ohio |
| “Shall I go to market and get a couple of cherries?” where “couple means “a few.” | Pennsylvania |
| to sock (Press a man’s hat down over his face) | Rhode Island |
| cavorting | South |
| a freeze, as a term for frost weather | South |
| How come? | South |
| right, as in “It rained right hard” | South |
| scrawny | South |
| shin dig | South |
| to sidle out | South |
| sun up | South |
| I will come and tell you goodbye | South |
| neck of the woods | Southwest |
| blather | West |
| to chisel or gouge | West |
| to go whole hog | West |
| to make tracks | West |
| not overly so | West |
| to be in a pinch | West |
| strangely formed factitious words such as abskize, absquatulate, catawampously, exflunctify, obscute, slantendicular | West |
| intensive and extravagant epithets both as adjectives and adverbs such as awful, powerful, monstrous, dreadful, mighty, almighty, and all-fired | West and South |
| A tendency to exaggeration: “This is the finest cow in the State of South Carolina,” “The handsomest woman south of the Potomac” and “making bushels of money” | West and South |
| cahoot | West and South |
| fixings | West and South |
| to splurge | West and South |
| stamping ground | West and South |
| sure enough | West and South |
If you’re fascinated by American town names, as I am (“Hell, Michigan”; “Truth or Consequences, New Mexico”), then you will like Bartlett’s explanation of how American place names changed:
The Indian names seem to have prevailed till the Revolution (e.g., Mississippi). Then came a burst of patriotism among the settlers, many of whom doubtless had served in the war, and every new place was christened with the names of the warriors and statesmen of the day. Thus arose Washington County, Washington Village, Washington Hollow, Jefferson County, etc. The State of New York has thus perpetuated in her towns and villages the names of Adams, Jay, Lafayette, Hamilton, Madison, Pinckney, Putnam, Pulaski, Schuyler, De Kalb, Steuben, Sullivan, Gates, and Wayne. The names of statesmen and generals, however, did not suffice for the patriotism of our early pioneers, for we find interspersed among them the names of Freedom, Freetown, Freeport, Independence, Liberty, Victory, Hopewell, Harmony, Concord, and Union.
Next comes the classical period when towns were christened by the names of such men as Homer, Virgil, Solon, Ovid, Cato, Euclid, Brutus, Pompey, Tully, Cicero, Aurelius, Scipio, Ulysses, Seneca, Hannibal, Hector, Romulus, Lysander, Manlius, Camillus, and Marcellus or of such places as Athens, Sparta, Marathon, Troy, Corinth, Pharsalia, Palmyra, Utica, Smyrna, Rome, and Carthage.
Testimony to the piety to say nothing of the good taste of our forefathers is also afforded by the occurrence of such names as Eden, Babylon, Sodom, Jerusalem, Jericho, Hebron, Goshen, Bethany, Bethpage, Bethlehem, and Sharon. Distinguished men in English history as Milton, Addison, Clarendon, Dryden, Scott, Byron, Chesterfield, Hume, Marlborough, and Junius have towns christened with their names. But not even a pond, a hollow or a swamp has been honored with the name of Shakspeare.
The battle fields of the Mexican war are commemorated in eighteen Buena Vistas, sixteen Montereys, nine Palo Altos, and two Resacas. And the names of its heroes have given birth to names like Taylor, Taylorville, Worth, Worthville, Pierce, Pierceville, Piercetown, Pierceland, Pierce Point, Polk, Polkville, Polktown, Polk City, Polk Patch, Polk Precinct, Polk Run and Quitman.
In California many places have been absurdly named from some trifling incident connected with the first settlement, such as Hangtown, Fiddletown, Shirt Tail Canyon, Whiskey Gulch, Port Wine, Diggings, Humbug Flat, Murderer’s Bar, Flapjack Canyon, Yankee Jim’s, Jackass, Guleh, Red Dog, Traveller’s Rest, and Fair Play.
Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms made me realize that Mark Twain’s use of seven (!) different dialects in Huckleberry Finn weren’t literary license but probably an accurate rendering of how people in the West actually talked.
Are there any odd expressions that persist in your family?
Sources:
- Wordcloud from http://worditout.com
- Extensive quotes from Bartlett’s Dictionary of Americanisms at https://books.google.com/books/about/Dictionary_of_Americanisms.html?id=zLECAAAAIAAJ
- Information about Huckleberry Finn from https://www.jstor.org/stable/2925388?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
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