American Language (35 page)

There have been bitter etymological battles over a number of American nouns, some of them coming into good usage,
e.g., ballyhoo, hobo, hokum, jazz, jitney, maverick, sundae
and
wobbly
. The dictionaries try to connect
ballyhoo
with the name of
Ballyholly
, a village in County Cork, Ireland, and I did the same in my last edition, but no relationship has ever been demonstrated. George Milburn, who has spent much time in an investigation of circus words, tells me that old circus men say that it is a blend of
ballet
and
whoop
, but this also sounds somehow improbable. Another correspondent, Charles Wolverton, has it from an old-time carnival man, W. O. Taylor, that
ballyhoo
originated on the Midway of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, and is an imitation of the cry of the dervishes in the Oriental Village, to wit,
b’Allah hoo
, meaning “Through God it is.” “Webster’s New International Dictionary” (1934) and Ernest Weekley in his “Etymological Dictionary of Modern English” (1921) say that the origin of
hobo
is unknown, and the Oxford Dictionary attempts no etymology. The Oxford’s first example of its use is from an article by Josiah Flynt in the
Contemporary Review
for August, 1891. In that article Flynt simply said that “the tramp’s name for himself and his fellows is
hobo.
” The word was hardly new at that time; a verb,
to hobo
, followed soon afterward. In
American Speech
for June, 1929, Captain H. P. Wise, apparently an Army officer, suggested that it might be from an identical Japanese word, the plural of
ho
(side), and meaning, in the plural, all sides or everywhere. This suggestion is given some color by the fact that the term seems to have originated on the Pacific Coast, where there are many Japanese. If it is sound, then
hobo
is the one and only word that the Japanese immigrants have given to the American language. “Webster’s New International” refers
hokum
to
hocus
, but without saying flatly that they are related, and the Oxford Supplement calls it “a blending of
hocus-pocus
and
bunkum.
” but with a saving question-mark. Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly reports that “theorizing devotees in etymology” have
sought to derive it from the Hebrew word
chakam
(a wise man), the Arabic and Hindustani
hakim
(of the same meaning), and the American Indian words
hoquiam, hokium
and
hoquium
, all of them proper names.
⁶⁸
The late Walter J. Kingsley, an ardent amateur lexicographer, favored the theory that
hokum
originated in England. “Once upon a time,” he said, “a retired Cockney sea-captain managed the Middlesex Music-Hall in London, and whenever a comedian lacked a consecutive routine or continuity, as they say in the movies, he informed him that there was a hole in his act, and that he should plug it up with ‘a bit of oakum,’ which he pronounced
hoakum
.”
⁶⁹
But Kingsley’s etymologies were always far more ingenious than convincing. Dr. Vizetelly says that
hokum
came in about 1920. All the dictionaries report correctly that
maverick
comes from the name of Samuel A. Maverick (?–1870), a Texan who neglected to brand his calves, and so invited their bootleg branding by his neighbors. But when the word is discussed in the newspapers, which is not infrequently, it is sometimes stated that the thing ran the other way, and that Maverick himself did the stealthy branding. In November, 1889, one of his descendants, George M. Maverick of San Antonio, set the matter right in a letter to the St. Louis
Republic
, and some years later that letter, along with other documents in point, was reprinted as a pamphlet.
⁷⁰
But old libels die hard. “Webster’s New International” says that
jitney
may “possibly” come from the French
jeton
(a counter, or metal disk), from the verb
jeter
(to throw). The Oxford Supplement (1933) says that its origin is unknown, but quotes a statement in the
Nation
for Feb. 4, 1915, that the word “is the Jewish slang term for a nickel,” and another from the same journal for March 18, 1915, that it means “the smallest coin in circulation in Russia.” But nothing resembling
jitney
is to be found in any Yiddish word-book that I have access to, and I recall hearing it used to designate a five-cent piece long before there was any considerable immigration of Eastern Jews. It began to be used to designate a cheap automobile bus in 1914. “Webster’s New International” says that
jazz
is a Creole word, and probably of African origin, but goes no further. The Oxford says that its origin is unknown, but that it is “generally said to be Negro.”
Amateur etymologists have made almost countless efforts to run it down, or, more accurately, to guess at its history. The aforesaid Kingsley tried to connect it with
Jasper
, the name of a dancing slave on a plantation near New Orleans,
c
. 1825.
⁷¹
Vincent Lopez sought its origin in
Chaz
, the stable-name of Charles Washington, an eminent ragtime drummer of Vicksburg, Miss.,
c
. 1895.
⁷²
Other searchers produced even more improbable etymologies.
⁷³
The effort to trace the word to Africa has failed, though it has been established that it was used by the Negroes in the Mississippi river towns long before it came into general use. But the meaning they attached to it was that of sexual intercourse. Its extension to the kind of music it now designates was perhaps not unnatural, but when, where and by whom that extension was made is not yet known.
⁷⁴
Sundae
remains almost as mysterious. All the dictionaries connect it with
Sunday
, but none of them ventures to trace the steps. The first use of the word cited by the Oxford Supplement was in the New York
Evening Post
for May 21, 1904, and it was there spelled
sundi
. A popular etymology runs thus: In 1902 or thereabout there was a sudden craze for en
forcing the Blue Laws in Virginia (or some other Southern State), and selling ice-cream soda on Sunday became hazardous. An ingenious druggist, seeking to baffle the police, decided to give the beverage a new appearance and a new name, and so added a few berries to it and called it a
sundae
, in occult reference to the day.
⁷⁵
I offer this for what it is worth, which is probably not much. The origin of
wobbly
is thus given by Mortimer Downing, a member of the I.W.W. in its heyday:

“Webster’s New International” gives this etymology, but without formally accepting it. To me it seems unlikely. Perhaps the truth about the origin of
wobbly
, and with it the truth about the origins of
ballyhoo, hobo, hokum, jazz, jitney
and
sundae
, will be unearthed by the learned brethren now at work upon the “Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles.” Maybe they will also solve some other vexing problems of American lexicography. For example, who was the first to use
graft
in its political sense, who was the first to make nouns of the adjectives
wet
and
dry
, and who was the first to make a noun of the verb
release
, signifying something to be published or otherwise made available on a given date? The latter is in wide use in movie, radio and newspaper circles, and has also spread afield. The history of baseball terms also deserves to be investigated, for many of them have entered the common speech of the country,
e.g., fan, rooter, bleachers, circus-catch, home-run, homer, pinch-hitter, pennant-winner, batting-average, double-header, grandstand-play, charley-horse, gate-money, bush-leaguer
or
minor-leaguer
, and
three-strikes-and-out
, not to mention the verbs,
to strike out, to bunt, to knock out of the box, to put it
(or
one) across
(or
over), to root, to be shut out
and
to play ball
, and the adjectival phrases,
on the bench
and
on to his curves
. There are, too, the nouns borrowed from poker,
e.g., kitty, cold-deck, full-house, jack-pot, four-flusher, ace-high, pot, show-down, penny-ante, divvy
and
three-of-a-kind
, along with the verbs and verb-phrases,
to call
(a bluff),
to ante up, to stand pat, to pony up, to hold out, to cash in, to chip in, to see
(a bet, or any other challenge), and
it’s up to you
.

The common verbs of vulgar American will be examined at length in
Chapter IX
, Section 2. On more decorous levels of speech they are notable chiefly for the facility with which new ones are made. Consider, for example, the process of back-formation. In
Chapter III
, Section 2, I have already described the appearance of such forms as
to locate
and
to legislate
in the earliest days of differentiation; in our own time many more have gradually attained to something resembling respectability,
e.g., to auto, to jell, to phone
,
to taxi, to commute, to typewrite, to electrocute
,
⁷⁷
and
to tiptoe
(for to walk tiptoe). Others are still on probation,
e.g., to reminisce, to insurge, to innovate, to vamp, to razz
(from
raspberry), to enthuse, to combust,
⁷⁸
to divvy, to reune, to resolute, to housekeep, to peeve, to orate, to bach (i.e.
, to live in bachelor quarters), and
to emote
;
⁷⁹
and yet others remain on the level of conscious humor,
e.g., to plumb
(from
plumber), to jan
(from
janitor), to barb
(from
barber), to chauf
(from
chauffeur), to crise
(from
crisis), to gondole
(from
gondola), to elocute, to burgle, to ush, to perc
(to make coffee in a
percolator), to sculp, to butch, to buttle
and
to boheme
. “There is a much greater percentage of humorous shortenings among verbs,” says Miss Wittman, “than among other parts of speech. Especially is this true of verbs shortened from nouns and adjectives by subtracting what looks like a derivative suffix,
e.g., -er, -or, -ing, -ent
from nouns, or
y
from adjectives. Many clipped verbs have noun parallels, while some are simply clipped nouns used as verbs.”
⁸⁰
A great many new verbs are also made in the United States by other devices. Some of them are nouns unchanged,
e.g., to author, to service, to auto, to demagogue, to wassermann, to interview
⁸¹
and
to debut
; others are formed by adding
-ize
to nouns
or adjectives,
e.g., to simonize, to slenderize, to winterize, to vacationize, to hospitalize
and
to picturize
; yet others by adding the old English suffix
-en
to nouns, adjectives and even other verbs,
e.g., to mistaken, to thinnen, to safen
and
to loaden
.
⁸²
Those of the last-named class, of course, belong mainly to the vulgar speech, but examples of the other classes are to be found on higher levels. Two days after the first regulations of the Food Administration were issued, in 1917,
to hooverize
appeared spontaneously in scores of newspapers, and it retains sufficient repute to be in “Webster’s New International Dictionary” (1934).
To bryanize, to fletcherize
and
to oslerize
came in just as promptly, the first in 1896, the second in 1904 or thereabout, and the third in 1905, following Dr. William Osier’s famous address at Baltimore.
⁸³
I reach into my collection at random and draw forth such monstrosities as
to backwardize, to fordize, to belgiumize, to respectablize, to scenarioize, to moronize, to customize, to featurize, to expertize, to powerize, to sanitize, to manhattanize
and
to cohanize
; I suppose I could dredge up at least a hundred more. Some of these, of course, are only nonce-words, but certainly not all.
To expertize
, apparently suggested by the French noun
expertise
, meaning a survey or valuation by experts, is in universal use among American art and antique dealers, but it does not appear to prevail in England (though the French noun does), and the Oxford Dictionary’s only example of it is taken from
Harper’s Magazine
for February, 1889.
To respectablize
I find in a book review in the Portland
Oregonian:
“The Modern Library has
respectablized
Casanova.”
To backwardize
comes from the
Farm Journal
, a very sedate periodical, for March, 1926; I have since encountered it frequently in
Variety. To slenderize
is used by nearly all the vendors of reducing-salts and other such quackeries. As for
to sanitize
, it was described by the Associated Press, on July 6, 1934, as the invention of Dr. Leon Henderson, one of the economic advisers to the NRA, and its meaning was given as “to put sanity and sanitation in [to] business.”
⁸⁴
The only prefix that seems to be commonly used for making verbs is
de-
, which has produced
to debunk, to delouse, to dewax, to dejelly, to debamboozle
and various other forms.