American Language (41 page)

65
“A statement is
phoney,
” said an editorial in the Boston
Traveler
, Feb. 20, 1922, “if it is like the practical jokes and false impersonations that are so frequently perpetrated over the telephone.”

66
See Movie Jargon, by Terry Ramsaye,
American Speech
, April, 1926.

67
On Nov. 8, 1924 the New York
Evening Sun
reported that
speakies
had recently appeared in
Film Fun
, a fan magazine.

68
Hokum
, New York
World
, March 28, 1923. The same facts are given in The Lexicographer’s Easy Chair,
Literary Digest
, May 5, 1923.

69
New York
World
, Oct. 21, 1925.

70
Ye
Maverick
; San Antonio, 1905.

71
New York
World
, Oct. 25, 1925. Kingsley had previously dealt with the matter in the New York
Sun
in 1917, and his lucubrations were reprinted in the
Literary Digest
for Aug. 25 of that year.

72
Where is Jazz Leading America?
Éctude
, July, 1924.

73
Some of them are rehearsed in Jazz, by Henry Osborne Osgood,
American Speech
, July, 1926.

74
See a somewhat guarded discussion of its original meaning by Clay Smith,
Éctude
, Sept., 1924, p.595.

75
This etymology is given in
Sundae
, by John Fairweather, London
Sunday Times
, Aug. 25, 1928, on the authority of “Miss Anna C. Mitchell, librarian to the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey, U. S. A.”

76
Quoted in How
Wobbly
Originated, by Richard W. Hogue,
Nation
, Sept. 5, 1923, p. 242.

77
The first State to electrocute criminals was New York. The act substituting electrocution for hanging became effective Jan. 1, 1889, and the first criminal electrocuted was William Kemmler, on Aug. 6, 1890.
To electrocute
, at the start, had a rival in
to electrize
, but soon prevailed.

78
To combust
seems to be an invention of dealers in heating apparatus, or, as they prefer to call themselves,
heating-engineers
. I find the following in an advertisement in the Chicago
Herald and Examiner
, Sept. 16, 1923: “There’d be no warning of exhausted coal deposits if fuel were properly
combusted.
”

79
I say these verbs are still on probation, but if their constant use in the debates of Congress gives them countenance they are quite sound American. My earliest example of
to enthuse
comes from a solemn war-time speech by the late Senator Lee S. Overman or North Carolina, made in the Senate on March 26, 1918. He used it not once, but over and over again. See the
Congressional Record
for that date, pp. 4376–7.
To resolute
was used by Senator L. Y. Sherman of Ohio on Jan. 14, 1918, and by Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana on May 16, 1921.
To peeve
was used by Mr. Borland of Missouri in the House Jan. 29, 1918, and has been used by other Representatives countless times since. So have
to reminisce, to orate
and
to insurge
.

80
Clipped Words,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Pt. II, 1914, p. 137.

81
There is an old English verb,
to interview
, meaning to meet, but it has been obsolete since the Seventeenth Century. The modern verb seems to have arisen in the United States soon after the Civil War, along with its noun. The latter has gone into French, and in 1923 the Academie Française voted to include it in the next edition of its Dictionary. On Dec. 31, 1884, in the course of a review of the year, the
Pall Mall Gazette
(London) said that “among the permanent gains of the year the acclimatization of the interview in English journalism certainly should be mentioned.”

82
See
Loadened
, by J. D.,
American Speech
, Aug., 1930. The author calls attention to the fact that verbs properly in
-en
sometimes take a double past participle,
e.g., awe-strickened
and
ladened
. For
to safen
see
American Speech
, April, 1931, p. 305. It appears in the sentence: “Let us
safen
your brakes.”

83
To oslerize
quickly acquired a meaning that greatly embarrassed Dr. Osier. What he said was: “Study until twenty-five, investigation until forty, profession until sixty, at which age I would have him retired on a double allowance.” But
to oslerize
came to mean to put a man to death as useless, and the age recommended was commonly understood to be forty.

84
I had hardly got this paragraph on paper when someone sent me a copy of the
Literary Supplement
of the London
Times
for June 7, 1934, with the ghastly verb
to obituarize
marked with a red circle. Worse, I discovered on investigation that it was in the Oxford Dictionary, credited to the London
Saturday Review
for Oct. 17, 1891. If I may intrude my private feelings into a learned work I venture to add that seeing a monster so suggestive of American barbarism in the
Times
affected me like seeing an archbishop wink at a loose woman.

85
To service
was used by R. L. Stevenson in Catriona (1893), but it remained a nonce-word until American garages began
servicing
cars,
c
. 1910. It is now in almost universal use among the persons who keep machinery and fixtures in repair. See
American Speech
, Nov., 1926, p. 112, and Jan., 1927, p. 214. Used by Mr. Justice Roberts, it appears in the decision of the U. S. Supreme Court in N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R.
vs
. Bezue, Jan. 25, 1932 (52
Supreme Court Reporter
, 206).

86
Senator L. Y. Sherman of Illinois,
Congressional Record
, Jan. 4, 1918, p. 903.

87
After the passage of the War Revenue Act of 1917 cigar-boxes began to bear this inscription: “The contents of this box have been
taxed-paid
 … as indicated by the Internal Revenue tax stamp affixed.” A year or so later
taxed-paid
was changed to
taxpaid
. Prosecutions for the sale, transportation or possession of
untaxpaid
alcoholic beverages are now common in the Federal courts.

88
During the heyday of Babbittry (
c
. 1905–29)
to contact
was one of its counter-words. In 1931 Mr. F. W. Lienau, an official of the Western Union, forbade its use by employés of the company. “Somewhere,” he said, “there cumbers this fair earth with his loathsome presence a man who, for the common good, should have been destroyed in early childhood. He is the originator of the hideous vulgarism of using
contact
as a verb. So long as we can meet, get in touch with, make the acquaintance of, be introduced to, call on, interview or talk to people, there can be no apology for
contact.
” See the
Commonweal
, Dec. 9, 1931, p. 145. But Mr. Lienau’s indignation had no effect, and
to contact
is still widely used.

89
To yes
seems to have originated in Hollywood, where every movie personage is surrounded by a suite of sycophants. These sycophants are called
yes-men
.

90
To loan
was once good English, and the Oxford Dictionary gives examples going back to
c
. 1200, but it has been supplanted in England by
to lend
and the Oxford calls it “now chiefly U. S.” Here it rages almost unchallenged. It has even got into the text of laws. See
Congressional Record
, Dec. 19, 1921, p. 592, col. 2.

91
To author
, I suspect, was first used in
Variety
. But I have found it in the
Editor and Publisher
(Aug. 27, 1927, p. 7, col. 4).

92
To signature
apparently has the imprimatur of the Postoffice. See Observations on the Duties of Contact Men As Applied to the Postoffice Department Organization, by John H. Bartlett, First Assistant Postmaster General; Cleveland (Postoffice Printing Department), 1924, p. 1.

93
To park
is in Piers Plowman, C-Text, 143,
c
. 1390: “Among wives and widows I am wont to sit,
y-parked
in pews.” But as Dr. Louise Pound points out in
American Speech
, May, 1927, it then meant to be enclosed, shut up, confined. In the sense of to arrange artillery or wagons in a park it came into English during the Napoleonic wars, apparently influenced by French example. Its modern vogue, and great extension of meaning, came in with the automobile. In the United States, as Dr. Pound says, one may now
park
a child with a neighbor, or a suitcase in a cloak-room, or jewelry in a vault.

94
Used in the theatre in the sense of to display photographs or lithographs in a theatre lobby.

95
Used by department-stores in the sense of to sell at a clearance sale. See
American Speech
, Dec., 1926, p. 163.

96
New York
World-Telegram
, March 11, 1932, under the heading of Mayor Won’t Ride Horse.

97
From
New Thought
, the name of a curious mixture of faith-healing, amateurish psychology and pseudo-oriental “philosophy,” much patronized by persons moving either in or out of Christian Science. From its organ, the
Nautilus
for Jan., 1926,
American Speech
for April, 1926 quotes: “So I lost no time in trying
to New Thought
our way out of debt.”

98
To accession
, used by American librarians in the sense of to acquire a book, is said to have been invented by the late Melvil Dewey (1851–1931). See a letter signed J. W. R. on the editorial page of the New York
Times
, March 27, 1932.

99
Semi-Centennial Anniversary Book, University of Nebraska; Lincoln, Neb., 1919, p. 43. The verb seems to be making headway in competition with the more raffish
to janit
and
to jan
.

100
Used by the Gideon Society, an organization of pious traveling salesmen, to denote the act of outfitting a hotel with Bibles for the consolation of its guests.

101
I find the following in the New International Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., Vol. XIV, p. 674, col. 1, 1917: “The aboriginal tribes are chiefly Bhils, who are animists, though many have been
censused
as Hindus.” The editors of the second edition of the New International were Talcott Williams, dean of the School of Journalism at Columbia University, and the well-known essayist, Frank Moore Colby.

102
Mr. John S. Grover, of the Portland, Ore.,
Journal
, sends in an addition that may be with us tomorrow. It is
to monoxide
, meaning to poison with carbon monoxide gas. In August, 1935, one Wells sued an automobile company in the Circuit Court for Multnomah county, Oregon, on the ground that he had been
monoxided
through its carelessness in repairing the heater on his car. Another likely candidate is
to stench
, meaning to empty a movie theatre by setting off stink-bombs. It is a device often employed by moving-picture operators on strike.

103
See
Mealed
, by Anne E. Perkins,
American Speech
, June, 1928, p. 434, and
Roomed
, by Willa Roberts,
American Speech
, Oct., 1927, p. 25. Another analogue,
to subsist
, meaning to provide provender, is to be found in Flying Boats and Sea-Planes, by Rear Admiral W. A. Moffett, U. S. N.,
Liberty
, Aug. 18, 1928, p. 46.

104
See The Art and Practise of Medical Writing, by George H. Simmons, editor emeritus of the
Journal
, and Morris Fishbein, its present editor; Chicago, 1925, p. 43. The learned authors explain that
to operate
a patient really means
to work
him, and that the connotations thereof are embarrassing to the profession. But Marion L. Morse shows in The Verb
Operate, American Speech
, April, 1930, that they explain in vain. Miss Morse investigated the usage of nurses. Of those “doing their work out of hospitals for about five years or more,” only 12% used
to operate
; the rest used
to operate on
or
upon
. But of those still in training, 50% used
to operate
, thus showing the trend of hospital usage. The medical brethren, in general, reveal a fondness for new verbs. Nearly all of them use
to intern
and
to special
(signifying service as a special nurse),
to wassermann
and
to cys-
toscope, and many also use
to
blood count
and
to x-ray
. Drs. Simmons and Fishbein report the use of
to obstetricate
, and I have myself encountered
to diagnosticate. (Weekly Bulletin
, New York City Department of Health, May 22, 1926, p. 81.)

105
The Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin
for March 10, 1926 reports its use in court proceedings that day by District Attorney Charles Edwin Fox, and says that he thereby “coined a new word.” But it was actually used before 1926. The proper chiropractic term is
to adjust
.

106
To goose
does not appear in any of the dictionaries in its common American sense, which is known to every schoolboy.

107
In
S.P.E. Tracts
, No. XIX, 1925.

108
They are common in English, too, and Samuel Johnson called attention to them in the preface to his Dictionary, but they are much more numerous in American. See Thought and Language, by P. B. Ballard; London, 1934, p. 167.