American Language (61 page)

170
Thornton’s earliest example is dated 1855.

171
In The Čechs (Bohemians) in America; Boston, 1912, Thomas Čapek says that
bohoe
is obsolete. He calls
bohunk
a portmanteau word that originated in a confusion between Bohemians and Hungarians.
Cheskey
is simply the Czech adjective
český
, mistaken for a noun.
Bootchkey
is the Czech
počkej
(wait, hold on), a cry used by Czech boys at play. See also Czech Influence Upon the American Vocabulary, by Monsignor J. B. Dudek,
CzechoSlovak Student Life
(Lisle, Ill.) June, 1927, p. 16.

172
A term borrowed from Navy slang. It refers to the fact that, beginning in 1795, lime-juice was issued in the British Navy (and later in the merchant marine) as an anti-scorbutic.

173
See Some Current Substitutes for Irish, by W. A. McLaughlin,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Pt. II, 1914. Mr. McLaughlin discusses
harp, mick, Paddy, Turk
and
Tad. Turk
is commonly used among the Roman Catholic clergy in the United States to designate a priest or bishop of Irish blood, and especially one born in Ireland. The Irish are thought to be too adept at ecclesiastical politics, and to get an undue proportion of ecclesiastical promotions.

174
Gilbert Tucker says that
dago
goes back to 1832. It is probably a corruption of
Diego
; it was first applied to Mexicans. The etymologies of
wop
and
guinea
are uncertain, and frequently disputed.

175
This is used only on the Pacific Coast. It originally meant a Japanese loose woman, but is now applied to all persons of the race.

176
Kike
is used to distinguish a Russian, Polish or other Eastern Jew from the German Jews. The origin of the word is uncertain. J. H. A. Lacher, in
Kike, American Speech
, March, 1926, says it was suggested by the fact that the names of many of the early Eastern Jewish immigrants ended in
-ki
or
-ky
. The German Jews called them
kikis
and this gradually changed to
kike
. Webster’s New International Dictionary (1934) hints that the word may have some relation to
keek
, a term used in the clothing trade to designate one employed to spy out the designs of rival manufacturers.
Keek
is an ancient English verb, now confined to Northern dialects, signifying to peep. Its past tense form appears in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale (
c
. 1386) as
kiked
.

177
Spiggoty
, of which
spick
is a variant, originated at Panama and now means a native of any Latin-American region under American protection, and in general any Latin-American. It is Navy slang, but has come into extensive civilian use. It is a derisive daughter of “No
spik
Ingles.” The Marines in Nicaragua called the natives
gooks
. Those of Costa Rica are sometimes called
goo-goos
.

178
Thornton quotes from Ruxton’s Life in the Far West, 1849: “The Mexicans are called … 
greasers
from their greasy appearance.”

179
The Oxford Dictionary’s first example of
nigger
is dated 1786, but the word must be older. The American Negroes have many words of their own to designate shades of color,
e.g., brown-skin, high-brown
and
high-yellow
. As I have noted in Chapter V, Section 4, they use
ofay
to designate whites. But this usage is confined to the sophisticates. In 1919, Dr. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education, devised a Code of Honorable Names to be subscribed to by the Boy Scouts, whereby they agreed to avoid all opprobrious terms for immigrants. But he omitted the Negroes, and the fact brought forth a protest from them. See Offensive Nicknames, by James W. Johnson, New York
Age
, Feb. 1, 1919.

180
The effects of race antagonism upon language are still to be investigated. The etymology of
slave
indicates that the inquiry might yield interesting results. The word
French
, in English, is largely used to suggest sexual perversion. In German anything
Russian
is barbarous, and
English
education hints at flaggellation. The French, for many years, called a certain contraband appliance a
capote Anglaise
, but after the
entente cordiale
they changed the name to
capote Al-lemande
. The common English name to this day is
French letter
. See The Criminal, by Havelock Ellis; London, 1910, p. 208. In France a
sharper
is called a
Greek, as drunk as a Pole
is a common phrase, and one of the mainstays of low comedy is
le truc du brésilien
. In most of the non-Prussian parts of Germany
cockroaches
are called
Preussen
; in Prussia they are
Franzosen
; in some places they are
Schwaben
. Finally, it will be recalled that Benvenuto Cellini, in his autobiography, says that he was accused in a French court of using one of his mistresses in “the
Italian
manner.” See International Libels, by William Power, Glasgow (Scotland)
Record
, April 10, 1929, and Calling Names in Any Language, by Joachim Joesten,
American Mercury
, Dec, 1935.

181
Words and Their Uses, new ed.; New York, 1876, p. 131.

182
Mr. Maximilian Hurwitz tells me that this movement originated among the so-called Reform Jews, most of whom were from Germany or Austria. Its leader was the Rev. Isaac M. Wise. In 1854 he established the
American Israelite
, in 1873 he organized the Union of American
Hebrew
Congregations, and in 1875 he founded the
Hebrew
Union College. The
Jews
’ Hospital of New York changed its name to
Mount Sinai
, and in 1874, when a merger of Jewish eleemosynary institutions was effected, it took the name of the United
Hebrew
Charities. The Eastern Jews, who began to flock in in the early 80’s, objected to the abandonment of
Jew
and
Jewish
and began to call the German Jews
Yuhudi
in derision. They were influential enough by 1916 to cause a new amalgamation of Jewish charities to be called the Federation for the Support of
Jewish
Philanthropic Societies of New York. The theatrical weekly,
Variety
, which is owned and mainly staffed by Jews, takes a poke at
Hebrew
by reducing it to
Hebe
.

183
Private communication, April 10, 1925.

184
March 15, 1930.

185
Along This Way; New York, 1933, P- 375.

186
Domestic Manners of the Americans; London, 1832, Vol. I, p. 132.

187
Edinburgh, 1822.

188
A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States; New York, 1848,
intro
.

189
A Diary in America; Phila., 1839. The passage is reprinted in American Social History as Recorded by British Travellers, by Allan Nevins; New York, 1923, p. 245.

190
Seven Years in America; London, 1845, p. 16. I borrow this from Noah Webster as a Euphemist, by Allen Walker Read,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. VI, Pt. VIII, 1934.

191
John Graham Brooks: As Others See Us; New York, 1908, p. 11.

192
Female
, of course, was epidemic in England too, but White says that it was “not a Briticism,” and so early as 1839 the Legislature of Maryland expunged it from the title of a bill “to protect the reputation of unmarried
females
” substituting
women
, on the ground that
female
“was an Americanism in that application.”

193
The Lady of
Godey’s
, by Ruth E. Finley; Phila., 1931, p. 205.

194
See Squeamish Cant, in Words and Their Uses, by Richard Grant White; new ed.; New York, 1876, p. 176
ff
. Also,
Inexpressibles, Unmentionables, Univhisperables
, and Other Verbal Delicacies of Mid-Nineteenth Century Americans, by Mamie Meredith,
American Speech
, April, 1930.

195
Domestic Manners of the Americans, quoted by Nevins, p. 162.

196
Noah Webster as a Euphemist, by Allen Walker Read,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. VI, Pt. VIII, 1934.

197
p. 109. I am indebted here to Mr. Bernard De Voto.

198
The French
pissoir
is still regarded as indecent in America, and is seldom used in England, but it has gone into most of the Continental languages, though the French themselves avoid it in print, and use the inane
Vespasien
in place of it. But all the Continental languages have their euphemisms. Most of them, for example, use
W.C.
, an abbreviation of the English
water-closet
, as a euphemism. The whole subject of national pruderies, in both act and speech, remains to be investigated.

199
Euphemism, Monroe (Mich.)
Evening News
, Nov. 21, 1931. See also A Note on Newspaper English, by Nelson Antrim Crawford,
Kansas Magazine
(an annual), 1935.

200
See The Theatre, by Robert Benchley,
New Yorker
, Nov. 3, 1934, reprinted in
American Speech
, Feb., 1935, p. 76.

201
Perhaps because of the Quaker influence, Philadelphia has always been one of the most Pecksniffian of American cities. Early in 1918, when a patriotic moving-picture entitled To Hell With the Kaiser was sent on tour under government patronage, the word
hell
was carefully toned down, on the Philadelphia billboards, to
h
—.

202
Associated Press dispatch, Sept. 21. I have to thank Mr. Lewis Hawkins of the Atlanta
Constitution
for calling my attention to it.

203
This prohibition of two euphemistic forms of
son-of-a-bitch
, of course, includes the term itself.

204
See The Silver Screen, by Roger Whately, Jack O’Donnell and H. W. Hanemann; Los Angeles, 1935, p. 244. I suspect that the prohibition of
bum
is due to the fact that the word is obscene in England.

205
Rudy Vallee’s Music Notebook,
Radioland
, March, 1935, p. 35. Mr. Vallee says that he was thus deprived of the use of one of his “greatest stage and radio vehicles, Let’s Do It.” He adds that Do It Again and You Do Something to Me were also prohibited.

206
Pep
, July, 1918, p. 8.

207
Social Hygiene Bulletin
, May, 1919, p. 7.

208
May 31, 1933, p. 599.

209
Variety
, Nov. 27, 1934, p. 37.

210
Hygeia
, Feb., 1925, p. 107.
Interstitial
glands, of course, was used inaccurately.

211
Oct. 2, 1935. The advertiser was Bonwit Teller.

212
An Obscenity Symbol, Dec, 1934, p. 264
ff
. Mr. Read is also the author of Lexical Evidence From Folk Epigraphy in Western North America; Paris, 1935, a sober and very interesting study of the written obscenity encountered on the walls of filling-station “rest-rooms” during “an extensive sight-seeing trip throughout the Western United States and Canada in the Summer of 1928.” The four-letter words are treated very warily in the dictionaries. Even the great Oxford omits those of sexual significance, though it lists all those relating to excretions. Webster’s New International admits
arse
and
piss
(the latter of which occurs seven times in the King James Bible), but bars all the rest.

213
Verbal Modesty in the Ozarks,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. VI, Pt. I, 1928. This paper is reprinted in Mr. Randolph’s The Ozarks; New York, 1931, p. 78
ff
.

214
A Study of Verbal Taboos,
American Speech
, April, 1935, and Language Taboos of American College Students,
English Studies
, June, 1935. See also the chapter on Euphemisms in Words and Their Ways in English Speech, by J. B. Greenough and G. L. Kittredge: New York, 1901, and the chapter on Euphemism and Hyperbole in English Words and Their Background, by George H. McKnight; New York, 1923.

215
New York, 1933, p. 401. I take this reference from Steadman.

216
On June 26, 1862, an Englishman named Joshua
Bug
, laboring under the odium attached to the name, advertised in the London
Times
that he had changed it to
Norfolk-
Howard
, a compound made up of the title and family name of the Dukes of Norfolk. The wits of London at once doubled his misery by adopting
Norfolk-Howard
as a Euphemism for
bedbug
.

217
Etiquette; New York, 1922, p. 455.

218
Dear
and
My Dear
, London
Mercury
, Sept., 1922.

219
For the history of such forms in England since 1418 see A History of Modern Colloquial English, by H. C. Wyld; London, 1920, p. 379. This is a very interesting and valuable book. Unfortunately, using it is made a burden by the lack of an index.

220
April 14, 1914. In 1920 the English Licenser of Stage Plays ordered
bloody
expunged from a play dealing with labor. See
English
, Oct., 1920, p. 403.

221
See A Note on
Bloody
, by Robert Withington,
American Speech
, Oct., 1930, and Children of Linguistic Fashion, by the same author,
American Speech
, Dec, 1934.

222
New York, 1928, p. 506.

223
For these references I am indebted to British Recognition of American Speech in the Eighteenth Century, by Allen Walker Read,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. VI, Pt. VI, July, 1933, p. 328.