AUTHENTICATED ETYMOLOGIES.
Antiquarians say, that an old negro at Cape Cod, whenever his master required any thing of him, would exclaim, “Massa chuse it.” Thence in time the name of Massachusett.
The city of Albany was originally settled by Scotch people. When strangers on their arrival there asked how the new comers did? the answer was, “All bonny.” The spelling we find a little altered, but not the sound.
When Julius Cæsar’s army lay encamped at Ticonderoga, near a thousand years ago, the deserters were commonly tied up upon a battering ram and flogged: When any culprit was brought out, the commanding centurion would exclaim, Tie on the rogue! The name, we see, has worn well.
A fat landlady, who about the time of the flight of Mahomet from Mecca, lived between new Orleans and the Chicasaw cliffs, was scarcely ever unfurnished with pigeon sea pye; and thence got the name of Mrs. Sea Pye. The enormous river Mississipi, owes its name to the fat landlady.
In the reign of Dermot O’Mullogh, in the kingdom of Connaught, about the beginning of the second century, a noisy fellow by the name of Pat Riot, made himself very conspicuous; the word Patriot has come down to us perfect and unimpaired.
For the New-York Weekly Magazine.