“Yes;” replied the other, “so they say; I should like to see the ’coon.”
“I’m a gone ’coon” implies “I am distressed—or ruined—or lost.” I once asked the origin of this expression, and was very gravely told as follows:—
“There is a Captain Martin Scott (already mentioned in the Diary) in the United States Army who is a remarkable shot with a rifle. He was raised, I believe, in Vermont. His fame was so considerable through the state, that even the animals were aware of it. He went out one morning with his rifle, and spying a racoon upon the upper branches of a high tree, brought his gun up to his shoulder; when the racoon perceiving it, raised his paw for a parley. ‘I beg your pardon, mister,’ said the racoon, very politely; ‘but may I ask you if your name is Scott?’—‘Yes,’ replied the captain.—‘Martin Scott?’ continued the racoon—‘Yes,’ replied the captain—‘Captain Martin Scott?’ still continued the animal.—‘Yes,’ replied the captain, ‘Captain Martin Scott?’—‘Oh! then,’ says the animal, ‘I may just as well come down, for I’m a gone ’coon.’”
But one of the strangest perversions of the meaning of a word which I ever heard of is in Kentucky, where sometimes the word nasty is used for nice. For instance: at a rustic dance in that state a Kentuckian said to an acquaintance of mine, in reply to his asking the name of a very fine girl, “That’s my sister, stranger; and I flatter myself that she shows the nastiest ankle in all Kentuck”—Unde derivatur, from the constant rifle-practice in that state, a good shot or a pretty shot is termed also a nasty shot, because it would make a nasty wound: ergo, a nice or pretty ankle becomes a nasty one.
The term for all baggage, especially in the south or west, is “plunder.” This has been derived from the buccaneers, who for so long a time infested the bayores and creeks near the mouth of the Mississippi, and whose luggage was probably very correctly so designated.
I must not omit a specimen of American criticism.
“Well, Abel, what d’ye think of our native genus, Mister Forrest?”
“Well, I don’t go much to theatricals, that’s a fact; but I do think he piled the agony up a little too high in that last scene.”
The gamblers on the Mississippi use a very refined phrase for “cheating”—“playing the advantages over him.”
But, as may be supposed, the principal terms used are those which are borrowed from trade and commerce.