CHAINED-LIGHTNING. More commonly chain-lightning, and certainly not a
Western phrase exclusively.
CHEBACCO-BOAT. Mr. Bartlett says, "This word is doubtless a corruption of Chedabucto, the name of a bay in Nova Scotia, from which vessels are fitted out for fishing." This is going a great way down East for what could be found nearer. Chebacco is (or was, a century since) the name of a part of Ipswich, Massachusetts.
TO FALL a tree Mr. Bartlett considers a corruption of to fell. But, as we have commonly heard the words used, to fell means merely to cut down, while to fall means to make it fall in a given direction.
TO GO UNDER. "To perish. An expression adopted from the figurative language of the Indians by the Western trappers and residents of the prairies." Not the first time that the Indians have had undue credit for poetry. The phrase is undoubtedly a translation of the German untergehen (fig.), to perish.
HAT. "Our Northern women have almost discarded the word bonnet, except in sun-bonnet, and use the term hat instead. A like fate has befallen the word gown, for which both they and their Southern sisters commonly use frock or dress." We do not know where Mr. Bartlett draws his Northern line; but in Massachusetts we never heard the word hat or frock used in this sense. They are so used in England, and hat is certainly, frock probably, nearer Anglo-Saxon than bonnet and gown.
IMPROVE. Mr. Bartlett quotes Dr. Franklin as saying in 1789, "When I left New England in the year 1723, this word had never been used among us, as far as I know, but in the sense of ameliorated or made better, except once in a very old book of Dr. Mather's, entitled Remarkable Providences." Dr. Increase Mather's Providences was published in 1684. In 1679 a synod assembled at Boston, and the result of its labors was published in the same year by John Foster, under the title, Necessity of a Reformation. On the sixth page we find, "Taverns being for the entertainment of strangers, which, if they were improved to that end only," etc. Oddly enough, our copy of this tract has Dr. Mather's autograph on the title-page. But Mr. Bartlett should have referred to Richardson, who shows that the word had been in use long before with the same meaning.
To INHEAVEN. "A word invented by the Boston transcendentalists." And Mr. Bartlett quotes from Judd's Margaret. Mr. Judd was a good scholar, and the word is legitimately compounded, like ensphere and imparadise; but he did not invent it. Dante uses the word:—
"Perfetta vita ed alto merto inciela
Donna piú su."
LADIES' TRESSES. "The popular name, in the Southern States, for an herb," etc. In the Northern States also. Sometimes Ladies' Traces.
LIEFER. "A colloquialism, also used in England." Excellent Anglo-Saxon, and used wherever English is spoken.