The word sleigh comes from the Dutch sluy; squash came down from the aborigines, by whom it was called estata, or vine apple; carrots came from Holland, and some growing wild bore a flower which the English called Queen Anne’s lace. The cochroach was the Dutch kackenlack; potatoes, which have been said to have been introduced by the Irish, were raised by the Dutch in New York as early as 1654, and were called pataddes. It is not unlikely that as they were called Irish potatoes, the slang word paddies applied to the Irish, came from pataddes.
The word “certain” a few years ago came into use in answer to certain questions as for instance—are you going to Boston tomorrow? “Certain;” but it seems to have given place to the word “sure.” For a time, “you bet,” was used in the same way, as for instance to the statement, “that was a good dinner,” the answer was, “you bet.” Chores probably comes from the old English “char,” as does also the word “charwomen.” The word cow pronounced kyou, has been said to be peculiar to New England country towns, but there can be no greater mistake, for I have heard it so pronounced by natives of South Carolina, and it is so pronounced today in the shires of Essex and Sussex, in England. Fornent or fornenst was originally a Scotch word meaning opposite to, as for instance his house was fornent the church. It was carried to Ireland, and by the Irish introduced here. I heard it for the first time about 1854. “Gab,” now common, was used by Chaucer as we use it. The English laugh at the word “guess,” and call it a vulgar Americanism, but it was used by Locke, Milton and Chaucer.
“Her yellow hair was braided in a tress,
Behind her back a yard long I guess.”
“Poke” in one of its many meanings is a pocket or bag, as in the words, to buy a pig in a poke, that is without seeing it. “Streak it,” to run fast, was heard by me for the first time when hunting in the Plymouth woods. Branch Pierce, the hunter, after placing his party on their stands would take his son Tom and take short cuts through the woods to head off the deer. When a good chance occurred the old man could be heard calling out, Streak it, Tommy. There was another Thomas Pierce living in the neighborhood, so in order to distinguish them one was called Squire Tom, and the other Streak it Tommy. I have never heard the word “seen” in the sense of saw in Plymouth, but I have heard it frequently in Boston among Englishmen and immigrants from the Dominion. Muckrakes is a word recently rescued from oblivion, but with a wrong understanding of its meaning. According to Professor DeVere, now or late Professor of modern languages in the University of Virginia, and author of “Studies in English” muckrakes are those who rake for the purpose of finding something valuable and worthy of preservation. Rag pickers are in one sense muckrakes. There are two offensive words which have recently found a lodgement in our vocabulary, chiefly, however, among inexperienced writers. One of these words, “one,” taken out of its legitimate meaning, seems to be due either to a lack of taste or to a mistaken notion that it is elegant. The following sentence explains what I mean. “When one writes a letter one must be careful how one expresses oneself, lest one finds that one makes a mistake in using too many ones.” The other is the word “gotten,” which to me always suggests a writer who fancies himself an accurate scholar, and would call aisle of a church “oil,” and one of its pillars, a “pillow.” There are two other words not offensive, but objectionable, which I find constantly in new novels, “peering,” for looking, and “perturbed” for disturbed, or agitated, or “annoyed.” As for instance “in peering out of the window I was perturbed by an unusual sight.”
The use of exaggerations and superlatives is every day becoming more common. Newspaper reporters and associated press men are responsible for many of these. With them it never rains, but it pours, every snow spit is a blizzard, every fresh breeze a gale, every gale a hurricane, every wave is mountain high, every collision is a crash, and every crowd a surging mob. New newspaper words are constantly creeping into our vocabulary. Among the most recent are “defi” for “defiance,” and “confer” for “conference.” There is another class of words and phrases having their origin in athletics and games of various kinds, which are constantly found in the newspapers, and even in congressional and other speeches. “Stand pat,” “win out,” “flush,” and “full deck” are some of those which are unworthy of the press or the speech of a legislator. There is still another class quite frequently used which are really nothing but veiled oaths with the spirit if not the letter of profanity behind them. Among them are by-jingo, land-sakes, by-George, by-gum, by-thunder, good-gracious, dern it, thunder and Mars, heavens and earth, all fired for hell fired, gol darn it, darnation, Lord-a-mussy, mercy sakes alive, great Scott, by the eternal, and lastly, tarnation, as in the lines of John Noakes and May Styles:
“Poor honest John ’tis plain he knows
But little of life’s range.
Or he’d a know’d gals oft at fust
Have ways tarnation strange.”