American Language (32 page)

But the effort made by the authors of such works to police the language, though it has always had the ardent support of certain eminent American literati and of almost the whole body of pedagogues, has never really impeded the natural progress of American. It has gone on developing in spite of them, and in innocent accord with its native genius. The collections amassed for the “Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles” show that in the very heyday of White a large number of New Americanisms of characteristic vigor and vulgarity were coming in, and coming in to stay — among them,
wire-puller
and
to strike oil
in 1867, and
boom
and
to boom
a few years after. A glance through Thornton, Bartlett and the Oxford Dictionary and Supplement turns up many another of the same pungent sort —
claw-hammer
(coat, 1869),
mule-skinner
and
jack-rabbit
(1870),
tangle-foot
(whiskey, 1871),
cuss-word
(Mark Twain, 1872),
hoodlum
(1872),
dead-beat
(Petroleum V. Nasby, 1872),
jam
and
jig-saw
(1873),
sand
(courage, Bret Harte, 1875)
grub-stake
and
hold-up
(both
c
. 1875),
freeze-out
and
slate
(political, 1877),
heeler (c
. 1877),
stalwart
(political) and
crook
(1878),
set-back, joint
(a low den) and
spellbinder (c
. 1880). To them may be added the adverbs
to a frazzle
(General John B. Gordon to General Robert E. Lee, 1865) and
concededly
(1882), and the verbs
to itemize
(Webster, 1864),
to go through
(to plunder, 1867),
to go back on
(1868),
to suicide
(1871),
to guy
(1872),
to light out
(1878),
to side-track
(1880) and
to injunct
(1880). Many of these novelties were either invented or given currency by the emerging authors of the new American school — Walt Whitman,
Bret Harte, Mark Twain, W. D. Howells,
⁶
and the lesser humorists. Others popped up in the newspapers and in the debates in Congress. Some lasted for no more than a few brief months, or even weeks, and then joined the innumerable caravan of obsolete Americanisms; others got no higher in the vocabulary than the level of slang or argot, and linger there yet; still others gradually made their way into standard usage. It is, indeed, very difficult, dealing with neologisms, to know how to rate them. The most seemly, etymologically speaking, are often rejected in the long run, and the most grotesque are accepted. Many more go on dwelling in a twilight region, ordinarily disdained but summoned out for service on special occasions. In that twilight region are large numbers of the words that everyone who investigates the American language must discuss.

All of the processes for the formation of new words that are distinguished by philologians have been in active operation in the United States since Jackson’s time, and after the Civil War their workings took on a new impetus. It would take us beyond the range of the present work to attempt to trace those workings in any detail, but a few typical examples may be examined. Consider, for instance, the process called clipping, back-shortening, or back-formation — a sort of instinctive search for short roots in long words. This habit, in Restoration days, precipitated a quasi-English word,
mobile
, from
the Latin
mobile vulgus
, and in the days of William and Mary it went a step further by precipitating
mob
from
mobile. Mob
is now sound English, but in the Eighteenth Century it was violently attacked by the purists then in eruption,
⁷
and though it survived their onslaught they undoubtedly greatly impeded the formation and adoption of other words of the same category. There are, however, many more in Standard English,
e.g., patter
from
paternoster, van
from
caravan, spats
from
spatterdashes, wig
from
periwig, cab
from
cabriolet, gin
from
geneva, curio
from
curiosity
, and
pun
from
pundigrion
.
⁸
In Eighteenth Century America, save for a few feeble protests from Witherspoon and Boucher, they went unchallenged, and as a result they multiplied.
Rattler
for
rattlesnake, pike
for
turnpike, coon
for
raccoon, possum
for
opossum, cuss
for
customer, squash
for
askutasquash —
these American clipped forms are already antique;
Sabbaday
for
Sabbath-day
has actually reached the dignity of an archaism, as has the far later
chromo
for
chromolithograph
. They are still formed in great numbers, and scarcely a new substantive of more than two syllables comes in without bringing one in its wake. We have thus, in recent years, witnessed the genesis of
phone
for
telephone, gas
for
gasoline, photo
for
photograph, movie
for
moving picture
, and
auto
for
automobile
. Some of these newcomers linger below the salt,
e.g., pep
for
pepper, plute
for
plutocrat, pug
for
pugilist, vamp
for
vampire, pen
for
penitentiary, defi
for
defiance, ambish
for
ambition, pash
for
passion, beaut
for
beauty, steno or stenog
for
stenographer, loot
for
lieutenant, champ
for
champion, simp
for
simpleton, sap
for
saphead, mutt
for
muttonhead
⁹
and
jit
for
jitney
, but many others, once viewed askance, are now in more or less decorous usage,
e.g., smoker
for
smoking-car
,
diner
for
dining-car, sleeper
for
sleeping-car, pa
for
papa, ma
for
mamma, flu
for
influenza, drapes
for
draperies, bronc
for
bronco, memo
for
memorandum, quotes
for
quotation-marks
and
knicker
for
knickerbockers
¹⁰
. Back-formations often originate in college slang,
e.g., prof
for
professor, prom
for
promenade
(dance),
grad
for
graduate
(noun),
co-ed
from the adjective
co-educational, medic
for
medical-student, frat
for
fraternity, gym
for
gymnasium, dorm
for
dormitory, U
for
university, Y
for
Y.M.C.A., plebe
for
plebeian
,
¹¹
or in other varieties of slang, argot or dialect, e.g.,
skeeter
or skeet for
mosquito, cap
for
captain, con
for
convict, coke
for
cocaine, doc
for
doctor, foots
for
footlights, hon
for
honey, pard
for
partner, rube
for
Reuben, sarge
for
sergeant, snap
for
snapshot, diff
for
difference, ham
for
hamfatter, pop
for
populist, spec
for
speculation, typo
for
typographer, secesh
for
secession
and
prelim
for
preliminary
¹²
.
Ad
for
advertisement
is struggling hard for recognition; some of its compounds,
e.g., ad-writer, want-ad, display-ad, ad-rate
and
ad-man
are already accepted.
¹³
Boob
for
booby
promises to become sound American in a few years; its synonyms are no more respectable than it is. At its heels are
bo
for
hobo
, and
bunk
for
buncombe
,
¹⁴
two altogether fit successors to
bum
for
bummer. Try
for
trial
, as in “He made a
try
at it,” is also making progress, though only, so far, on the lower levels.

All the other historical processes of word-formation are to be observed among the new American nouns. There is, for example, a large stock of blends in the current vocabulary. A number of such words, of course, are in Standard English,
e.g.
, Lewis Carroll’s
chortle
(from
chuckle
and
snort), squawk
(from
squeal
and
squall), dumbfound
(from
dumb
and
confound
) and
luncheon
(from
lunch
and
nuncheon
, the first going back to the Sixteenth Century and the second to the Fourteenth), but American began to make contributions at an early date,
e.g., gerrymander
(from
Gerry
and
salamander, c
. 1812), and it has been supplying English with others ever since,
e.g., cablegram
(from
cable
and
telegram
) and
electrolier
(
electric
and
chandelier
). A few additional examples will suffice:
boost (boom
and
hoist
, and maybe
boast
),
¹⁵
Aframerican
(
African
and
American
),
Amerind (American
and
Indian
)
,
¹⁶
hellenium (Hell
and
millennium), pulmotor (pulmonary
and
motor
) and
travelogue (travel
and
monologue
).
¹⁷
Many words of this class are trade names,
made of initials or other parts of corporation names,
e.g., socony
(Standard Oil Company of New York),
¹⁸
ampico
(
American Piano Company
)
, nabisco
(
National Biscuit Company
), or by other devices,
e.g., bromo-seltzer (bromide
and
seltzer
) and
japalac (Japanese
and
lacquer
).
¹⁹
To the same class belong such blends as
Bancamerica
and
Bancorporation
. The American advertiser is also a very diligent manufacturer of wholly new terms, and many of his coinages,
e.g., vaseline
,
²⁰
cellophane, carborundum, pianola, kotex, victrola, uneeda, listerine
,
²¹
postum, lux
, and
kodak
²²
are quite as familiar
to all Americans as
tractor
or
soda-mint
, and have come into general acceptance as common nouns. Dr. Louise Pound has made an interesting study of these artificial trade-names.
²³
They fall, she finds, into a number of well-defined classes. There are those that are simply derivatives from proper names,
e.g., listerine, postum
; the blends,
e.g., jap-a-lac, locomobile, cuticura
; the extensions with common suffixes,
e.g., alabastine, protectograph, dictograph, orangeade, crispette, pearline
; the extensions with new or fanciful suffixes,
e.g., resinol, thermos, shinola, sapolio, lysol, neolin, crisco
; the diminutives,
e.g., cascaret, wheatlet, chiclet
; the simple compounds,
e.g., palmolive, spearmint, peptomint, autocar
; the blends made of proper names,
e.g., oldsmobile, hupmobile, valspar
; the blends made of parts of syllables or simple initials,
e.g., reo, nabisco
; the terms involving substitutions,
e.g., triscuit
; and the arbitrary formations,
e.g., kodak, tiz, kotex
,
²⁴
vivil
. Brander Matthews once published an Horatian ode, of unknown authorship, made up of such inventions:

One of the words here used is not American, but Italian,
i.e., fiat
, a blend made of the initials of Fabbrica Italiano Automobili Torino,
but most of the others are quite familiar to all Americans. Says Matthews: