_Humans_
for _men_, which Mr.
James Russell Lowell
The A.
-S.
_wealwian_ (_to wither_) is nearer, but not so near
as two words in the Icelandic, which perhaps put us on the track of its
ancestry,--_velgi_, _tepefacere_, (and _velki_, with the derivative)
meaning _contaminare_. _Wilt_, at any rate, is a good word, filling, as
it does, a sensible gap between drooping and withering, and the
imaginative phrase 'he wilted right down,' like 'he caved right in,' is
a true Americanism. _Wilt_ occurs in English provincial glossaries, but
is explained by _wither_, which with us it does not mean. We have a few
words such as _cache_, _cohog_, _carry_ (_portage_), _shoot_ (_chute_),
_timber_ (_forest_), _bushwhack_ (to pull a boat along by the bushes on
the edge of a stream), _buckeye_ (a picturesque word for the
horse-chestnut); but how many can we be said to have fairly brought into
the language, as Alexander Gill, who first mentions Americanisms, meant
it when he said, '_Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur ut_ MAIZ _et_
CANOA'? Very few, I suspect, and those mostly by borrowing from the
French, German, Spanish, or Indian. [28] 'The Dipper,' for the 'Great
Bear,' strikes me as having a native air. _Bogus_, in the sense of
_worthless_, is undoubtedly ours, but is, I more than suspect, a
corruption of the French _bagasse_ (from low Latin _bagasea_), which
travelled up the Mississippi from New Orleans, where it was used for the
refuse of the sugar-cane. It is true, we have modified the meaning of
some words. We use _freshet_ in the sense of _flood_, for which I have
not chanced upon any authority. Our New England cross between Ancient
Pistol and Dugald Dalgetty, Captain Underhill, uses the word (1638) to
mean a _current_, and I do not recollect it elsewhere in that sense. I
therefore leave it with a? for future explorers. _Crick_ for _creek_ I
find in Captain John Smith and in the dedication of Fuller's 'Holy
Warre,' and _run_, meaning a _small stream_, in Waymouth's 'Voyage'
(1605).
_Humans_ for _men_, which Mr. Bartlett includes in his
'Dictionary of Americanisms,' is Chapman's habitual phrase in his
translation of Homer. I find it also in the old play of 'The Hog hath
lost his Pearl. ' _Dogs_ for _andirons_ is still current in New England,
and in Walter de Biblesworth I find _chiens_ glossed in the margin by
_andirons_. _Gunning_ for _shooting_ is in Drayton. We once got credit
for the poetical word _fall_ for _autumn_, but Mr. Bartlett and the last
edition of Webster's Dictionary refer us to Dryden. It is even older,
for I find it in Drayton, and Bishop Hall has _autumn fall_. Middleton
plays upon the word: 'May'st thou have a reasonable good _spring_, for
thou art like to have many dangerous foul _falls_. ' Daniel does the
same, and Coleridge uses it as we do. Gray uses the archaism _picked_
for _peaked_, and the word _smudge_ (as our backwoodsmen do) for a
smothered fire. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (more properly perhaps than
even Sidney, the last _preux chevalier_) has 'the Emperor's folks' just
as a Yankee would say it. _Loan_ for _lend_, with which we have hitherto
been blackened, I must retort upon the mother island, for it appears so
long ago as in 'Albion's England. ' _Fleshy_, in the sense of _stout_,
may claim Ben Jonson's warrant, and I find it also so lately as in
Francklin's 'Lucian. ' _Chore_ is also Jonson's word, and I am inclined
to prefer it to _chare_ and _char_, because I think that I see a more
natural origin for it in the French _jour_--whence it might come to mean
a day's work, and thence a job--than anywhere else. [29] _At onst_ for _at
once_ I thought a corruption of our own, till I found it in the Chester
Plays.
as two words in the Icelandic, which perhaps put us on the track of its
ancestry,--_velgi_, _tepefacere_, (and _velki_, with the derivative)
meaning _contaminare_. _Wilt_, at any rate, is a good word, filling, as
it does, a sensible gap between drooping and withering, and the
imaginative phrase 'he wilted right down,' like 'he caved right in,' is
a true Americanism. _Wilt_ occurs in English provincial glossaries, but
is explained by _wither_, which with us it does not mean. We have a few
words such as _cache_, _cohog_, _carry_ (_portage_), _shoot_ (_chute_),
_timber_ (_forest_), _bushwhack_ (to pull a boat along by the bushes on
the edge of a stream), _buckeye_ (a picturesque word for the
horse-chestnut); but how many can we be said to have fairly brought into
the language, as Alexander Gill, who first mentions Americanisms, meant
it when he said, '_Sed et ab Americanis nonnulla mutuamur ut_ MAIZ _et_
CANOA'? Very few, I suspect, and those mostly by borrowing from the
French, German, Spanish, or Indian. [28] 'The Dipper,' for the 'Great
Bear,' strikes me as having a native air. _Bogus_, in the sense of
_worthless_, is undoubtedly ours, but is, I more than suspect, a
corruption of the French _bagasse_ (from low Latin _bagasea_), which
travelled up the Mississippi from New Orleans, where it was used for the
refuse of the sugar-cane. It is true, we have modified the meaning of
some words. We use _freshet_ in the sense of _flood_, for which I have
not chanced upon any authority. Our New England cross between Ancient
Pistol and Dugald Dalgetty, Captain Underhill, uses the word (1638) to
mean a _current_, and I do not recollect it elsewhere in that sense. I
therefore leave it with a? for future explorers. _Crick_ for _creek_ I
find in Captain John Smith and in the dedication of Fuller's 'Holy
Warre,' and _run_, meaning a _small stream_, in Waymouth's 'Voyage'
(1605).
_Humans_ for _men_, which Mr. Bartlett includes in his
'Dictionary of Americanisms,' is Chapman's habitual phrase in his
translation of Homer. I find it also in the old play of 'The Hog hath
lost his Pearl. ' _Dogs_ for _andirons_ is still current in New England,
and in Walter de Biblesworth I find _chiens_ glossed in the margin by
_andirons_. _Gunning_ for _shooting_ is in Drayton. We once got credit
for the poetical word _fall_ for _autumn_, but Mr. Bartlett and the last
edition of Webster's Dictionary refer us to Dryden. It is even older,
for I find it in Drayton, and Bishop Hall has _autumn fall_. Middleton
plays upon the word: 'May'st thou have a reasonable good _spring_, for
thou art like to have many dangerous foul _falls_. ' Daniel does the
same, and Coleridge uses it as we do. Gray uses the archaism _picked_
for _peaked_, and the word _smudge_ (as our backwoodsmen do) for a
smothered fire. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (more properly perhaps than
even Sidney, the last _preux chevalier_) has 'the Emperor's folks' just
as a Yankee would say it. _Loan_ for _lend_, with which we have hitherto
been blackened, I must retort upon the mother island, for it appears so
long ago as in 'Albion's England. ' _Fleshy_, in the sense of _stout_,
may claim Ben Jonson's warrant, and I find it also so lately as in
Francklin's 'Lucian. ' _Chore_ is also Jonson's word, and I am inclined
to prefer it to _chare_ and _char_, because I think that I see a more
natural origin for it in the French _jour_--whence it might come to mean
a day's work, and thence a job--than anywhere else. [29] _At onst_ for _at
once_ I thought a corruption of our own, till I found it in the Chester
Plays.
