position, during the first year of the war, than Lee S. Overman, of North Carolina, chairman of the Committee on Rules, and commander of the administration forces on the floor. Well, I find Senator Overman using to enthuse in a speech of the utmost seriousness and importance, and not once, but over and over again.[1] I turn back a few pages and encounter it again—this time in the mouth of General Sherwood, of Ohio. A few more, and I find a fit match for it, to wit, to biograph.[2] The speaker here is Senator L. Y. Sherman, of Illinois. In the same speech he uses to resolute. A few more, and various other characteristic verbs are unearthed: to demagogue,[3] to dope out, [4] to fall down[5] (in the sense of to fail), to jack up, [6] to phone, [7] to peeve, [8] to come across[9] to hike, to butt in, [10] to back pedal, to get solid with, to hooverize, to trustify, to feature, to insurge, to haze, to reminisce, to camouflage, to play for a sucker, and so on, almost ad infinitum. And with them, a large number of highly American nouns, chiefly compounds, all pressing upward for recognition: tin-Lizzie, brain-storm, come-down, pin-head, trustification, pork-barrel, buck-private, dough-boy, cow-country. And adjectives: jitney, bush (for rural), balled-up,[11] dolled-up, phoney, tax- paid.[12] And phrases: dollars to doughnuts, on the job, that gets me, one best bet. And back-formations: ad, movie, photo. And
- ↑ March 26, 1918, pp. 4376-7.
- ↑ Jan. 14, 1918, p. 903.
- ↑ Mr. Campbell, of Kansas, in the House, Jan. 19, 1918, p. 1134.
- ↑ Mr. Hamlin, of Missouri, in the House, Jan. 19, 1918, p. 1154.
- ↑ Mr. Kirby, of Arkansas, in the Senate, Jan. 24, 1918, p. 1291; Mr. Lewis, of Illinois, in the Senate, June 6, 1918, p. 8024.
- ↑ Mr. Weeks of Massachusetts, in the Senate, Jan. 17, 1918, p. 988.
- ↑ Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, in the Senate, Jan. 17, 1918, p. 991.
- ↑ Mr. Borland, of Missouri, in the House, Jan. 29, 1918, p. 1501.
- ↑ May 4, 1917, p. 1853.
- ↑ Mr. Snyder, of New York, Dec. 11, 1917.
- ↑ Balled-up and its verb, to ball up, were originally somewhat improper, no doubt on account of the slang significance of ball, but of late they have made steady progress toward polite acceptance.
- ↑ After the passage of the first War Revenue Act cigar-boxes began to bear this inscription: "The contents of this box have been taxed paid as cigars of Class B as indicated by the Internal Revenue stamp affixed." Even tax-paid, which was later substituted, is obviously better than this clumsy double inflection.
