The New International Encyclopædia/Americanisms

AMERICANISMS. Words and phrases peculiar to the United States. They are classified by one writer on this subject (Bartlett) as follows: (1) Archaisms, obsolete, or nearly so, in Great Britain. (2) English words used in a different sense. (3) Words used in the original sense in the United States, although not in Great Britain. (4) English provincialisms adopted into general use in America. (5) Newly-coined words owing their origin to productions or circumstances of the country. (6) Words derived from European languages, especially the French, Spanish, and Dutch. (7) Indian words. (8) Negroisms. (9) Peculiarities of pronunciation. Accepting for the present this arrangement, we may cite as examples of archaisms, fall, for autumn, freshet, to lam, in the sense of to beat, to squelch, and to tarry. These are only a few; for an American philologist has stated that of the words, phrases, and constructions found in the Bible and Book of Common Prayer, “about one-sixth, which are no longer used in England in ordinary prose-writing, would apparently be used without thought or hesitation by an American author.” Among the many English words used in a different or perverted sense are barn for stable; boards, for deals; buggy, a four-wheeled vehicle — in England, two-wheeled; calico, printed cotton, in England means unprinted; clever, for good-natured — in England, generally, intelligent or skillful; corn, for maize, whereas in England it means wheat, in Scotland, oats, and in Ireland, barley; cracker, for biscuit; depot, for station; dress, for gown; forehanded, well-to-do — in England, means timely, early; hack, a hackney coach — in England, a hired horse; homely, plain-featured — in England, homelike or unadorned; to jew, to haggle — in England, to cheat; likely, for promising; lumber, for timber; to mail, for to post; notify, to give notice — in England, to make known; pond, a natural pool of water — in England, artificial; reliable, for trustworthy; saloon, for tap-room; smart, for talented; smudge, a smouldering fire used to drive away insects — in England, simply an overpowering smoke; store, for shop; tavern, for inn (a tavern in Great Britain provides no lodgings); temper, with us meaning passion, is in England control of passion; ugly, for ill-natured; venison, deer's flesh — in England, meat of any wild animal; track, for line; vest, for waistcoat. We use also, in large number, different words for the same thing, as conductor, for guard; editorial, for leader; elevator, for lift; horse-car, for tram, and sleeper, for tie.

Examples of words retaining here their old meaning are: Fleshy, in the sense of stout; offal, the parts of a butchered animal not worth salting; sick, in the sense of ill; and wilt, in the sense of wither. On the other hand, to heft, meaning with us, to weigh by lifting, keeps, in England, its original meaning, to lift. Many words called archaic or provincial by English writers are widely current among Americans in both speech and literature — among them adze, affectation, angry (wound), andiron, bay-window, bearer (at a funeral), to blaze (a tree), burly, cesspool, clodhopper, counterfeit money, cross-purposes, deft, din, hasp, loophole, ornate, ragamuffin, shingle, stand (speaker's), stock (cattle), thill, toady, tramp, truck, and underpinning. Among newly-coined words and expressions are these, showing plainly their origin on the frontier or in the forest: backwoods, cache, clearing, to draw a bead, to fight fire, a gone coon, hogwallow, logging camp, prairie schooner, raft (of dead trees), squatter, squaw-man, the timber, and trapper. Ranch life has given us such words as corral, cowboy, roundup, and stampede; the mining regions, bed-rock, diggings, to pan out, to prospect, and to stake a claim. From the farm and plantation we have obtained among others, bagasse, broom-corn, Hessian fly, Indian meal, and truck-patch; while trade has supplied us with bogus, drummer, posted up, and to settle (a bill). Many others might be added from the language of Wall Street. Our political terms and phrases include the following, most of which are the subject of special articles in this Encyclopædia: Agricultural wheel, barnburner, bloody shirt, boodle, buncombe, carpet-bagger, caucus, copperhead, to eat crow, dark horse, doughface, favorite sons, fence-riding, F. F. V.'s, filibuster, fire-eater, gerrymander, half breed, stalwart, hunker, jayhawker, Ku-Klux-Klan, loco-foco, log-rolling, Lynch law, Mugwump, omnibus bill, pipe-laying, plank, primary, reconstruction, salt river, shin-plaster, spellbinder, squatter sovereignty, Greenbacker, wire-puller, Yazoo fraud.

Words derived from foreign languages are numerous, and one philologist (W. W. Crane) asserts that, though few are intelligible to English people, they are more extensively used by Englishmen than is generally supposed, and “form the really distinctive features of what may be termed the American language.” Thus, from the Spanish we have in corrupted or contracted form, creole (criollo), garrote (garrota), jerked beef (charqui), key, a small island (cayo), lasso (lazo), mustang (mesteño), pickaninny, contracted to pickney in S. C. (pequeño niño), Sambo (Zambo, a person of negro and Indian blood); stampede (estampedo); and such literally appropriated words as adobe, bonanza, cañon, and mesa. From the French have been obtained among many, bayou (boyau, a trench), cache or cash (cacher), chowder (chandière), shivaree (charivari), metif, an Indian half-breed (métif or métis), and the identical butte, levee, portage, prairie, and voyageur. From the Dutch have come boss, an overseer or superior (baas); cold slaw, cabbage salad (kool slaa); cruller (kruller, to twist); hook, a point of land (hoek, a corner); noodles, an imitation of macaroni (noodlejes); overslough, to supersede or defeat (orerslaan, to skip or pretermit); stoop or stoup, the step or steps of a house (stoep). Kill, a small stream, retains both its old sound and spelling, and Santa Claus (Klaas) receives as much respect as before the slight change in his name. The Germans have contributed bummer (bummler, a braggart, a wanderer), pretzel, and dude.

From the Indian we have chinquapin, a kind of oak (Va. Algonquian che-chicnamin); hominy (Va. Algonquian, custathominy); moccasin (Mass. Algonquian, mockisin); opossum (appassum); powwow (powan, a prophet or conjurer); raccoon (Algonquian, arougheun); sachem (sakemo); skunk (Abnakis, sceancu); succotash (Nanaheganset, mesicmotash); toboggan (odabogan); tomahawk (Algonquian, tamahagan, a war-club); wigwam (Natic, weeewahm) . Among words introduced or invented by the Southern negroes are: brottus, a small gift (Ga.); buccra, a white man; corn (harvest) songs (Md.); cracklings or goody-bread, bread containing roasted pork-rinds; enty? is that so? (Sea Islands); goober, a peanut (W. African guja, or Guinea gobbe-gobbe, Va. and N. C.); lagniappe, a tradesman's gratuity (Sp. ñapa, La.); moonack, a mythical animal; pickaninny, and pinder, a peanut (Fla.); while the Chinese word kowtow or kotow, salutation by prostration, has (or had) a limited use in the sense of obsequious politeness.

In the matter of pronunciation, slight differences exist. The word trait, for instance, is pronounced tray by the English, the i in sliver is lengthened by them, and schedule is commonly pronounced shedule. We may mention here that cheerful retains in some parts of the South its old pronunciation, cherful. In the pronunciation of proper names, English and American usages frequently disagree. In England Ralph is pronounced Rafe; Brownell, Parnell, etc., are accented on the first syllable; the last syllable of Gladstone is sounded short. With English surnames and geographical names cultivated Americans should seek to follow English usage. In Christian names Englishmen generally use only the first, while Americans always give the full form. In England we read of Ralph Emerson, Edgar Poe, etc. What have been termed by Grant Allen “Americanisms in spelling,” examples of which are labor, offenses, and theater, are undoubtedly the result of the extensive use of Webster's spelling-books and dictionary.

Americanisms are classified by Reeves as follows: (1) Eastern dialects; (2) Southern; (3) Western; (4) Pacific or mining; and he adds as a possible (5) English-Dutch (German) of Pennsylvania. This convenient arrangement enables us to separate such words and phrases as are limited to particular sections or localities (provincialisms) from those that may be called national. Beginning with New England, we have: to admire, for to like, e.g., “I should admire to go;” to allot, or 'lot, for intend; barm, for yeast; be, for am or are; bettermost; blob, a blossom; blowth, blossoming time; bungtown copper, a counterfeit; to calculate, for to infer or suppose; empti'n's, any dregs; to fail up; to fay, for to fit; fore-chamber, a front bedroom (Me.); gawnicus, a dolt; grayslick, a glassy stretch of water (Me.); Hessian, as a term of reproach; like, without a specified object, as, “How did you like?” (a place, person); long-favored, tall; mush-muddle, a potpie (Cape Cod); pew-cart, a box-like carriage (Nantucket); pleasant, for pleasing; pokeloken, a marsh (Me.); priest, for a minister of any denomination; pung, a kind of sleigh; rifle, a whetstone for scythes; sconce, for discretion; to scep, to pour through a sieve or hole; slip, for pew; spero, a commonplace entertainment, “small doings” (Vt.); staddle, a sapling; suant or suent, level, uniform; to sugar off, to boil maple syrup down until it grains; tackling, for harness; timbers, for skeleton of a whale; torsh, the youngest child (Cape Cod); to train, to move briskly (like the militia on “training day”), to frolic; vestry, the chapel or lecture-room of a non-liturgical church; v'y'ge, for voyage; wopper (or whopper) jawed; wicket, a hut or shelter of boughs (Me.); winegar, for vinegar (Essex Co., Mass.); York shilling, ninepence. In New York State, among localisms derived from the Dutch, are bockey, a gourd-dipper; fyke, a bow-net; hoople, a child's hoop; pile, an arrow, and scup, a swing, a name still used by children of foreign parentage on the “east side” of New York City. Slip, an opening between wharves, is apparently an indigenous English word; the provincial English duff, dough or paste, signifies, in the Adirondacks, fallen and matted hemlock needles; and dimpy (probably from the English dimpsy, a kind of preserve) is the name given in some places to a tea-party, or a small social gathering at which refreshments are served. New Jersey, settled, like New York, both by English and Dutch, preserves in remote localities some Old World words, or perversions of the same; for example, blickic, a tin pail; to heir to, to inherit; jag, a small load; mux, disorder, and piece, a cold meal hastily prepared, or one for farm hands. Examples of the provincialisms of Pennsylvania, which were introduced by the English, Scotch-Irish, and Germans, and in many instances have been carried beyond her borders by emigration, are: after-night, for after candle-light; Aprile, for April (Cumberland Valley); barrick, a hill; bealing, suppurating; brickle, brittle; dipsey, the sinker of a fishline; dozy, timber brittle from decay; fouty, trifling; to get shut, to get rid; gums, for overshoes (eastern Pa.); horsebeast; to lift, a collection in church, to take up; once, immediately; outcry, public auction; riffles, ripples; scrapple, an article of food; slave, a fierce dog, i.e., needing to be chained (western Pa.); to smouch, to kiss; sots, common yeast; to top (a candle), to snuff; to threap, to argue; yammer, a whine or whimper.

The South has retained fully as many old English words and pronunciations as New England, and has originated some of the most expressive terms used in ordinary conversation, a number of which, by migration, have been domesticated in the West and on the Pacific coast. Among them are afeared, afraid; amber, expectoration produced by chewing tobacco (Va., Carolina); beast, horse; branch, a stream of any size; bucket, pail; brogan, a kind of boat (Chesapeake Bay); castaway, overturned; centrical, central (Va.); to chunk, to throw a missile; coppen, cow-pens; complected, having a certain kind of complexion; condeript, thrown into fits (Ky. ); corn-dodger; cracker, a poor white (Ga., Fla.); dinghy, a kind of row-boat (Fla.); dismal, a swampy tract of land (N. C.); doeious, for docile; donock, or donnock, a stone (Southwest); escalan, a kind of coin (La.); evening, afternoon (also in Illinois); feaze or feeze, an excited state; fice or phyce, a small dog, cur; French, anything distasteful (Va., Md.); grundpy, groundpea (Tenn.); gum or bee-gum, a hive made from a hollow tree; gumbo, okra, or a dish made of it; gumbo, a patois; hammock or hummock, a peculiar kind of land, often hilly (Fla., Tex.); hoe cake, a corn cake once baked on a hoe; holpen, helped (biblical); honey-fogling, for cheating or coaxing; hot, hit; howdy, how do you do?; human, for person; Jeames, James (Ind., Va.); kiver, cover; lane, any inclosed road; lightwood, pine chips or knots; marooning, picnicking or traveling by carriage; mammoxed, seriously injured; marvel, for marble; maverick, an unbranded yearling (Texas and Southwest); million, melon; needcessity, necessity; or'nary, contemptible; paint, a spotted horse; pearl, lively, brisk; pine-tag, pine needle; a polt, a blow; pone, bread of Indian meal; powerful, very; quarters, farm buildings or out-houses inhabited by negroes; rance sniffle, a malignant act (Ga.); rantankerous, quarrelsome (Ga.); to reckon, to suppose or conclude; rock, stone; roustabout; savigerous or survigrous, fierce, alert; slash, low ground or an opening in the woods; right smart, great or considerable; to scringe, to flinch (Tex.); skygodlin, obliquely (Tex.); swash, a narrow channel of water; tackey, neglected or dowdy; to tarrify, to coerce; to tote, to carry; trash, worthless or low-born persons, especially poor white trash; to up, used as a verb; used, used to; you all, of any number of persons; you-uns, for you.

The West, using the term in its old sense, which included the interior States as well as the Northwest and Southwest, in addition to words derived from the French and Spanish, some of which have already been cited, has brought into its vocabulary many peculiar words and expressions. Such are after-clap, a demand made after a bargain is closed; Arkansas toothpick, a kind of bowie-knife; bad man, a murderer; bell mare, the horse leading a drove of mules (Southwest) ; to bear off, to separate a stray “brand” by riding between it and the herd (Southwest); bodewash (bois de vache), dried cow-dung used as fuel (Southwest); to build, to make shoes (Ohio); to buss, to strike; catawampous or catawamptious, terribly or completely; country, for State or section; cowbrute (Mo.); doggery, a grogshop; drink, river; galoot, to take a gird, for to make an effort; to hustle; keener, a sharp man; lave! (lève), get up! or rise up! (Mississippi Valley); locoed, for frenzied, Sp. loco (Kansas and Southwest); long sweetening, molasses (Iowa, from New England); main traveled road, highway; naked possessor, one without title to his farm (Southwest); oldermost, oldest; plumb sure; to pull foot, to hasten; to raise, to obtain; robbilæ, pemmican boiled with flour and water (Northwest); to slosh 'round, to brag, also to frequent saloons (South and West); sugar or sugar-tree, maple; sun-up, sunrise; swinger, the middle horses in a team of six; tenderfoot, a newcomer; to trash (to cover) a trail; every whipstick, for continually, often; to want down or up (Ill.); worm (or snake) fence; to zit, to sound like a bullet striking the water. The Pacific slope is responsible for adobe, soil from which adobe bricks are made; to bach, to camp out without ladies (Cal.); Bostons, white men in general (Or. Indian); coulee, a rocky valley (Or.); claim, land to which one has a legal right; claim-jumper, one who forcibly takes another's claim; to coyote, to sink a small shaft (Cal.); diggings, a particular locality; hardpan; heeled, for armed; pay-streak, a profitable lode or vein; rusher, a person going to the mines; tanglefoot, bad liquor. Local usage differs greatly in connection with articles in common use. The Eastern paper bag is in the central West a sack; a scuttle or pail is a bucket. The British perambulator is in the East a baby carriage, and in the Central West a baby buggy or cab. A comfortable is a comfort. A distinction, furthermore, should be made between words that are used in large cities and those that are in the main confined to small communities. In the country, people hire help and keep girls; in the cities they have servants or maids; the city nurse is lengthened in the country to nurse girl. The original English folks is now a provincialism in this country. It should be noted that most of the New England words and forms used by Lowell in the Biglow Papers are provincialisms. Some Eastern provincialisms are in general use in the Central West.

Early writers on Americanisms were wont to stamp every odd or vulgar word and expression as American, with the lamentable result, as Richard Grant White complained, of creating a belief that there is a distinctive American language, “a barbarous, hybrid dialect, grafted upon English stock;” the truth being that most of the so-called Americanisms were brought to this country by its early settlers, English, Scotch-Irish, Dutch, Germans, etc., and that many of them are now used only by the unlettered. The language of the “stage Yankee,” and that of the characters in dialect-stories, Northern and Southern, are with few exceptions English, provincial or obsolete in the mother country, and not “American” in the true sense of the word. In the county of Suffolk, according to Lounsbury, the following “Americanisms” were current as recently as 1823: Apple-fritters, by gum, chaw, cute, darnation, gal, gawky, hoss, ninny-hammer, ride like blazes, sass (sauce), sappy, and tantrum. White prepared a long list of words and phrases supposed to be indigenous, and proved their British origin by citing early dates at which they appear in literature, or the names of authors in whose works they occur. Selecting from this list, and indicating by the letter "a." words known to be ancient, by "m." such as are still used in provincial speech, and by "Bible," King James' version, we submit the following: To admire, in the sense of to wish eagerly (Chapman's Homer, 1655); to advocate (Milton); apart, aside (Bulwer); baggage, luggage (Fielding, T. Hughes); blizzard (m.); blow, boastful talk (a. m.); to bolt, to rush or escape (Dryden); bosom, applied to a man (Shakespeare); bull-doze (W. Scott); bureau, for chest of drawers (Fielding, Hare); by the skin of one's teeth (Bible); catamount (a.); chaw (1530, m.); chore, light work (Ben Jonson); clean gone (Bible); clever, good-natured (Elizabethan writers); conclude, resolve (Tyndale, Froude); crevasse (Chaucer); deck of cards (Shakespeare); divine, clergyman (W. Scott, G. Eliot); elect, for conclude or determine (Lord Thurlow, Ruskin); to enjoy poor health (m.); fall, for autumn (Cairne, 1552; Froude); feel to, as in the expression, “I feel to rejoice” (m.); to fellowship (Chaucer); fix, to put in place or order (Farquhar, Sterne); fleshy, stout (Chaucer, Prof. Owen); folks, people (Byron, Bulwer Lytton); gent (Pope); a good time (Swift); grain, any cereal (Wielif); guess, think or suppose (Wielif, Milton, A. Trollope); gumption (a. m.); heft (Sackville, T. Hughes); help, servant (T. Hughes); human, person (Chapman's Homer); hung, hanged (Shakespeare, C. Reade); to hustle (a.); illy (a. m.); influential (W. Thompson, c. 1760); improvement, of an occasion, etc. (Defoe, Gibbon); institution in the sense of an establishment or foundation (Beatty, 1784; Trollope); interview, to meet for conversation (Dekker); to let on, to divulge (m.); to let slide (Gower); limb, leg (Fielding); love, like (Cowper); lucrative (Bacon); mad, angry (Bible, Middleton); magnetic as an adjective (Donne); to make a visit (m.); metropolis, the chief city of the State (Milton, De Quincey, Macaulay); million, melon (Pepys); musicianer (Byron); nice, pleasing or agreeable (a. m.); notify, to give notice (m.); notions, for small wares (Young); overly, excessively (m.); parlor, for drawing-room (G. Eliot, Helps); peruse, scan or read (W. Scott); professor of religion (Milton); pumpion (pumpkin) pie (1655); quit, leave off (Ben Jonson); railroad, railway (J. H. Newman, Mrs. Trollope); rare, underdone (Dryden); reliable (Richard Montagu, 1624, Gladstone); reckon, suppose or conclude (Bible, W. Scott); rock, stone (a.); run, a small stream (a.); sick, ill (Bible, Evelyn); skeddadle (m.); slick (a.); span new (Chaucer); spell, a period of time (a.); spruce, for neat (Evelyn); spunky (Burns); swop (B. Jonson, Dryden); to take on, to wail or grieve (a.); tend, attend (Shakespeare); town as a geographical division (Wielif); well, prefacing a sentence (Disraeli); whittling (Walpole); and the writer would add the following which are sometimes ridiculed as outlandish products of the New World: A howling wilderness (Bible); Mr. ——— and lady (Thackeray); and to set store by, in the sense of to prize or appreciate (Mrs. Oliphant). Gilbert M. Tucker says that the 460 Words in Elwyn's Glossary of Supposed Americanisms are all of British origin; that in Pickering's work (1816) not more than 70 words out of the 500 are really American; and that out of the 5000 or more entries in Bartlett's Dictionary, only about 500 are genuine and distinct Americanisms now in decent use. Most New Englanders, said James Russell Lowell, speaking of colloquialisms still heard in Massachusetts, stand less in need of a glossary to Shakespeare than many a native of the old country. It may be added that many words formerly termed Americanisms are as commonly used in England as here, though not in polite speech or literature: e.g., bamboozle, chockful, duds, and sight for number, while, on the other hand, such old forms as axe for ask, and housen for houses, are frequently heard in England and rarely here.

Richard Grant White and T. R. Lounsbury limit the term “Americanisms” narrowly. According to the former, they must not have been transplanted, but must be perversions or modifications of English words or phrases, and must be used in the current speech or literature of the United States at the present day, “Words which are the names of things peculiar to this country are not Americanisms, except under certain conditions (maize, squaw, wigwam). They are merely names which are necessarily used by writers and speakers of all languages. If, however, any such word is adopted here as the name of a thing which already had an English name (wigwam, for hut; squaw, for wife), it then becomes properly an Americanism. Indian, and names compounded of Indian, were given by Europeans. Indian pudding is an American thing, but its name is not an Americanism.” As he rejects Indian summer, paleface, succotash, tomahawk, and the rest, White asks, “What have we to do with the Indian?” and proceeding, crosses from the list of cherished “Americanisms,” bronco, lacrosse, stampede, and their kin; abolitionist, border-ruffian, gerrymander, reservation, etc., as well as groundhog, long-moss, pine barrens, and saltlick, to go further, besides refusing to discuss such words as intervale and water-gap, because they are “legitimate English.” Lounsbury, like White, objects to the expression, “the American language,” and remarks of the so-called “Yankee dialect” that it is never “the characteristic tongue of any one man, or of any one class, or of any one district.” He doubts whether the term “Americanisms” can be regularly applied to cent, congress, mileage, nullification, and so on, and prefers to call tliem “American contributions to the common language.”

American newspapers are largely to blame for the mongrel and high-sounding words heard in the United States, especially those derived from the Latin or the Greek. The oratory of political campaigns gives rise to not a few astonishing Americanisms, and our humorists have coined many more that are beloved by the public. Persons of fair education, who, as we learn from their talk, engage in avocations, reside in a mansion, wear pants, donate to charities, ride to the metropolis in a smoker, retire to bed, and have proclivities, must be expected to use also enthuse, funeralize, saleslady, and shootist, when they find them in their favorite journals; but criticism under this head comes with little grace from the English, whose leaderette is as absurd as our editorial paragraph, and agricultural laborer, a clumsy name for him whom we term a farmhand. Our colleges, Yale in particular, are prolific in slang, some of which, as to rattle, in the sense of to confuse, soon become public property. Most of our colloquial expressions are short-lived, but the following may be instanced as having been in use for a long period: to absquatulate; baggage-smasher; to bark up the wrong tree; bottom dollar; caboodle; to boost; to cavort; conniption fit; not to cure a continental; a continental darn; to chip in; coon, a colored man; a coon's age, an indefinitely long time; to dust, to leave quickly; to euchre out; to flash in the pan; flatfooted; gum game; highfalutin; last o' pea time; level best; to liquor; to moosey, to leave quickly; obligated; to paddle one's own canoe; to pan out; picayune, small, mean; to raise Cain; right away; to run, in the sense of to manage or conduct: to salt a mine; sample room, drinking-bar; shoddy, applied to a person; to smile, to drink spirits; socdologer, a finishing blow or argument; to sour on; a square meal; to strike oil, to get rich suddenly; to stump, to puzzle, or challenge; to talk turkey, to brag; tuckered out; to vamose (Sp. vamos), to leave quickly; to weaken, to yield or give out.

T. W. Higginson (see Bibliography, infra), in examining a glossary of the slang used about 1798 by British prisoners in the Castle in Boston Harbor, now Fort Independence, discovered a number of words that had been classed as of recent origin, the most familiar of which are grub, victuals; douse the glim, to put out the light; and spotted, for found out. Also some that are not given in any English glossaries, as briar, a saw; nipping-jig, the gallows; and wibble, a dollar. Most of these expressions belong to the argot of thieves.

When we remember that the dialects of the counties in England have marked differences — so marked indeed that it may be doubted whether a Lancashire miner and a Lincolnshire farmer could understand each other — we may as well be proud that our vast country has, strictly speaking, only one language. It is remarkable that the influx of European immigrants has not resulted in some States in reducing English to a patois, if not in extinguishing it, or in giving it scant room in a mongrel vocabulary. Again, it might reasonably be expected that, in the course of three centuries, the political and social changes which we have undergone, and the peculiar circumstances attending the settlement of new regions, would have separated us so widely from the mother country that, in spite of kinship and commercial and literary intercourse, some radical differences in language would have been evolved.

Bibliography. J. Witherspoon, D.D., essay in The Druid, Volume IV. (Philadelphia, 1801); J. Pickering, Vocabulary of Words and Phrases Supposed to be Peculiar to America (Boston, 1810); J. R. Lowell, introduction to the Biglow Papers (Cambridge, 1848); A. L. Elwyn, Glossary of Supposed Americanisms (New York, 1858); J. R. Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms (Philadelphia, 1859); Schele de Vere, Americanisms (New York, 1872); Norton, Political Americanisms (London, 1890); Leland, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon and Cant (London, 1887); G. Gibbs, Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon (Washington, 1863); Leland, Hans Breitmann's Ballads (Philadelphia, 1870); Harris, Uncle Remus, His Sonqs and His Sayings (New York, 1880), and Nights With Uncle Remus (New York, 1883); R. G. White, “Americanisms,” Atlantic Monthly, Volumes XLI.-XLV.; T. R. Lounsbury, “The English Language in America,” International Review, Volume VIII.; G. M. Tucker, “American English,” North American Review, Volume CXXXVI.; W. W. Crane, “The American Language,” Putnam's Magazine, Volume XVI.; Rev. H. Reeves, “Our Provincialisms,” Lippincott's Magazine, Volume III.; T. W. Higginson, “American Flash Language in 1798,” Science, May, 1885; “Southwestern Slang,” Overland Monthly, August, 1869; Brander Matthews, “Briticisms and Americanisms,” Harper's Magazine, July, 1891. See also Dialect Notes, published by the American Dialect Society since 1889. The same society has issued a list of American slang words, edited by E. H. Babbitt. Studies of several Southern dialects, by Calvin S. Brown and Sylvester Primer, have appeared in the Publications of the Modern Language Association.