The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms (Facts on File Library of American Literature)

800 Pages·2000·3.32 MB·English

by  Robert Hendrickson

the facts on file
dictionary of
a
merican
r
egionalisms

the facts on file
dictionary of
a
merican
r
egionalisms
robert hendrickson
THE FACTS ON FILE DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN REGIONALISMS
Copyright © 2000 by Robert Hendrickson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hendrickson, Robert, 1933–
The Facts On File dictionary of American regionalisms/Robert Hendrickson.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8160-4156-3 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Americanisms—Dictionaries. 2. English language—United States—Dictionaries.
I. Title: Dictionary of American regionalisms. II. Title
PE2835 .H46 2000
423'1—dc21 00-028808
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Text design byErika K. Arroyo
Cover design by Cathy Rincon
Printed in the United States of America
VB FOF 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
“I hear America singing . . . their strong melodious songs.”
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
For Marilyn
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments viii
Preface ix
I. Whistlin’ Dixie: Southern Ways of Speech 1
II. Yankee Talk: New England Expressions 165
III. Mountain Range: Words and Phrases from
Appalachia to the Ozarks 331
IV. Happy Trails: Western Words and Sayings 423
V. New Yawk Tawk: New York City Expressions 585
VI. Da Kine Talk: Hawaiian Dialect 693
VII. Ferhoodled English: Pennsylvania Dutch Talk 721
VIII. More Odd Ways Americans Talk 751
Index 760
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As noted throughout these pages, this book for the invaluable, too, as have fascinating journals like Verba-
general reader owes much to the legion of dedicated tim and Maledicta, and syndicated columns such as
dialectologists who have produced a large body of bril- William Safire’s always edifying and entertaining On
liant scholarly studies in a relatively infant field. I am Language. I must also express my debt to the hundreds
indebted to hundreds of sources that I’ve consulted over of novelists, playwrights, poets, newspaper columnists
the 20 years I’ve been writing about American dialects, and other authors whose works have illuminated the
especially to journals like American Speech and Dialect speech of their native American regions. Finally, my
Notes; Mitford M. Mathews’s A Dictionary of Ameri- heartfelt thanks go to the many friendly, hospitable peo-
canisms on Historical Principles; John Farmer’s Ameri- ple I’ve talked with in my extensive travels through these
canisms; the incomparable Oxford English Dictionary; 50 states and who over the years have generously sup-
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary; The plied me with so many of the words, phrases and stories
Random House Dictionary of the English Language;H. recorded here.
L. Mencken’s The American Language; Harold Went- On a more personal note I’d like to thank my wife
worth and Stuart Berg Flexner’s Dictionary of American Marilyn for her immeasurable help and understanding.
Slang; J. E. Lighter’s unrivaled Random House Histori- What to say? I could write a book, or a poem, or a song,
cal Dictionary of American Slang (two volumes of but, considering space limitations, why not, quite appro-
which have been published); and the Dictionary of priately, choose a regionalism? Limiting myself to the
American Regional English, edited by Frederic G. Cas- words and phrases recorded in these pages, I’d have to
sidy and Joan Houston Hall, which when completed will choose an old Southern expression: After all these years
surely be among the greatest dictionaries in any lan- I still think you hung the Moon and the stars.
guage (three of the projected six huge volumes have been
published to date). R. H.
Scores of works about specific American dialects, Peconic, New York
such as Ramon Adams’s Western Words have proved
viii
PREFACE
This one-volume collection of all five books in the tinue to thrive, but 35 years later another master of dia-
Facts On File series on American regional expres- logue, with an ear second to none, warned that Ameri-
sions is to my knowledge the only single-volume dic- can dialects might not even endure. After a leisurely trip
tionary in print on American regionalisms. Designed to through the country, Erskine Caldwell reported in After-
appeal to the general reader, it unites all the material in noon in Mid-Americathat not only do too many Amer-
the original five books, including the introductions icans take their “point of view of events” from the
(slightly abridged). Each of the earlier five books consti- morning and evening news, but American speech pat-
tutes a separate section in the new one-volume work, terns also are beginning to sound like standardized net-
making it easier to use as a reference work than if the work talk. “Radio and television are wiping out regional
20,000 or so total entries of all the books were alpha- speech differences,” Caldwell wrote. “There is a danger
betized together. Thus the reader wanting to track down in Big Brother, in having one voice that speaks for every-
a Southern expression, or learn something about South- body.”
ern dialect, can turn to the Whistlin’ Dixie section, Years after he wrote The Grapes of Wrath, John
where he or she will find an explanatory introduction Steinbeck, too, expressed a fear that American dialects
plus a large representative selection of Southern words were dying, reporting his observations in Travels with
and phrases conveniently alphabetized in one place. Charley (1962), an account of his attempt to rediscover
In addition, this book includes a subject index, a America in a camper with his French poodle, Charley, as
number of new entries, and several new sections on his only traveling companion: “It seemed to me that
other interesting American dialects not so widely spoken regional speech is in the process of disappearing, not
and not covered in the original series. My aim through- gone but going. Forty years of radio and twenty years of
out has been to fashion an entertaining book, a “reader’s television must have this impact. Communications must
book” full of stories and interesting fact and fable about destroy localness, by a slow, inevitable process. . . . No
American regionalisms that will interest both browser region can hold out for long against the highway, the
and scholar, yet accurately include a large vocabulary high-tension line, and the national television.”
sample and perhaps make a few scholarly contributions American dialects are holding on, though, hanging
as well (including some regionalisms that haven’t been in there, as some people might express it in their dialect;
recorded anywhere else). as Steinbeck’s own Ma Joad says about her kind of
Dialects, like languages themselves, are most simply hardy people, the traveler through these States senses
different ways people have of speaking, and there are that our dialects are “goin’ on—changin’ a little maybe,
certainly many of them spoken in America today, no but goin’ right on”; they “ain’t gonna die out.” It isn’t
matter how uniform American speech might seem to likely that in the foreseeable future regional speech will
have become. Midway through The Grapes of Wrath become as uniformly flat and tasteless as commercial
(1939) John Steinbeck has young Ivy remark: “Ever’ white bread. Local dialects are doubtless changing and
body says words different. Arkansas folks says ’em dif- some are becoming more alike, in the opinion of many
ferent, and Oklahomy folks says ’em different. And we authorities besides Steinbeck and Caldwell, but then
seen a lady from Massachusetts an’ she said ’em differ- these dialects have never been worlds apart, and anyone
entest of all. Couldn’t hardly make out what she was who travels widely in America can attest that they are
sayin’.” Steinbeck seemed confident that our rich, still very much with us. There are speech experts who
vibrant, often poetic regional American talk would con- still claim, in fact, that they can pinpoint any American
ix