The Durham daily globe., 1894-10-31
1MERICAN FO1K-SPEECH.
Old English Words Appear in New
Guise Here.
Local Rustic Dialects Are Composed AL
m ost Entirely of lder Forms OF
Words Now Obsolete-SOme
Queer Phrases.

The English OF bOok-reading Ameri-
cans differs from that of educated Eng
lish people, writes Edward Eggleston
in Century. only in those superficial
traits that are the unavoidable result of
a different environment and the fuctua-
tions of fashion. But along the shore
of stream the current moves more
slowly, and suffers eddies and backsets
Much old English of the days of Crom-
we'll, some that goes back farther even
than to Queen Marie's daies," will be
found in the dialect speech Of rustic
neighborhoods in America. There are
facts in the history of English words
that will never be known until some of
the younger American philologists go
afield in search of the living forms that
grow in the soil about them, and that
are not less instructive than the dia-
lects of England assiduously gathered
by a multitude Of observers, or the
patois of the French country to which
Littre was not above paying his re-
spects. Disavowing any pretension to be
a pathological expert, propose to write
here as an observer of American folk
speech. On that portion of the history
of the English language which has to
do with it's conditions and changes in
this country, and on that alone, may
claim to speak with some authority, if
the lifelong habit of studying the
peoples speech, exceptional opportuni-
ties for observing it in many widely
separated districts, and an extensive
acquaintance with writings of all sorts,
printed and manuscript, of the colonial
period, can give authority.
English travellers very early mention
the differences between colonial speech
and that of the mother country. This
arose partly from the great number of
new objects and processes that must
have names and partly from English
provincial words adopted into general
speech in America For example,
''swamp," with a far-reaching Scandi-
navian ancestry, and no doubt long
provincial use in England, had to be
explained to English readers, though
it's use appears to have been general in
the American colonies. By 1916 it had
passed into verb in common use in
Massachusetts,; thus Ninigret, the In
dian chief, is said to have "swamped
himself when he had hidden in a
wooded morass. In 1870 ''swamp"
formed part of a compound word;
''swamp-law," in Maine stood for GER
tain extra judicial methods of attain
ing justice known to all rude and pio-
neer lands. The word SWAMP" like
many other provincials of the time,
bettered it's fortunes by immigration,
and was received into good English So
ciety when it went back.
There are indigenous words in our
folk-speech, but our local rustic dia-
lects are composed almost entirely of
words in their older forms or older
senses, of English words now quite OBJ
solete, and of words from provincial
English dialects. When first | heard
farmers in the Lake George region call
a "cowslip' a ''cowslop," l smiled to
think how modern the corruption was,
and how easy to imagine that the
name had something to do with the
feeding of a COW. But rash guesses in
etymology are ever unsafe; ''cusloppe"
is given as form Of the Anglo-Saxon
word nine centuries ago. The etymol-
ogists miss the history of this word,
and of the word ''slop," by not know
ing that, both as noun and verb, "slop''
refers to any liquid or semi-liquid food
for cattle, and this over so wide a re-
gion of America as to make it's an
tiquity certain.
Take another expression that seems
strictly American. ''She is in perfect
gale" one says of little girl or a
young woman in state of effervescent
mirth. It is easy and natural to sup
pose this to be modern, and to derive it
from a seafarers figure of speech. But
the Danes who settled in England
spoke tongue very much like the
1celandic, and there is in this speech
the word ''gall"-with long vowel
meaning a fit of gayety," SO that
Anglo-Danish ladies in the court
of Knut probably ''got into a
perfect gale" as our American wom-
en- and girls do now. In New
England they have the verb to "train''
for 20 romp. For this l can find no re-
mote ancestry; it may have come from
the New England ''trainin'," with it's
rum, cider and ginger bread, but l do
not think it 50 recent as that.
| have given enough examples to
show that the most ancient and least
mutable part OF a language is the
residuum-the folll-speech. Fashions
may change, but the countryman is
slow to give up the ways and words of
his forefathers. If the worlds changes
knock the sense out of a word, he will