The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1894-11-01
AMERICAN FOIK-SPEECH.
Old English Words Appear in New
GuiSe Hero.
Local Rustic Dialects Are Composed Al
M ost Entirely of Older Forms OF
Words Now Obsolete-Some
Queer Phrases.

The English of bookreading Aneri-
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
different environment and the huctua-
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 Marics daies, will be
found in the dialect speech of rustic
nciehborhoods i'll 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
Littrc was not above paying his re-
spects. Disavowing any pretension to be
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 its 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 fall 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 AmericS. For example,
swamp" with u farreaching Scandi-
navian ancestry, and 10 doubt Il long
provincial use in England, had to be
explained to English readers, though
its use appears to have been general in
the American colonies. BY 1876 it had
passed into a verb in common use in
Massachusetts; thus Ninigrct, the In
dian chief, is said to have ''swamped
himself when he had hidden in a
wooded morass. In 1870 swamp"
formed part of compound word;
''swamp-law," in Maine stood for GER
tain extra judicial methods of attain
ing Justice known to all rude and piO-
necr lands. The word swamp" like
many other prOvincials of the time,
bcttered its fortunes by immigration,
and was received into good English So
ciety when it went back.
There are indigenous words in our
folk-spcech, 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
solctc, and of words from provincial
English dialects. When first | heard
farmers in the Lake George region call
q "cowslip' a ''cowslop," | smiled to
think how modern the corruption was,
and how easy to imagine that the
name had something to do with the
feeding of Il COW. But rash guesses in
| ctymology 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 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 Il
young woman in a state of effervescent
mirth. 1t is easy and natural to sup
pose this to be modern, and to derive it
from seafarer's figure of speech. But
the Danes who settled in England
spoke a tongue very much like the
Icelandic, and there is in this speech
the word ''gall"-with a long vowel
meaning 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 to romp. For this 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 1t so recent as that.
l have given enough examples to
show that the most ancient and least
mutable part of a language is the
residuum folk-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 word, he will
put another meaning into it with as
little alteration as possible. Some of
the provincial English people say hal
lowday" for holiday or holy day. But
New England hallowed no holidays,
and kept holy no holy days but the
Sabbath. SO from holiday, or the broad
sound of hallow-day, some of our
northern farmers get "hollow-day"-
that is, a day with no work in it. They
attach quite another sense to hollow"
when they note the condition of the
atmosphere in which sound is easily
carried. THE air is so hollow that |
can hear train ten miles off, one will
say.