The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1894-12-26
AMERICAN FOLK-SPEECH.
Old English Words Appear in New
Guise Here.
Local Rustic Dialects Are Composed AL.
most Entirely Of Older Forms Of
Words Now ObsOlote-Some
Queer Phrases.

!1ish people, writes Edward Eggleston
in Century, only in those superficial
traits that are the unavoidable result of
different environmentand the fiuctua-
'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-
well, 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,
lectsof 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
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, il
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 far-reaching Scandi-
navian ancestry, and no doubt a 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 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 compound word;
"swamp-law," in Maine stood for cer-
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 its fortunes by immigration,
and was received into good English so-
ciety when it went back.
There are indigenous words in our
folk-specch, 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
"cowslip" ''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 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
ng that, both as noun and verb, "slop"
'efers to any liquid or semi-liquid food |
or cattle, and this over so wide a re-
yion of America as to make its an
'iquity certain.
Take another expression that seems
strictly American. "She is in a perfect
,ale," one says of little girl or a
'oung woman in state of cffervescent
nirth. 1t is easy and natural to sup
'ose this to be modern, and to derive 1t
rom seafarer's figure of speech. But
he Danes who settled in England
poke tongue very much like the
celandic, and there is in this speech
he word 'gall"-with long vowel
neoutng a "ft of gayety," SO that
Anglo-Danish ladies in the court
u Knut probably got into
perfect gale" as our American won.
N and girls do now. In New
England they have the verb to train"
or to romp. For this can find no re.
note ancestry; it may have come from !
he New England "trainin'," with its
um, cider and ginger bread, but | do
lot think it SO recent as that.
have given enough examples to
how that the most ancient and least
nutable part of language is the
folk-speech. Fashions
nay change, but the countryman is
low to give up the ways and words of
is forefathers, If the worlds changes
mock the sense out of word, he will
ut another meaning into it with as
title alteration as possible, Some of
ne provincial English people say ''hal-
owday" for holiday or holy day. But
lew England hallowed no HOLIDAYS,
nd kept holy no holy days but the
abbath. So from holiday, or the broad
ound Of hallow-day, some of our
orthern farmers get "hollow-dayn-
hat is, a day with no work In it. They
ttach quite another sense to hollow"
1hen they note the condition of the
tmosphere in which sound is easily
arried. "The air is so hollow that /
an hear train ten miles off. !" one will
ny