The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-26
SOME POPULAR EXPRESSIONS.
Curiosities of American Speech Accord
ing to a Dialect Society.


Curiosities of American Speech Accord
ing to Dialect Society.
Is a pancake fried or baked. or simply
cookedP Is it, after all, really pancake
and not rather a griddie cake, a flannel
cake, buckwheat or fapjack? What is
doughnut? When you tear your trous-
ers ON sharp point what is the first word
you instinctively apply to the rectangular
rent; tramp patch, barn door or weewary,
as says the New Highlander, or is it a win
klehawk, or nicklehawk, as New Workers
say? What do you mean by dingbats?
How widespread is the use of the shimmy?
Such are the problems set by the American
Dialect Society in part eight of its notes,
which will be published IN a few days.
Three distinct recipes for the preparation
OF dcughnuts are promulgated by the So
ciety. Dough, raised with yeast, sweet
ened and spiced, cut into cubes, which,
when fried in deep vessel with hot fat,
become round Jumps. forms the doughnut
of Connecticut. By substituting soda or
saleratus for yeast, and cutting the paste
into circles or twists, you have thu dough-
nut of Massachusetts,, which the Dutch
settler calls the olykoek and others the
cruller; while the native of Connecti-
cut distinguishes between the twisted billed
cake and the round tumble. If merely
unseaSoned dough be used you have the
fried bread of Massachusetts, called in
Cape Cod seventy-fours and elsewh here it
seems, doughnuts. The dingbat has had
an adventurerouS career. Starting as
ball OF dirt on the legs of sheep in Yer
mont, it becomes smart spank to the
Northern New Highlander, squabbIe, a
flying missile and money to the Maine
lumberman. the biscuit of the New Eng
land boarding-school, while in Georgia it
has turned TO mothers kiss, and you
may say of the girl you admire, "She is a
regular dingbat.'
1t must not be inferred that culinary and
domestic matters alone engross the So
cietys attention, though it is at home
that the careless words and phrases are
most likely to be used which deviate from
literary forms, but have passed from mouth
to mouth since the man first spoke. This
part of dialect notes contains no less than
600 new words and usages collected
throughout the land, some poetical, many
picturesque and all curious and interesting,
In the Tennessee mountains, streams
flowing from the east are sunrise waters, a
mule that you eau trust is confidential
mule, railroad train is smoke wagon,
kiss is smouch, cheese is plural, with
singular chez, sugar is sweetening; a man
subject to fits is fitted, ana very much is
eral, or way yander A man points
to a hillside and tells you that he
Lives OH yon coast" and has a "good
scope of land, he greets you with "How
do you come on ?" and asks you to Come
in and rest your hat" A toothbrush to
him means a snuffstick, ill means cross,
juberous timid, fitsy mean, popular styl-
ish, his past lenses are fotch and holp and
seed and squez and swole; he tells you
that sickness is mighty interruptin', -
that it is "a gosh wet SPELL" and "hit's
too-my-goodness cold" that he has 'the
beatenest boy and talkenest old woman
you ever see, and that that young fiirt is
"tryin' to get chaw on Teller"
The sky-baked or stay-at-home Jersey
matron coasters or potters around the
house, calls her preserves do-ups, pork
spack, her husband, if need be, q iobscouse
or loper, meaning worthless fellow. She
sides up or cleans up or goes struling,
wasting time about the village. but she
cares not Dutch cuss about going down
country, that is to New York City.
Coof is the name for an off-islander in
Nantucket, on Mount Desert the summer
visitor is q rusticrata, stupid Vermonter
is dod unk, a goober grubber Gigs peanuts
in Tennessee. When a man is confused he
is mommixed in Kentucky, he is muxed uD
in Otsego County, galleyied i'll New Bed
ford, stodged in Indiana, and wuZzled in
New York. 81 don't hurt fer it." means
81 don't care" in Mississippi, while | don't
mind it a bit" implies terror in North Car
DINA, where great calamity is scandalous.
The sunset is day on the Virginia coast.N
A man has large money in Cincinnati, he
has scuds of it in Missouri, and a session
of it in Georgia. When a Terre Haute
citizen is sullen he is putchky, and if too
weak to get out of bed he is on the lift,
while a pawky Ohioan is one in poor
health, and a mentally weak Kentuckian
is siack-twisted. Hogo is a strong smell
in New Hampshire, where a severe storm
is tan toaster. Missouri slush is sposh.
Green corn remains roast'n ear in Florida,
even when it is canned, and there a COW
may give birth to yearling.
The farmers of Orange and Sullivan
counties have the reprehensible practice
of making their maple syrup by melting
the sugar; this they call alamagoozleum.
On Staten Island splendid is galioptious
tidbits are manavelins, and to turn is to
tarve. Patchogue says noink and SUNK
western part OF the State, when two young
hearts begin to beat as one they are
said to be scamulgulated. The Itha-
can on entering the house hangs
up his shock, his hat and coat
The Otsego thief when caught looks
meecking or guilty, even when he has
stolen mere smitten. very small guam
tity. Quarter eagles must be more COM
mon in the central part of the State than
in the city, for they are still known as
twenty-shilling pieces, and silver dollars
as bareback. There slonchy is loplolly
sticky is tacky. you are hushed when you
are tired, you change off when you move,
you go large when you are extravaganza,
you pronounce hoax dissyllable, you
pooster about when you are fussy, you are
in yang when in hurry, and when vio-
lent you do things kabang, kachunk,
kofop, kaslam.-New York Sun.