The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-03-11
SOME POPULAR EXPRESSIONS.
CuriOsities Of American Speech Accord
ing to . Dialect sosiety-IIIustrations
Showing How the vernacuiar Il Per-
ycrted,
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
Is a pancake fried or baked. or simply
cooked? Is II, after all, really pancake
and not rather "a griddle cake. u flannel
cake, buckwheat or flapjack? What
Is a doughnut? When you tear youi
trousers on Il sharp point what Is the FIRST
word you instinctively apply to the rec.
tangular rent: trap patch. barn door. OF
weeWary. as says the New Englander. al
Is 1t winklehawk or nicklehawk, as New
Workers say? What do you mean by ding
bats? 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 u
few days.
Three distinct recipes for the prepa ra-
tiOn of doughnuts are promulgated by the
society. Dough. raised with yeast, sweet
cred and spiced., cut into cubes. which,
when fried In u 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 the dough
nut OF Massachusetts, which the Dutch
settler calls the Olyk0ek and others the
cruller; while the native of Connecticut
distinguishes between the twisted billed
cake and the round tumble. If merely un.
seasoned dough, be used you have the fried
bread OF Massachusetts, called on Cape
Cod seventy-fours, and elsewhere, II
seems, doughnuts. The dingbat has had
an adventurous career. Starting as a
mont. 1t becomes smart spank to the
northern New Englander, a squable, a fly
Ing missile and money to the Maine lum-
herman. the biscuit Of the New England
turned to a mothers kiss, and you may
say of the girl you admire: 'She is a
regular dingbat."
TENNESSEE IDIOMs.
1t must not be inferred that culinary
and domestic matters alone engross the
society's attention. though 1t Is at home
that the careless words and phrases are
most likely to be used which deviate from
mouth to mouth since man first spoke.
This part of dialect notes contains no less
than 900 new words and usages, collected
throughout the land, some poetical. many
picturesque, and all curious and interest
ing.
In the Tennessee mountains, streams
flowing from the east are sunrise waters,
a mule that you can trust is a confidential
mule, a railroad trains is smoke wagon,
kiss Is a smOuch. cheese Is plural. with
q singular chee, sugar Is sweetening, but
mOlasses Is long sweetening, q man sub
tect to fits Is fitified, and very much Is a
or way yander. A man points to hillside
and tells you that he "lives on 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 snuff stick,
i'll means cross. juberous timid. fisty mean,
popular stylish, his past lenses are fotch
and holp and seed and squeZ and swole;
he tells you that sickness is mighty in
terruption;" that II is "a cash wet SPELL
and hits toO-my-gOodness cold" that he
has "the beatenest boy and talkenest old
woman ever you see." and that that
young flirt Is '.tryin' to git chaw on a
feller."
The sty-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, lob
scouse or loper, meaning worthless fell
low. She sides up or cleans up or goes
strulling, wasting time about the village.
but she cares not Dutch cuss about GO
ing down country, that is, to New York
city.
OTHER VERBAL ODDITIES.
Coof is the name for an off-islander in
Nantucket, on Mt. Desert the summer
visitor Is a rusticrata, a stupid Nermonter
is dodunk, goOber gruber digs peanuts
in Tennessee. When man is confused
he Is mommixed in Kentucky, he is muXed
UP In OtsegO county, galleyied in New
Bedford. stodged in Indiana. and wuzzled
In New York. II don't hurt fer it," means
81 don't care in Mississippi, while II
don't mind IL bit" implies terror in North
Carolina, where great calamity Is scam
dalous. The sunset Is day down on the
Virginia coast A man has large money
In Cincinnati. he has scuds of II in AIissou-
ri, and a session of Ii In Georgia.