Arizona republican., 1905-10-25

there are very few words and phrases peculiar to Arizona. Ali her popular expressions come from the older states. north, south, east and west, and from Mexico so she cannot boast of an Ari- zona language. There is no more cos mOpolitan people in the world and in the distance of a city block one may hear everything from Bostonese to Yaqui lingo and from Bowery talk to passwords of the plains.
 Prof. Hempl of Ann Arobor, is pre- pairing a work treating of the local dia- lects all over the country and not wish ing to give the Arizona people the worst of it, he has written to Col. Me Clintock, who as postmaster is suppOs- ed to understand the language of the country. He encloses a number of cards on which are questions for an swer as indicating to what tribe of Americans the ArizOnians belong. For instance he inquiries whether Arizon- ians say bucket" or pail" whether they cook in spiders" pans" or | "skillets, whether they pronounce hog, dog and log, as the spelling book says, or as most people in most coun- tries do namely hawg. dawg, and Lawg. To most of these questions it has been necessary to reply that ev- erything goes, one can hear a word pronounced almost any old way he wants to, by standing on the streets a few minutes and keeping his eyes and ears open.
 In his reply to Prof. Hempl. Colonel McClintock says:
 Dear Sir: In response to your cards with questions concerning local idioms, l am moved to make somewhat longer reply than your questions call for. Your questions simply cannot be answered, as every form of usage you set forth is to be locally found. In fact there is no local dialect. for the English-s speaking residents of this sec tion, as of all Arizona, have come from every part of the union. Possibly the clipped speech of the Californian would be noted by a new conner as the com monest, but then, California itself is a most catholic locality in its usage of English. Here the population. exclu- sive of the Californians, seems to have come from the middle west. with many MissCurians, and from the gulf states, with large admiXture of Texans Yet every state is represented on our city great register.
 "The speech of the people here, like that in the older California, soon be- comes colOred with Spanish, whether
 
 Mexicans or not. This is especially true nearer the border, though even here, in this essentially American city of Phoenix, the stranger at once notes the influence of the Mexican popuIa- ton upon the speech of the whole cit izenship.
 'In this connection I would urge up- on you a realization of the fact that there is no such idiom in existence as that found in the WoolfvilIe tales or Tn the Arizona Kicker column of the Detroit Free Press. I have lived more than twenty-six years in Arizona. on the cattle ranges and in the cities. and have found that the cattleman. the miner or the urban dweIler. speaks the speech of the state whence he came. though stripped before many years of It's prominent oddities and eccentrici- ties. For Arizona is a very new coun- try, from an American standpoint for " years of white settlement giving. little time for the formation of racial or linguistic specialties.
 The school system is good. with very many teachers from your own To- caIlty, promoting general usage in the younger generation of the forms of English most common in such states as Michigan, Illinois and Ohio.