American Language Supplement 1

by H. L. Mencken

  2 Some Impressions of the United States; New York, 1883. His remarks on American honorifics are reprinted in American Social History as Recorded by British Travelers, by Allan Nevins; New York, 1923, pp. 481–82.

  1 New York, 1939.

  2 Vol. II, pp. 251 and 257.

  3 Her husband, who was in the Confederate Army, was killed at Chickamauga.

  4 Sandburg, Vol. II, p. 260.

  5 New Words for Old, Baltimore Evening Sun, editorial page, June 3, 1938.

  6 How’s That Again? Department, New Yorker, Jan. 6, 1940.

  7 William Hickey, in the London Daily Express, July 7, 1939.

  8 Henry Bean, in the London News-Chronicle, July 11, 1939. I am indebted for both examples to an English correspondent, but his name has unhappily vanished from my notes.

  1 For the first; Washington, 1937, see p. 120; for the latter; Washington, 1935, p. 53.

  2 p. 28.

  3 On Oct. 25, 1939, for example, a congressman of the name of D’Alesandro described her as Madame Frances Perkins in the superscription of a letter on official business, and addressed her as Dear Madame Perkins in the salutation thereof. See the Congressional Record, April 9, 1940, p. 6396.

  4 p. 26.

  1 His remark upon it was in his Travels in The United States: Second Visit; London, 1849, Vol. I, p. 129. I borrow this from the DAE. A revival of the use of Madam to indicate a dowager was reported in American Speech, Dec., 1936, p. 376. Apparently it was confined to the East. I am informed by a correspondent that the aged widow of Sidney Lanier was so spoken of by her Connecticut neighbors.

  2 Edward Augustus Kendall reported in his Travels Through the Northern Parts of the United States in 1806–08; New York, 1809, Vol. II, p. 44, that in Plymouth, Mass., and “some of the neighboring places,” it was prefixed to “the name of a deceased female of some consideration, as the parson’s, the deacon’s, or the doctor’s wife.” Here I am again indebted to the DAE.

  3 p. 39.

  4 It delicately evades the case of a divorced woman. Frank O. Colby, in Forms of Address and Precedence; Houston, Tex., 1942, p. 3, advises the retention of her late husband’s given-name, but adds that the substitution of her own “is seen more and more in common use.”

  1 Americanism: The English of the New World, p. 507.

  2 All old speechways seem to linger longer in the South than elsewhere, just as old theological doctrines and political hallucinations linger. It is also common there for colored servants to address their mistress as Miss Mary instead of as Mrs. Smith. The Miss is always heard in this combination, never Mrs.

  3 The DAE does not list this meaning. I judge by its absence from Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English that it is unknown in England. Nor is it listed in Sidney J. Baker’s Popular Dictionary of Australian Slang; Melbourne, 1942.

  1 I am indebted here and below to Miss Georgia Dickerman, assistant librarian of the association, whose headquarters are in Chicago.

  2 On Oct. 4, 1941 the Baltimore Sun fell into the error of describing as a realtor a real-estate agent who had got into the hands of the police on a charge of fraud. It was promptly brought to book by the Real Estate Board of Baltimore, and apologized handsomely on Oct. 7, citing Webster 1934, as authority for the fact that only a member of a body affiliated with the National Association could properly use the name.

  1 Private communication, Sept. 28, 1935.

  2 Realtor: Its meaning and Use; Chicago, 1925, p. 3, footnote.

  1 Every Saturday (Boston), Feb. 17, 1866, p. 196.

  2 Insurors, by G. P. Krapp, American Speech, June, 1928, p. 432.

  3 San Francisco Examiner, Nov. 2, 1930, Section 1, p. 11.

  4 Avigation and Avigator, by Mamie Meredith, American Speech, Aug. 1928, p. 450. Avigator was apparently invented by Lieut. Albert J. Hegenberger. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported him as saying: “When we become familiar with it we shall not confuse it with alligator.” But it did not catch on, and is not listed in Nomenclature for Aeronautics, issued by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics; Washington, 1933.

  5 American Speech, Oct., 1942, p. 212.

  6 Weldor was launched as the result of a labor squabble. In 1941 the welders in the shipyards and on building construction petitioned the American Federation of Labor for a charter of their own. When it was refused they left the Federation and formed the Brotherhood of Weldors, Cutters and Helpers of America. Who thought of substituting the o for the e, and so giving the trade a more dignified smack, I do not know. See Weldors, American Speech, Oct., 1942, p. 214, and An O Creates a New Profession, Des Moines Register (editorial), Dec. 27, 1941.

  7 Washington Signs, by J. Foster Hagan, American Speech, March, 1927, p. 293.

  8 More Words in -or, by C. P. Mason, American Speech, April, 1929, p. 329.

  1 Various correspondents write in to say that I used this term inaccurately. A resurrection man, they point out, was one who robbed graves for the doctors in the days before the Anatomy Acts gave them a lawful supply of cadavers. Nevertheless, I continue to think of them as resurrection men themselves, for the frequent (if not always beneficial, socially speaking) effect of their labor is cheating the grave.

  2 The DAE traces burial-case to 1851, and defines it as “a coffin made of metal.”

  3 The common substitute, when a body had to be kept more than a day or two, was to put it on ice.

  1 Vacation Tourists and Notes of Travel; London, 1864, p. 387.

  2 Feb., 1895. According to Elmer Davis (The Mortician, American Mercury, May, 1927, p. 33) “it owes its origin chiefly to Frank Fairchild of Brooklyn and Harry Samson of Pittsburgh, distinguished members of the profession.” He does not give the date.

  3 For this date I am indebted to Mr. W. M. Krieger, executive secretary of the National Selected Morticians, with headquarters in Chicago.

  4 A mortician, said D. W. Brogan in Our Uncle’s Tongue, Oxford Magazine, June 10, 1937, p. 731, “was once defined by a wit as ‘the man who buries a realtor,’ ” It is highly probable that Brogan invented this saying himself.

  1 In the early days of the automobile limousine was in wide use to designate a closed car, but it survives only in the vocabulary of morticians.

  2 I am indebted for this to Mr. H. D. FitzGerald.

  3 Manufactures, 1939. Caskets, Coffins, Burial-Cases, and Other Morticians’ Goods. Prepared under the supervision of Thomas J. Fitzgerald, chief statistician for manufactures; Washington, 1941.

  4 Morticians Protest Proposal to Require $20 License Fee, Washington Times-Herald, Oct. 15, 1942.

  5 He is reported by Mr. Dudley Fitts of Boston: private communication, Aug. 30, 1935.

  6 Euphemistic Classifications, by Wayland D. Hand, American Notes and Queries, June, 1944, p. 48.

  7 In Houston, Tex., there is a cemetery called the Garden of Memories, See the Billboard, Oct. 2, 1943, p. 31, and Forest Lawn, Life, Jan. 5, 1944, pp. 65–75.

  1 The ceremony of depositing ashes in one of these basilicas is called inurnment. See Inurnment, by C. Douglas Chrétien, American Speech, Dec., 1934, p. 317. In the early days of California the Spanish term campo santo was often used to designate a graveyard, but it seems to have gone out, save, of course, among the Mexicans.

  2 They also cling to the old-fashioned lozenge-shaped coffin. Says H. W. Seaman: “The rectangular casket is unknown. Stiffs are rarely embalmed, and never exhibited in funeral-parlors. Funeral fashions in England are simpler than they used to be. Hearses are plainer and plumes are out. Black is but little worn by the bereaved. But the shroud is still à la mode.” The coffin in which the bones of George Washington lie at Mount Vernon is lozenge-shaped. There is a drawing of it in Mount Vernon As It Is, Harper’s Magazine, March, 1850, p. 435.

  3 The Undertaker’s Trade, by C. Wise, London Telegraph and Post, Feb. 17, 1938.

  4 His sneer was reprinted in Every Saturday (Boston), May 16, 1868, p. 636.

  1 I am indebted for this to Miss Lucile Dvorak of Cle
veland.

  2 The Cult of Beauty, Feb., 1926, pp. 161–68.

  1 William Hickey in the London Daily Express, July 20, 1937. I am indebted here to Mr. P. E. Cleator.

  2 Apparently from the Latin canitudo or canus, signifying grey. I am indebted here to the late Dr. Isaac Goldberg.

  3 Sydney Herald, Nov. 1, 1935.

  4 Beauty and You, by Patricia Lindsay, Baltimore Sun, March 10, 1943.

  5 It first appeared in print, so far as my records show, in Feb., 1930, when the Rota Monica, organ of the Rotary Club of Santa Monica, Calif., announced that C. C. Hopkirk, “our own radiotrician,” would address the members on Experiences in Korea, Feb. 7.

  6 Electragist, like realtor, is withheld from the public domain. It may be used only by members of the Association of Electragists International, which seems to have been organized c. 1925. See Electragist, by Cornell Ridderhof, American Speech, Aug., 1927, p. 477.

  1 Exit the Cobblers — Enter Shoetricians, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Feb. 26, 1940. I am indebted here to Mr. Warren Agee of Fort Worth. I am informed that there was a shoetrician in Omaha in 1936, but if so he must have been a lonely pioneer. In 1938 Women’s Wear (New York) reported that shoeist was being “applied to the proprietor of a shoe store,” but it did not survive. Shoe-rebuilder is by no means extinct. In Jan., 1942, the Bulletin of the New York Public Library announced the appearance in Boston of a monthly called the Master Shoe-Rebuilder.

  2 Topics of the Times, March 13, 1940.

  3 A canned editorial headed The Icians, appeared in the Indianapolis News and other papers, March 15, 1940, and was widely copied. Another, headed Why Not? They’re All Doing It, originated in the Des Moines Register and then made the rounds.

  4 For the last two see Verbal Novelties, American Speech, Oct., 1937, p. 237.

  5 April, p. 162.

  6 Aug., 1929, p. 500.

  7 Dec., 1934, p. 318.

  8 Feb., 1938, p. 258.

  9 April, 1928, p. 350.

  10 Jottings in Gotham, Dec., 1930, p. 159.

  11 Words, Feb., 1938, p. 30.

  12 Jazzicians Voluntarily Join Discharged Colleagues, Cavalcade (London), Aug. 13.

  13 Philological Notes, April, p. 450.

  14 Some Neologisms From Recent Magazines, by Robert Withington, American Speech, April, 1931, p. 287.

  1 One-Way Glass in Chicago, by-Tom Rylands, Manchester Guardian Weekly, Dec. 4.

  2 His Travels Through the Interior Parts of American, embodying his diary in the 1879 period, was published in London in 1780. For this reference and several following I am indebted to Words Indicating Social Status in America in the Eighteenth Century, by Allen Walker Read, American Speech, Oct., 1934, pp. 204–08.

  3 A Tour in the United States of America; London, 1788, Vol. I, pp. 98 and 99.

  4 Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of America in 1796–1797; London, 1856, p. 414.

  5 In 1924 3,000 of the more aspiring of them met in Chicago and resolved to become chirotonsors, but a loud chorus of newspaper ribaldry wrecked the term, and it did not stick. See the Commonweal, Nov. 26, 1924, p. 58. The tonsor part was not new. It is recorded as a name for a barber in Thomas Blount’s Glossographia, 1656.

  6 Always with the n; never in the French form, restaurateur. See my Newspaper Days; New York, 1941, pp. 215–16. When jitney-busses came in they brought the jitneur, but when they departed so did he. Confectauranteur for a confectioner, scripteur for a Hollywood scriptwriter and camerateur for an amateur photographer have also been reported, and likewise scripteuse for a female script-writer and strippeuse and stripteuse for a strip-teaser. See Among the New Words, by Dwight L. Bolinger, American Speech, Dec., 1943, p. 301.

  1 The DAE records that an effort was made in Jersey City in 1910 to outlaw bartender and substitute server. On Oct. 15, 1936 the Berkshire Evening Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.) recorded that a Pittsfield bartender, on presenting himself to the local registers of voters for registration, insisted upon being put down a mixologist, and that they let him have his way. (I am indebted here to Mr. Robert G. Newman.) Bartender is an Americanism, traced by the DAE to 1855. The English use barman or barmaid. Barroom is also an Americanism, traced to 1807. So, indeed, is bar, at least in the sense of the room. In the sense of the counter on which drinks are served it has been in English use since the latter part of the Sixteenth Century.

  2 John T. Krumpelmann suggests in Studio, American Speech, Dec., 1926, p. 158, that this craze, at least in the Central West, may have been influenced by the German partiality for atelier.

  3 May, p. 460.

  4 I am indebted here to Mr. Edgar Gahan, of Westmount, Quebec.

  5 In the Saturday Review of Literature, Jan. 20, 1934, Christopher Morley reported one who called himself an arrears negotiator.

  6 Institute is in wide use to designate trade organizations formed to resist legislative attacks upon the larger industries. See Among the New Words, by Dwight L. Bolinger, American Speech, April, 1942, p. 120.

  1 Euphemistic Classifications, by Francis H. Hayes, American Notes and Queries, July, 1944, p. 64.

  2 Wanted: A Better Name For Those Queens of the Airlines, by Herb Graffis, Philadelphia Record, May 9, 1940.

  3 W. L. McAtee in American Notes and Queries, June, 1944, p. 48.

  4 Word of the Week, Printers’ Ink, June, 1923.

  5 President’s Greeting on Newspaper-Boy Day, Editor and Publisher, Oct. 9, 1943.

  6 In Other Words, by W. E. Farbstein, New Yorker, Aug. 8. 1942.

  7 Workers, Arise!, by W. E. Farbstein, New Yorker, Sept. 16, 1939.

  8 Farbstein, just cited.

  9 Euphemisms for Grocer, by Elsie Pokrantz, American Speech, Feb., 1942, p. 73.

  10 United Press dispatch from Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 13, 1928.

  11 For New Dignity, Boston Transcript (editorial), Jan. 23, 1940. I am indebted here to Mr. David Sanders Clark, of Cambridge, Mass.

  12 Customers’ Men, Newsweek, May 8, 1939.

  13 Brokerettes, Newsweek, June 19, 1939.

  1 Associated Press dispatch from Milwaukee, July 31, 1936.

  2 I am indebted here to the two Farbstein articles, before cited.

  3 Psychists Incorporated, Psychic Observer (Lily Dale, N. Y.), Nov. 10, 1943.

  4 The Western Union advertised for them in the New York Times, Aug. 16, 1943, p. 29. “Men 50 years or over,” it said, “can help during the war by serving as temporary communications carriers.” I am indebted here to Major R. D. Heinl, Jr.

  1 I am indebted here to Mr. Charles J. Lovell of Pasadena.

  2 Charwoman is a borrowing from England, where the NED traces it to 1596. Under date of Oct. 28, 1937 David Shulman was complaining in the New York Times that the American scrubwoman was not listed in any dictionary, but this has since been remedied by the DAE, which traces it to 1885. “The scrub-woman,” said Mr. Shulman, “should not be confused with the char-woman. The former scrubs, whereas the latter does other chores besides.” The NED Supplement lists scrub-man as an Americanism, and traces it to 1905.

  3 Waste Dealers to Meet March 17, New York Times, March 10, 1941. They call their trade organization the National Association of Waste-Material Dealers.

  4 The Terms Hired-man and Help, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Vol. V, 1900.

  5 Words Indicating Social Status in America in the Eighteenth Century, by Allen Walker Read, American Speech, Oct., 1934, p. 207.

  1 Here again I am indebted to Read. He says that the same dislike of the word servant was noted by J.F.D. Smyth in Tour in the United States of America; London, 1784, Vol. I, p. 356, and by John Harriott in Struggles Through Life; second ed.; London, 1808, Vol. II, p. 41. Pickering, in his Vocabulary, 1816, said that help was then used only in “some parts of New England,” and Dunglison, in 1829, also marked it “New England,” but we have seen, on the evidence of Jones, that both were in error. For more about help see Schele de Vere, p. 487, Horwill, p. 163, and Hyppo, Blue Devils, etc., by Atcheson L
. Hench, American Speech, Oct., 1941, p. 234.

  2 The Streets of New York, Eclectic Magazine (New York), Aug., 1865, p. 163.

  1 W. E. Farbstein reported in the New Yorker, Sept. 16, 1939, that a Janitors’ Institute in session at Mt. Pleasant, Mich., had lately proposed that its fellows be called engineer-custodians.

  2 Reported in American Speech, Oct., 1937, p. 238, by Mary Mielenz.

  1 Reported in American Speech, Oct., 1937, p. 238, by Mary Mielenz.

  2 Washington, 1939. I quote the tide page of this formidable volume of 1287 pp. In the preface signed by the Hon. Frances Perkins its preparation is ascribed to the Research Division of the Employment Service.

  3 Congressional Record, March 15, 1938, p. 4556.

  1 I learn from How It Happened, Philadelphia Record, March 27, 1944, that the counsel in the woodpile was one Maurice Zolotov, described as “Broadway’s Boswell and author of that fascinating series of biographical sketches titled ‘Never Whistle in a Dressing-room.’ ” A portrait of this social-minded literatus is in Esquire, Dec., 1944, p. 58.

  1 Strip Teasing Alters Name; Same Exposure, by Robert M. Yoder, Chicago Daily News, April 19, 1940.

  2 What’s In a Name, Manchester Evening News, May 25, 1940; Do You Know What an Ecdysiast Is?, Birmingham Evening Dispatch, May 25, 1940.

  1 Mainly About Manhattan, by John Chapman, New York News, May 25, 1940.

  2 This indignant item went the round of the English press, and even reached the great moral organs of the colonies — for example, the Johannesburg Sunday Times, Nov. 24, 1940.

  3 Both the Associated Press and the United Press, under date of Oct. 13, sent out sympathetic accounts of this demonstration, and photographs of La Wilson and her associates were disseminated by the Wire Photo and other photographic agencies.

  4 Police Board Put to Flight by Irrepressible Ecdysiasts, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 14, 1942. I am indebted here to Mr. James M. Cain

  1 Ecdysiastic Woe, Youngstown Vindicator, Oct. 16, 1942.

  2 Gypsy Rose Lee Indignantly Strips Herself of a Definition, May 2, 1940. The substance of the interview was reprinted in Mr. Smith’s anthropological work, Low Man on a Totem Pole; Garden City, N. Y., 1941, p. 92.