Chapter 7: Pioneers! O Pioneers! (251-292)

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Chapter 7Pioneers! O Pioneers! (251-292)

• Pioneers!
• O Pioneers!

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The Story of English

• By Don L. F. Nilsen
• Based on The Story of English
• By Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil
• and William Cran (Penguin, 2003)

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The Declaration of IndependencePhiladelphia, 1776

• We hold these truths to be self-evident that all
  men are created equal
• That they are endowed by their Creator with
  certain unalienable rights,
• That among these are life, liberty and the
  pursuit of happiness.
• (McCrum 252-253)

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Early Americanisms

• NOTE 1 The British Loyalists mostly fled to
  Canada and kept the British words and
  pronunciations as in about the house. (McCrum
  267)
• NOTE 2 Words coming into American and British
  English from French, German, Italian, Spanish and
  Yiddish were very different in tone and texture.

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Yankee Go Home!British Lyrics Stolen by Americans

• Yankee Doodle went to town, a-ridin on a pony.
• Stuck a feather in his hat and called it
  Macaroni.
• Yankee Doodle went to town,
• Yankee Doodle Dandy.
• Stuck a feather in his hat,
• And called it Macaroni.

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Canadian English after 1776 (McCrum 246/266)
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Early Americanisms
Words Bluff Bookstore Calculate Lengthy President Seaboard Pronunciations Noah Webster Forehead, Thorough, Secretary, waistcoat, schedule, tomato, missile, progress, new (McCrum 251-265) Spellings Curb vs. kerb Defense vs. defence Fiber vs. fibre Honor vs. honour Plow vs. plough Theater vs. theatre Tire vs. Tyre Wagon vs. waggon Z vs. zed McCrum 254-259)
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Canadian Loyalists after the War of 1812

• Out and about the house in the South
• Canadian eh
• Schedule
• Light
• Center, twenty, Toronto

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Steamboat LanguageDown the Mississippi to New
Orleans
Boarding High falutin Hogwash Landing Letting off steam Mici Sibi (Chippewa meaning big river) Paddlesteamer Poker Riffraff (people who floated downstream on rafts with riffs oars) Riverboat River Gamblers Roustabout Showboat Steamboat (McCrum 269)
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Outlandish Dress and Behavior

• Mark Twain said that a riverboat is like a
  wedding cake without the complications.
• The West bank of the Mississippi River was called
  the Outland, and the dress and behavior of the
  people there was outlandish
• Coonskin caps, buckskin clothes, etc.

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1849 Western Frontier (McCrum 258/280)
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Riverboat Poker Language
Ace up someones sleeve Ante Up Big deal (sarcastic) Blue chip investments Bluff Call someones bluff Cash in ones chips (die) Chips of someone are down Deal me in/out. Fair Deal For openers Hit the jackpot New Deal Pass the buck (buck-horn handled knife) Penny ante Play a wild card Poker face Put up or shut up Raise the stakes Raw Deal Square deal Stud Poker Throw in ones hand Up the ante You bet! (affirmation) (McCrum 270-271
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Western (Frontier) Exaggerated Language
Absquatulate (Go away) Bootleg whiskey Buckskins ? bucks (meaning dollars) Catawumpus (diagonal) Discombobulated (confused) Eager beaver Lallapalooza (Huge or extraordinary) Saloon Skedaddle (Go away) Squablification (quarreling) (McCrum 271-272)
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The Gold Rush in 1849
Bonanza Drifter Eager beaver El Dorado Eureka A gold mine Hitting pay dirt Prospecting The Real McCoy Stake a claim Strike it rich To pan out A wildcat (oil well) Work like a beaver (McCrum 274) NOTE The San Francisco Football Team is named The San Francisco Forty-Niners.
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Spanish Frontier Ranch Life
Arena Bandana Bronco Chaps Corral Desparado Lariat Lassoo Mustang Pinto Poncho Ranch Rodeo Sombrero Stampede Vamos (McCrum 275)
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Cattle Terms
Bite the Dust (die) Bronco Buster Buckaroo (from vaquero) Cow Hand Cowboy Cowpoke Hand Hot under the collar Maverick (from Texan Samuel Maverick) Ranch Hand Range Rider Rustlers Wrangler (McCrum 275)
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The Railroad
All aboard All fired up Backtrack Berth Boarding (from ships) Cabin Fare Freight Gravy train Letting off steam Main lining Make the grade One-track mind Purser Reach the end of the line Sidetracked Stay on track (on line) Steward Streamlined To railroad someone Whistle stop (McCrum 277)
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Buffalo Bill

• At 13, Bill Cody was panning for gold.
• At 14, he was riding for the Pony Express.
• At 16 he fought in the Civil War.
• Then he was hired by the Kansas Pacific Railroad
  to hunt buffalo to feed the railroad workers. He
  was skilled at shooting from the saddle of a
  galloping horse.
• In 1876 he served General Custer in the Battle of
  the Little Big Horn.
• In 1883 he formed the Buffalo Bill Wild West
  Show. (McCrum 276)
• Later, Larry McMurtry and others wrote books
  about him.

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Lincolns Gettysburg Address

• Written on the back of an envelope when Lincoln
  was on the train traveling to Gettysburg.

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• Four score and seven years ago our fathers
  brought forth on this continent a new nation,
  conceived in liberty and dedicated to the
  proposition that all men are created equal.
• Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
  whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
  and so dedicated, can long endure. (McCrum 279)

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American Dialects (McCrum 238/255)
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Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

• In Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway said,
• All modern American literature comes
  fromHuckleberry Finn. Its the best book weve
  had.
• All American writing comes from that. There was
  nothing before. There has been nothing as good
  since. (McCrum 280-281)

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Huckleberry Finn and Vernacular Literature

• You dont know about me, without you have read a
  book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,
  but that aint no matter. That book was made by
  Mr. Mark Twain and he told the truth, mainly.
• Because this book was written in the vernacular
  (speech), it was considered vulgar at the time.
• At about the same time, Charles Dickens was
  writing vernacular literature in England. It was
  also considered vulgar. (McCrum 283)

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Southern Dialects in Huckleberry Finn

• In this book a number of dialects are used, to
  wit The Missouri Negro dialect, the extremest
  form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect, the
  ordinary Pike County dialect, and four modified
  varieties of this last.
• The shadings have not been done in a haphazard
  fashion or by guesswork, but painstakingly and
  with the trustworthy guidance and support of
  personal familiarity with these several forms of
  speech. (McCrum 283)

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European Immigration to America in 19th Century
(McCrum 266)
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The Statue of LibertyEmma Lazarus inscribed the
pedestal

• Give me your tired, your poor,
• Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,
• The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
• Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me
• I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
• (McCrum 286)

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O. Henry

• O. Henry remarked
• It was made by a Dagoon behalf of the
  Frenchfor the purpose of welcomin Irish
  immigrants to the Dutch city of New York.
• (McCrum 286)

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Ellis Island

• In its heyday, Ellis Island processed 15,000
  immigrants per day.
• In the 1840s the Irish fled from the potato
  famine.
• After the failure of the 1848 revolutions, many
  Germans and Italians left Europe.
• In the 1880s, many Jews fled Central Europe
  fleeing persecutions and pograms.

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German Words in English
And how! Bummer Cookbook Delicatessen Dumb Ecology Frankfurters (hot dogs) Fresh (impertinent) Hoodlum Kindergarten Let it be! Nix No way! Ouch! Phooey Sauerkraut (Liberty cabbage) Scram! Will do! Yesman (McCrum 287)
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Italian Words in English
Ante Pasto Broccoli Cannelloni Espresso The Family Godfather Lasagna Macaroni Mafia Minestrone Parmesan Pasto Pizza Ravioli Salami Spaghetti (Western) Tortellini Vermicelli Zucchini (McCrum 288) Plus Musical Terms
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!Yiddish Words in English
Chutzpah Ganif (thief) Kibitzer (one who plays) Kosher Kvetching (ritual complaining) Maven Mensch Meshuggener (crazy person) Nebbish (nonentity) Nosh Schlemiel (simpleton) Schlep (drag) Schlock (shoddy piece) Schmaltz (chicken fat) Schmooz (aimless talk) Shamus (detective) Shtik (business) Yenta (gossip) (McCrum 289-290)
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!Yiddish Expressions in English

• Get lost.
• He knows from nothin.
• Him she loves!
• Youll excuse the expression.
• I should worry (Mad Magazine).
• It shouldnt happen to a dog.
• I need it like a hole in the head.
• Oedipus-schmoedipus, so long as he loves his
  mother. (McCrum 290)

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!!The First World War
Barrage Bomb-proof Camouflage Civvies Convoy Digging in Dud Going over the top Red tape Sabotage Shell shocked Tank No mans land (McCrum 291)
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!!!PowerPoint

• Jewish English and Yiddisher Dick and Jane

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Works Cited

• McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.
  The Story of English. New York, NY Penguin,
  1986. (source of map citations)
• McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.
  The Story of English Third Revised Edition. New
  York, NY Penguin, 2003. (source of text
  citations)