Chapter 7:
Pioneers! 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 Independence
Philadelphia, 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:
Spellings:
Bluff
Bookstore
Calculate
Lengthy
President
Seaboard
Pronunciations: Noah Webster
Forehead, Thorough, Secretary,
waistcoat, schedule, tomato,
missile, progress, new
(McCrum 251-265)
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 Language—Down 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 someone’s sleeve
Ante Up
Big deal (sarcastic)
Blue chip investments
Bluff
Call someone’s bluff
Cash in one’s 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 one’s hand
Up the ante
31You bet! (affirmation)
12
(McCrum 270-271
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 FortyNiners.”
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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
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(McCrum 277)
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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Lincoln’s 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
from…Huckleberry Finn…. It’s the best
book we’ve 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 don’t know about me, without you have
read a book by the name of The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t 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 Liberty
Emma 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 Dago…on behalf of
the French…for 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!
31Yesman
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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!
You’ll excuse the expression.
I should worry (Mad Magazine).
It shouldn’t 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 man’s 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)
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