American English Idioms

It’s Raining Cats and Dogs seems to be a good old-fash­ioned American expression. Here are some others heard over and over;

The sight of you is good for sore eyes.

She's no chicken, she's on the wrong side of thirty, if she's a day.

Fingers were made before forks.

I thought you and he were hand-in-glove.

She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body. [10. p.464 ]

These are all familiar expressions, but none was originally American. They are all listed in English satirist Jonathan Swift's 1738 Polite Conversations —as examples of the banalities and clichés of polite British conversation! Swift also used another popular "American" expression in Hail fellow, well met, All dirty and wet; Find out if you can, Who's master, who's man. "My Lady's Lamentation," 1765.It just goes to show that all American popular expressions don't originate in America.

During the last 200 years it seems it has almost literally been raining cats and dogs in America. Although American Indians kept pets, with dogs and beavers being the most common ones, the early colonists believed that keeping pets was a sign of witchcraft (two dogs were executed as witches in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692). Keeping pets did become acceptable, however, during the mid 18th century, the habit spreading from European palaces and manor houses into the average home. Today there are at least 100 million cats and dogs in the United States—and each year more than a million people are bitten by dogs. Cats and dogs have given us such terms as:

to bark up the wrong tree, 1832, probably from hunting dogs thinking they had treed a raccoon.

cat burglar, J907, when it first appeared in English.

eatery, a shout of displeasure or good-humored ridicule, 1898.

catfit, catnip fit, a fit of anger or frenzied excitement, 1905. If the original form was catnip fit it may have come into being merely as a corruption of or by confusion with conniption fit.

cat food, 1907.

cat nap, cat's nap, a short nap, 1820s.

catnip, 1712, often called cat mint in bygone days; catnip tea, 1837.This aromatic mint plant, Napeta cataria, was named because of its attraction for cats; it has been widely used in cooking. catty, given to spiteful remarks, around 1885.

dog, an unsuccessful, ugly, or disliked person or thing, early 1930s.

dogcatcher, 1835, also euphemistically called a humane officer, 1939,and bureaucratically called a canine control officer, 1942.

dog eat dog, everyone for himself, 1834. dog it, to shirk, 1920.

dog my cats!, an exclamation of surprise, 1839.

dog paddle, as a way to stay afloat or swim, 1904. dog pound, 1875. Many pounds are now under the auspices of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), founded by Henry Bergh in 1866, when horses were often

underfed, overworked, and cruelly treated.

look like the cat after it had eaten the canary, look guilty, 1871; look like

something the cat brought/dragged/drug in, look bedraggled, late 1920s.

put on the dog, put on a display, dress up, etc., 1871.

see a man about a dog, to leave abruptly, especially in order to urinate, 1867 in English use.

The older English it'sraining cats and dogs was joined by our to rain pitchforks in 1844, with the expression right as rain, meaning perfect, well, absolutely right, appearing in 1894. [10. p.465 ]

Another old English expression dealing with a rainstorm is to steal one's thunder. The story behind this expression is that in 1709 English playwright John Dennis invented a new way to produce stage thunder for his play Appius and Virginia. Few people liked his tragedy and it soon closed, but not long after, Dennis was watch­ing a new production of Macbeth and heard his thunder being used. He angrily got up from his theater seat and shouted to all the audience, "See how the rascals use me! They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!" So was born another popular American expression—in England. [10. p.466 ]

Conclusion

In this work paper we investigated the peculiarities of American English emphasizing especially the etimology of American English words.

So in the research it was proved that:

North America has given the English lexicon many thousands of words, meanings, and phrases. Several thousand are now used in English as spoken internationally; others, however, died within a few years of their creation. The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as the colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Among the earliest and most notable regular "English" additions to the American vocabulary, dating from the early days of colonization through the early 19th century, are terms describing the features of the North American landscape.

American settlers com­bine descriptive words to give many vivid names for the mam­mals, reptiles, fish, birds, and insects—and Americans have continued to name animals by descriptive combinations ever since.

Americans have given many of their native trees, grasses, flowers, and shrubs descriptive names, often by combining two old words.

The early settlers and frontiersmen also borrowed many plant names from the Indians, French, and Spanish. Other plants and trees are named after people. Other native American plants were mis­named, merely because the settlers who first saw them thought they were identical to those back home in England when they weren't.

Americans borrowed the names for their money generally from such languages as Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French. Or they merely used the money from some foreign country such as Spain, Italy or France.

As for Mailing system Americans generally took the names of Mail sphere from British English. So British contribution to postal language was major. Then with the development of this industry Americans began to use new terms invented with the help of Postal business.

Indians greatly influenced American English vocabulary. The Indian words Americans still use include: (1) thousands of place names; (2) scores of words about Indians used in our history and mythology; and (3) hundreds of names of plants, animals, and landscapes which have become part of American everyday speech. The words Americans use in talking about Indians include some real Indian words plus others from our conceptions and misconcep­tions of Indians, words from American history and from American fiction.

As for the automobile it completely changed American life and language. The car created the gasoline industry and all its words reshaped the family vacation and resort industry and spawned many of travel and recreational terms.

Also appearance of the car greatly influenced the names of roads and everything connected with the traffic. The rise of capitalism, the development of industry and material innovations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries were the source of a massive stock of distinctive new words, phrases and idioms.

Most of American English Idioms are not purely American. Almost all of them were borrowed from British English. Also many proverbs came from Indians.

Many of the Italian words in English entered the language dur­ing the Renaissance when Italian culture was very much in vogue. Most Italian borrowings are only partially naturalized, still being associated mainly with Italians or things Italian which includes dozens of Italian food terms.

French has had a direct influence on American English: via French explorers, trappers, and fur traders. The French have also given many place names, especially along the Canadian border, around the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi, throughout the old French Louisiana Territory, and in the plains and mountain regions of the West.

American English has borrowed more words from Spanish than from any other language, and is still borrowing them— there are hundreds of thousands of Mexicans living in the Southwest; 650,000 Puerto Ricans in New York City; and 100,000 Cubans in New Orleans, plus several hundred thousand more in the Miami area. Spanish has also given many American place names, including the names of six states, over 2,000 names of U.S. cities and towns, and thousands of names of riv­ers, mountains, valleys, etc.

So in the end of our work paper we can assume that American English vocabulary was formed in general under the influence of environment and with the help of borrowings.

Bibliography

 

1. Bartlett, John R. (1848). Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded As Peculiar to the United States. New York: Bartlett and Welford. <http://www.bartleby.com>  

2. Kenyon, John S. (1950). American pronunciation (10th ed.). Ann Arbor: George Wahr. <http://www.bartleby.com>  

3. Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Mesthrie, Rajend; & Upton, Clive (Eds.). (2004). A handbook of varieties of English: Morphology and syntax (Vol. 2). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. <http://www.bartleby.com>  

4. MacNeil, Robert; & Cran, William. (2005). Do you speak American? New York: Nan A. Talese, Doubleday. <http://www.bartleby.com>  

5. Mathews, Mitford M. (ed.) (1951). A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. <http://www.bartleby.com>  

6. Mencken, H. L. (1936, repr. 1977). The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (4th edition). New York: Knopf. (1921 edition online: www.bartleby.com/185/).

7. Simpson, John (ed.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. <http://www.bartleby.com>  

8. Schneider, Edgar (Ed.). (1996). Focus on the USA. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. <http://www.bartleby.com>  

9. Stuart Berg Flexner, I hear America Talking (1976). An Illustrated History        of American Words and Phrases. A Touchstone Book, Published by Simon and Shuster, New York  

10. Stuart Berg Flexner, Listening to America (1982). Illustrated History of American Words and Phrases. A Touchstone Book, Published by Simon and Shuster, New York  

 

 

[The dates in vocabulary indicate the year of recording of the word or phrase]

Appendix

1. Alabama, 1819, 22nd state—from Choctaw alba ayamule, "I open the thicket," literally one who clears the land and gathers food from it. Previously Alabama Territory; also called the Cotton State, the Heart of Dixie.

2. Alaska, 1959, 49th state—the Russian version of the Eskimo Alakshak or Alayeksa, "great land, mainland." Previously called Russian America; also called the Last Frontier.

3. Arizona, 1912, 48th state—from Papago Arizonac, "place of the small spring." Also called the Grand Canyon State.

4. Arkansas, 1836, 25th state—Sioux for "south wind people, land of the south wind people." Previously spelled Arkansaw; also called the Wonder State, the Land of Opportunity.

5. allow, guess, reckon, meaning to think, which had all become obsolete in England.

6. automobile tire, 1877 (wagon tires date from the 15th century); jack, 1877; tread, 1877, retread, 1890; blowout, 1915; balloon tire, early 1920s; tubeless tire, intro­duced by B. F. Goodrich, 1948; radial ply tire, 1967.

7. automobile accident, 1882; car crash, 1915; hit-and-run, 1920s.

8. bluegrass, 1751, being any of several American grasses of the for genus and having a bluish cast, earlier called Dutch grass (1671). Kentucky bluegrass, 1849, a type of bluegrass, Poa pratem valuable as pasturage and hay; Bluegrass region, Bluegrass country the Blue Grass, a region in Kentucky, 1860s; the Bluegrass Stof Kentucky, 1886.

9. butternut, 1741, or white walnut (1743), called butternut from the oiliness of the nut. By 1810 butternut also meant the brownish dye obtained from the tree's bark, its color, and fabric dyed wit. it. During the Civil War Butternut (1862) meant a Confederate soldier, from the butternut dye used on some homemade uni­forms. The Butternut State, Missouri, 1863.

10. buttonwood, 1674, because of its buttonlike burrs. This name was given the tree in New England; Southerners called it sycameri (1709), thinking it was that familiar English tree.

11. to bark up the wrong tree, 1832, probably from hunting dogs thinking they had treed a raccoon.

12. cat burglar, J907, when it first appeared in English.

13. catfit, catnip fit, a fit of anger or frenzied excitement, 1905. If the original form was catnip fit it may have come into being merely as a corruption of or by confusion with conniption fit.

14. cat nap, cat's nap, a short nap, 1820s.

15. catnip, 1712, often called cat mint in bygone days; catnip tea, 1837.

This aromatic mint plant, Napeta cataria, was named because of

 its attraction for cats; it has been widely used in cooking. catty, given to spiteful remarks, around 1885. copycat, 1915 as a noun, 1942 as a verb.

16. belittle, coined by Thomas Jeffer­son in 1787.

17. bluff, used in the South since 1687, instead of tte British river "bank." This has the dis­tinction of being the first word attacked as being a "barbarous" American term.

18. bureau, meaning chest of drawers, which was obsolete in England.

19. buffalo beef, 1722, buffalo meat.

20. buffalo robe, 1723, also called buffalo rug, 1805. This Indian item

21. was first described by Marquette and Joliet in 1681; it served

22. many Indians and whites as robe, coat, blanket, and sleepingbag. buffalo-headed duck, 1731, now known as the bufflehead (1858), a

small, widely distributed duck with a large, squarish head. buffalo road, 1750; buffalo trace, 1823; buffalo trail, 1834. These are all paths or trails worn by buffalo herds.

23. buffalo fish, 1768, various fish of the sucker family, especially along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

24. buffalo grass, 1784, a low-growing perennial grass common to the buffalo ranges.

25. buffalo dance, 1805, an Indian ritual dance, often performed in a buffalo skin and mask.

26. buffalo horse, 1827, a horse used in buffalo hunts.

27. buffalo wallow, 1834. These hollow places made by buffaloes rolling in the dirt sometimes filled with water, preventing many a horse and rider from suffering from thirst.

28. buffalo chips,,4840, dried buffalo dung, the common fuel of the prairie, also called buffalo wood, 1855.

29. buffalo boat, 1844, made by stretching buffalo skins over a wooden frame.

30. Buffalo Bill, William Frederick Cody (1846-1917), who had been a pony express rider and cavalry scout before earning this nickname as a buffalo hunter supplying large quantities of meat to Union Pacific Railroad construction crews in 1867-68. The name Buffalo Bill was given him by Ned Buntline (pen name of Edward Zane Carroll Judson, 1821 -86), a writer of adventure fiction and one of the first dime novelists. Cody himself gave us the term Wild West Show, opening Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Omaha, May 37, 1883.

31. buffalo soldier, 1873, a Black soldier, so called by Indians because the soldiers' short, tightly curled hair resembled that of buffalo (there were two Black infantry and two Black cavalry regiments serving permanently in the West for 30 years following the Civil War). White soldiers called these Black soldiers brunets. to buffalo someone, 1870s, to cheat or intimidate someone. buffalo gun, 1907, a large-caliber rifle, as for shooting buffalo.

32. bald eagle, 1688, because its white neck and head make it look bald.

This bird was considered our national symbol before its picture

was placed on the Great Seal of the United States in 1785; since

then it has also been called the American eagle, 1798, and the

United States eagle, 1 847. Baltimore oriole, 1771, originally called the Baltimore bird, 1669, because its black and orange colors were those on the coat of arms of Lord Baltimore. barn swallow, 1790, because it often builds its nests in the eaves of barns.

33. blue jay, 1709. Colors often appear in our descriptive names: we also

have the bluefish, 1622; blue heron, 1781; and blue gill, 1881. Blue

point oysters get their name because they are found off Blue Point,

Great South Bay, Long Island, New York.

34. bobcat, 1711, because of its stubby or "bobbed" tail (originally this name was given to the bay lynx).

35. bullfrog, 1698, because it makes a roaring noise like a bull. canvas back, 1782, from the color of its back.

36. catbird, 1709, because its call resembles the mewing of a cat. Like many words on this list it was originally spelled with a hyphen, cat-bird.

37. catfish, 1612, the name first recorded by John Smith in Virginia, because of the fish's facial resemblance to a cat, especially its whiskers.

38. copperhead, 1775, because of its coppery brown color, on which are dark markings.

39. cottontail, 1869, because the underside of its tail has a white tuft, like a ball of cotton.

40. card, meaning a person who likes to joke, an American use since 1835.

41. currency, 1699 as money in England, because it is the current, generally accepted medium of exchange (from Latin currential currere, to run).

42. clever, meaning sharp witted, an East Anglia dialect use com­mon to all Americans.

43. crank, 1883; self-starter, 1894.

44. California, 1850, 3 lsr state— Spanish name for "an earthly paradise," an imaginary island in Spanish lore. Previously called Alta California (Upper California, in opposition to Baja California); also called the Golden State.

45. Colorado, 1876, 38th state—Span­ish word for "red," literally "red land, red earth." Previ­ously Colorado Territory; also called the Centennial State, be­cause of the year it entered the Union.

46. Connecticut, 1788, 5th state— from Mohican quinnitukqut, "at the long tidal river," referring to the Connecticut River. Also called the Nutmeg State, the Constitution State.

47. dog, an unsuccessful, ugly, or disliked person or thing, early 1930s. dogcatcher, 1835, also euphemistically called a humane officer, 1939,

and bureaucratically called a canine control officer, 1942. dog eat dog, everyone for himself, 1834. dog it, to shirk, 1920.

48. dog my cats!, an exclamation of surprise, 1839. dognapper, 1940.

49. dog paddle, as a way to stay afloat or swim, 1904. dog pound, 1875. Many pounds are now under the auspices of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), founded by Henry Bergh in 1866, when horses were often underfed, overworked, and cruelly treated.

50. look like the cat after it  had eaten the canary, look guilty, 1871;

51. look like something the cat brought/dragged/drug in, look bedraggled, late 1920s.

52. drive-in, 1931 (referring to a fill­ing station), first popularly applied to movies and restau­rants in the mid 1940s.

53. dinero, late 19th century, the Spanish word for money. We have also taken many other foreign words for money or monetary units to use as slang words for money, as gelt (see below), ruble, yen, etc.

54. dough, 1840, almost certainly from considering bread dough as the necessary, basic staff of life. Do-re-mi, as a pun on dough and the musical do, 1925; oday, Pig Latin for dough, 1926.

55. easy money, easily obtained money, 1836; easy dollars, 1890s. For my money, as far as I'm concerned, 1840. To pay one's money and take one's choice, 1864. Money talks, money has influence, 1910. Money from home, easily obtained money, 1913.

56. fall, obsolete in England where "autumn" was now the pre­ferred word.

57. fork, which the British ate with but which we also drove or paddled on, using it since 1645 to mean the branch of a road or river.

58. fender, 1883; hood, 1906; running board, 1923; rumble seat, 1931.

59. flivver, 1914 (the word orig­inally meant a failure in the 1900s); heap, 1915; tin lizzie, 1915, originally meant only the Model T (Lizzie is from the common name for a Black maid who, like the car, worked hard all week and prettied up on Sundays); crate, 1920, follow­ing the World War I use for an airplane; jalopy, 1924; gas buggy, 1925; rattletrap, 1929.

60. filling station, 1915; service station, 1922.

61. French boot, a lightweight dress shoe, 1850.

62. French church, a French Pro­testant or Huguenot church, 1694.

63. French (salad) dressing, 1884. In­cidentally, thousand island dress­ing dates from the 1920s.

64. Frencher, a Frenchman, 1826; Frenchy, a Frenchman, 1883, and used after 1904 to mean capricious.

65. French flat, a sublet floor in a private townhouse, one of our first terms for an apartment, 1879.

66. French fried potatoes, 1902; French frieds, 1920s; French fries, 1930s.

67. French harp, a harmonica, 1883. French monte, a popular form of the gambling card game, 1851. French toast, 1870s.

68. Frog, a Frenchman, was common in England by 1870 but became well known in the U.S. only during World War I. It is prob­ably from the French relishing frogs as a delicacy, reinforced by the toads on the coat of arms of the city of Paris.

69. gas, 1905, from the 1865 word gasoline, which was originally considered merely a dangerous by-product in the making of kerosene.

70. garage, for housing an auto­mobile, 1902.

71. give her the gas, 1912; step on the gas, tramp on the gas, 1916; step on it, 1922; give it the gas, 1942. These replaced the older "don't spare the horses."

72. gotten, obsolete in England where "got" was being used as the past participle of get.

73. gringo (American Spanish for "gibberish," from Spanish griego, Greek, literally one whose language is "all Greek to me"), first used by Mexicans during The Mexican War, now common throughout Latin America.

74. help, meaning servants, an Ameri­can use since 1630.

75. how?, which only Americans used as an interrogation, since 1815.

76. Hugers, our \"Jth century term for the French Huguenots, who also gave us the place name Huguenot on Staten Is­land and New Rochelle in West-chester County, N.Y., and such names as New Yorker John Jay, the famous Virginia Dabney (d'Aubigny) family, Boston's Peter Faneuil and Faneuil Hall, and Charles Gui-teau, who assassinated Presi­dent Garfield.

77. license plate, 1901, when they were first issued by New York State.

78. loan, which only Americans used as a verb meaning "to lend."

79. mail box, 1872, two years after it was patented. Since the late 1850s people had been calling primitive types letter boxes, street letter boxes, and street boxes, but these were usually the brightly painted receiving boxes for independent carriers and express agencies. The patented U.S. mailbox did a lot to give the U.S. Post Office Department control of the business. They were also often called letter drops in the 1890s.

80. mailman soon became a common word after 1863, when he was employed and paid by the post office for free delivery. By the 1880s mailmen delivered as many as five times a day in commer­cial areas of New York and other major cities.

81. menhaden (Algonquian munnoquohcttean, "that which enriches the soil"), the fish Massachusetts Indians used to fertilize their corn crops and which they taught the Pilgrims to use, spelled mun-nawhatteang by the colonists in 1643.

82. moose (Passamaquoddy moosu, "he trims smoothly," referring to the bark moose strip and eat from trees), spelled mus, 1613, present spelling by 1673. The Loyal Order of the Moose, a chari­table secret fraternal order, was founded in Louisville, Ken­tucky in 1888, its members called Moose since then.

83. muskellunge (Ojibwa mashkinoje), a variety of Great Lakes pike, 1789.

84. motor court, 1936; motor hotel, mid 1940s; motel (from motor + hotel), late 1940s.

85. pecan (Algonquian pakan, pagan, nut, the word may have come directly to us from the Indians or via earlier Spanish explor­ers and settlers), spelled paccan, 1773.

86. persimmon (Cree pasiminan, "dried fruit"), as putchamin, 1612, as persimon, 1635, present spelling by 1709. In the 1850s and 60s Americans used such expressions as bringing down the persim­mons, and walking off with the persimmons, meaning to succeed or win the prize.

87. poke means several different plants to us because it is our final pronunciation of several different Indian words. Poke originally was a name for the tobacco plant (from Algonquian uppoivoc) which we spelled apooke in 1618. Other poke plants get their name from a Virginian Indian word puccoon, a plant they used for dyeing. Thus we have pokeroot by 1687; pokeweed, 1751; pokeberry, \11\. By 1778 poke also meant the skunk cabbage. Poke greens was first recorded in 1848 and poke salad in 1880.

88. raccoon (Algonquian arakunen, scraper, scratcher) was first re­corded in 1608, in Virginia, though early spellings included arocoun and raugrougheun. Raccoon coat, 1649. Raccoon was short­ened to coon as early as 1742, though most "coon" words and meanings appeared in the 1830s and 40s, when coon hunts be­came popular and coon was first used to mean a rustic frontiers­man (1832) and then a Black (1837). In the presidential election year of 1840 the Whig party used a raccoon as its symbol and coon came to mean a Whig, including the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison and such men as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun; a coon song then meant not a Black minstrel song but a Whig political song (for more on the racial use of coon see The Blacks).

89. parking, parking space, parking lot, 1924; parking meter, 1935, the first ones installed in Okla­homa City.

90. runabout, 1891; touring car, 1903; station wagon, 1 904; roadster, 1908; coupe, 1918; sedan, 1920; sports car, 1925.

91. road hog, early 1900s, had been applied first to bicyclists in the 1890s.

92. seaboard, an American coinage for "shore," used since 1788.

93. spell, which we have used to mean a period of time, a while, since 1705.

94. scuppernong (Algonquian askuponong, "place of the magnolias," the Scuppernong River valley in North Carolina, where this variety of grape grows), 1811.

95. Sequoia is named after the Cherokee Indian Sikwayi (1770-1843) who invented an 85-syllable "alphabet" for recording the Cherokee language, which was adopted by the Cherokee coun­cil in 1821. Born in Tennessee, Sikwayi (sometimes spelled Sequoya) took the name George Guess when he grew up, from an American trader he believed to be his father. Sequoia was first used as a genus name of a tree, which includes the giant California redwoods, by Hungarian botanist Stephen Endlicher in 1847.

96. skunk (Algonquian skekakwa, squnck, "mammal who urinates" or sprays), 1588 by explorers, 1634 by colonists. It has also been called a polecat in America since the 1600s, after a related European animal. Skunk cabbage, 1751. Skunk was used to mean a contemptible person by 1840. To skunk, to defeat completely, keep an opponent from scoring, appeared in 1843.

97. squash (Narragansett asquatasquash, "eaten raw"), 1642. Winter squash, summer squash, 1750s; crook-neck squash, 1818, from its shape; Hubbard squash, late 1860s, from Mrs. Elizabeth Hub-bard of Massachusetts, who first cultivated it; zucchini squashy

98. spark plug, 1908, used to mean an energetic leader by the 1930s.

99. tourist camp, tourist court, 1916;

100. streamlining, 1934, with the dis­appearance or covering of the square radiator.