Characteristic features of American English

CONTENT
Introduction
Chapter I. Characteristicfeatures of American English
1.1 Historicalbackgroundof AmericanEnglish
1.2. Dialects of AmericanEnglish
1.3. British English vsAmerican English
1.4. Differences inAmerican and English Vocabulary
1.5. Differences inAmerican and English Pronunciation
1.6. Differences inAmerican and English Spelling
Chapter II .Origin ofAmerican English words and their cultural background
2.1. Glimpses of origin ofAmerican words
2.2. Animals
2.3Plants
2.4. Banknotes and coins
2.5. Mail
2.6. Indians
2.7. Car
2.8. American English Idioms
Conclusion
BibliographyAppendix
Introduction
AmericanEnglish (AmE,AE, AmEng, USEng, en-US), also known as United States English or U.S. English,is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States.Approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the UnitedStates. [4]
Thevariety of English spoken in the USA has received the name of American English.The term variant or variety appears most appropriate for severalreasons. American English cannot be called a dialect although it is a regionalvariety, because it has a literary normalized form called Standard American,whereas by definition given above a dialect has no literary form. Neither is ita separate language, as some American authors, like H. L. Mencken, claimed,because it has neither grammar nor vocabulary of its own. From the lexicalpoint of view one shall have to deal only with a heterogeneous set of Americanisms. [1]
 AnAmericanism may be defined as a word or a set expression peculiar to theEnglish language as spoken in the USA. E.g. cookie 'a biscuit'; withboards or shingles laid on; ' frame-up ' a staged or preconcerted lawcase; guess 'think'; store 'shop'. [4]
Topicalityof the paper:
Ageneral and comprehensive description of the American variant is given inProfessor Shweitzer's monograph. An important aspect of his treatment is thedistinction made between Americanisms belonging to the literary norm and thoseexisting in low colloquial and slang. The difference between the American andBritish literary norm is not systematic. [6]          CurrentAmericanisms penetrate into Standard English. Cinema and TV are probably themost important channels for the passage of Americanisms into the language ofBritain and other languages as well: the Germans adopted the word teenager andthe French speak of automatisation. The influence of American publicity is alsoa vehicle of Americanisms. This is how the British term wireless is replaced bythe American radio. The jargon of American film-advertising makes its way intoBritish usage; i.e. of all time (in «the greatest film of alltime»). The phrase is now firmly established as standard vocabulary andapplied to subjects other than films. The personal visits of writers andscholars to the USA and all forms of other personal contacts bring back Americanisms.[5]
Cooperationbetween the USA and the other countries increases from day to day. AmericanEnglish integrates in every side of our life. USA presents us its culturethrough movies, music, advertisement, business. All this aspects are reflectedin the language.  Language is the mirror of the culture. American English hasits own special peculiarities, which distinguish it from other variants ofEnglish language. It has its own historical, cultural background which is ofcertain interest for linguists and speakers of English in the whole world. [4]
Theaim of this research is to study the origin of American Englishvocabulary. And it is supported with the following objectives:
1.To study the historical background   of American English.
2.To define the dialects of American English.
3.To describe the difference between British English and American English.
4.To pick out 500 American English words from different sides of life and definemain spheres of functioning of American English words.
5.To define the etymology of certain words.
6.To define the sources of borrowings in American English.
7. To make upa short dictionary of American English Words.
Thehypothesisof this paper is following:
AmericanEnglish was formed in general under the influence of environment and with thehelp of   borrowings.
Though the topic about peculiarities of American English were widely discussed amongresearchers, in this paper we want to emphasize especially the origin ofAmerican  words, to investigate borrowings in American Language and to observethe way American English was formed in the sphere of vocabulary.
Problems ofthe work paper:
1. To definethe specific spheres of vocabulary where American English developed in its ownway.
2. Toinvestigate the etymology of the American English words from the specificspheres.
In this paperwe used such methods as:
1. Descriptivemethod.
2.Comparative-historical method.
3. Contrastivemethod.
Thescientific novelty of the paper:
Weinvestigated certain spheres of American English vocabulary, picked out wordsconnected with this spheres. We analyzed the etymology of these words. Also westudied the way borrowings penetrated into American English, investigated thesources of this borrowings. In our work paper we especially emphasized theorigin of American English words and their cultural background.
Thetheoretical value of this work is following:
The given workcan be used for the lectures on Lexicology, especially connected with theetymology of American English words.
Thepractical value of the given work is following:
The etymologicaldictionary can be used for the seminars and lectures on Lexicology and the Historyof American English variety.
Thestructureof my work is following:
TheTheoretical part includes:
1. Thehistorical background of American English where its described the appearance ofAmerican language, the history of the terms American and Americanism andother interesting facts about American English.
2. Thedescription of dialects of American English. Especially the main dialects aredescribed. There are three overall, major ones: theNew England, the Southern, and the General American(sometimes erroneously called the Midwest or West­ern dialect).
3. Thedescription of differences between British English and American English. The most obvi­ous andrepresentative differences between British English and American English includethree major ones:
1. Differences in American and English Vocabulary.
2. Differences in American and English Pronunciation.
3. Differences in American and English Spelling.
The Practical part includes:
1. Selected American English words were divided into definite groups withthe common theme. Words were investigated in their origin and etymology. There wehave presented the appearance of peculiarities in American English and thedates of recording of definite words.
2. Borrowings in American English. We have described the ways borrowingspenetrated into American English. Three main borrowing recourses are touched:French borrowings, Spanish borrowings and Italian borrowings.
Also this work paper includes a short etymological dictionary of AmericanEnglish words and phrases with the dates of their recording.
Theoretical partChapter I. Characteristic features of American English1.1 Historical background
american english word
Since America originally meant the continent, American wasoriginally used (1578) to mean a native of it, an Indian. Many Britishwriters, including essayist Joseph Addison, used American tomean Indian well into the 18th century, calling the colonists notAmericans but transplanted Englishmen. Beginning in 1697, however,Cotton Mather popularized the word Ameri­can tomean an English colonist in America. The language was called Americanby 1780; a citizen of the United States was called an American by1782; and Thomas Jefferson used Americanism to mean UnitedStates patriotism in 1797.The name the United States of America is said to havebeen created by Tom Paine; it was first usedofficially in the Declaration of Independence,whose subtitle is «The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America». [9.p.6 ]
This distinction between colonies and statesconfused many people and throughout the Revolutionary War many called the new country the United Colonies. In 1776, too,the name the United Statesof America was already shortenedto the United States (in theproceedings of the Continental Congress) and even to the shorter the States. George Washington wrotethe abbreviation U.S. in 1791, and the abbreviation U.S.A. wasrecorded in 1795. Even though theUnited States of America appeared in the Dec­laration of Independence, the new government used the official title the United States of North America until1778, when the «North» was dropped from the name by act of theContinental Congress.
When this new nation took its first census in 1790there were four million Americans, 90% of them descendants ofEnglish colonists. Thus there was no question that English was themother tongue and native language of the United States. By 1720,however, some English colonists in America had already begun to noticethat their language differed seriously from that spoken back homein England. Almost without being aware of it, they had:
(1) coinedsome new words for themselves;
(2) borrowed other words from the Indians, Dutch, French, andSpanish;
(3) been using English dialect words in their generalspeech;
(4) continued to use some English words that had now be come obsolete in England;
(5) evolved some peculiar uses, pronunciation, grammar, andsyntax.
Many of the coinages and borrowings werefor plants, animals, landscapes, living conditions, institutions,and attitudes which were seldom if ever encountered in England, sothe English had no words for them. The widespread use of Englishdialect words was also natural: most of the Puritans came fromEngland's southern and southeastern counties and spoke the East Angliadialect, most of the Quakers spoke the midland dialect, andafter 1720 many new colonists were Scots-Irish, speak­ing the Ulster dialect. Thecontinuing use of words that had be­comeobsolete in England, and of unusual usage, pronunciation, grammar, and syntax,was also natural for colonists isolated from the niceties of current English speech and English education. Thus, naturally, a hundred years after the Pilgrimslanded, English as spoken in Americadiffered from that spoken in England. [9. p.7 ]
In 1756, a year after he published his Dictionaryof the English Language, «Doctor»Samuel Johnson was the first to refer to an Americandialect. In 1780, soon after the American Revolution began,the word American was first used to refer to our language; in1802 the term the American Language was first recorded, in the U.S.Congress; and in 1806 Noah Webster coined the more precise termAmerican English.
Was American English good or bad? By 1735 theEnglish began calling it «barbarous» and its native words barbarisms.When the anti-American Dr. Johnson used the term Americandialect he meant it as an insult. Such English sneering at thelanguage con­tinued unabated for a hundred years after theRevolutionary War. The English found merely colorful or quaint suchAmerican terms as ground hog and lightning rod andsuch borrowings as oppossum, tomahawk, and wampum(from the Indians), boss (Dutch), levee (French),and ranch (Spanish). They laughed at and condemned asunnecessary or illiterate hundreds of American terms and usages, suchas:
Examples: allow, guess, reckon, meaning“to think”, which had all become obsolete inEngland.
bluff, used in the South since 1687,instead of tte British river «bank.» This has the dis­tinctionof being the first word attacked as being a«barbarous» American term.
bureau, meaning “chest” of drawers, whichwas obsolete in England.
card, meaning a “person who likes tojoke”, an American use since 1835.
clever, meaning “sharpwitted”, an East Anglia dialect use com­mon to allAmericans.
fall, obsolete in England where «autumn»was now the pre­ferred word.
fork, which the British ate with butwhich also drive or paddle on, using it since 1645 tomean the “branch of a road or river”. [9. p.8]
It wasn't only American words that the Englishdisliked, but American pro­nunciation and grammar as well. Theyjeered when Americans said «missionary» instead of«mission'ry,» «shew» for «show,» and «whare»and «bhar» for «where» and «bear.» In 1822visitor Charles Dickens said that outside of New York and Bostonall Americans had a nasal drawl and used «doubtful»grammar. In 1832 Mrs. Trollop said that during her visit in Americashe seldom heard a correctly pronounced sentence. And in 1839visitor Captain Frederick Marryat said it was remarkable how debasedthe English languagehad become in such a short time in America.
On the other hand, during and after the RevolutionaryWar Americans became proud of American language. It was abadge of independence. In 1778 the Continental Congressrecommended that when the French minister visited «all replies oranswers» to him should be made «in the language of the UnitedStates» (not only as opposed to French but also as opposed toEnglish English). Ameri­cans were bound to continue to develop theirown brand of English. What the English called barbarismsAmericans proudly called American­isms. JohnWitherspoon coined this word in 1781, in a series of papers he wrotefor rhe Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, anddefined it as any word or usage peculiar to English as used in America.
Later, of course, Americans were to add more Indianand Spanish words to their language, borrow words and intonationsfrom such immigrant groups as the Germans and Italians, and —likethe English themselves —continue to coin new words andchange the meanings of old ones, develop their own dialects and pronunciations,and evolve more of their own gram­matical and syntactical uses andmisuses. Since World War II, however, best-selling books, movies, TVshows, popular songs, and jet-propelled tourists have spreadAmerican English to England and English English to the U.S. Modernpolitics, pop culture, jet planes, and electronics seem to be bringingthe two «languages»closer together again. [9. p.9]
 
1.2 Dialects of American English
Early Americans had more sharply differentiateddialects than they do today. The Puritans in New England spoke theEnglish East Anglia dialect, the Quakers in Pennsylvania spoke theEnglish midland dialect, the Scotch-Irish in the Blue Ridge Mountainsspoke the Ulster dialect, etc.—and they and their speech patterns wereseparated by wilderness, bad roads, and lack ofcommunications. Then geographical and social mo­bility began to homogenize thelanguage, with people from all regionsmoving to all others, people from all walks of life mixing and mingling. Better roads and wagons, trains,cars, moving vans, high-speedprinting presses, the telegraph, the typewriter and teletype, telephones, record players, duplicating machines, radios, movies, and TV mixed and melded Americanspeech into a more and more uniformlanguage. In addition, our dialects were smoothed out by generations of teachers and by two crucial series of elementary school books: the variouseditions of Noah Webster's TheAmerican Spelling Book, «the Blue-Backed Speller» that sold over 80 million copies and from whichgenerations of Americans from the1780s to the 1880s learned to spell and pro­nounce the same words in the same way, and Professor William Holmes McGuffey's six series of EclecticReaders, which sold over 122million copies between 1836 and the 1920s, giving gener­ations of Americans a shared vocabulary andliterature. Thus American mobility,   educational   systems,   andimproved means of transportation andcommunications have given Americans an increasinglymore standardized vocabulary and pronunciation. When we hear America talking today we usually hear only a touch of a regional «accent»; Americandialects are fading away. [9. p.119 ]
Depending on how precise one need be, one can saythat Amer­ica has from three to a dozen dialects. There are threeoverall, major ones: the New England, the Southern, and the GeneralAmerican (sometimes erroneously called the Midwest or West­ern dialect). Here are brief descriptions of three majorregional dialects: [9. p.120]
New England dialect is spoken fromrhe Connecticut River north and eastward through Rhode Island, Massachusetts,Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. New England was nor mis­named:between 1620 and 1640, 200 ships brought 15,000 En­glish coloniststo the region, two-thirds of them from East Anglia, the Puritan stronghold.Those colonists from East Anglia, and other parts of southern andsoutheastern England, gave New England its distinct dialect,first called the NewEngland dialect in1788. It is still closer to English English than any otherdialect of American English. Some of its char­acteristics are:
(1) pronouncing the a  in  such  words  as ask,brass, can't, class, fast, grass, half, last, and pathsomewhat like the broad a in father, andlengthening the a sound in such words as bar, dark, far,farm, and heart to a sound somewhat be tweenthe sound the rest of us pronounce in hat and father(this last a sound is also found in easternVirginia and elsewhere in the tidewater region). Thus we tease Bostoniansfor saying «ahnt» (aunt) and «vahz» (vase).
(2) pronouncing the o in such words as box, hot,not, pot, and top with the lipsrounded, forming an open o sound. The rest of us tendto pronounce this o more as the broad a sound of father.
(3) omitting, slighting, or shortening some r sounds,thus car, dear, and door sound like«cah,» «deah,» and «doah» to therest of us. The broad a sound and the slighted r causethe rest of us to hear «pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd» (parkthe car in Harvard yard).
Southern dialect could be dividedinto separate dialects for the upper and lower South or into severalsmaller dialects, such as   the Virginia Tidewater, SouthCarolina Low Country, local dialects with Charleston and NewOrleans as focal points, etc. In general, however, Southerndialect is used south and east of a line drawn along the northernboundary of Maryland and Virginia and the southern boundaryof West Virginia, the southern part of Missouri and downthrough southeastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas. It ischaracterized by:
(1) the Southern drawl: a slower enunciation than used in therest of the country, combined with a slow breaking, gliding, ordiphthongization of stressed vowels. Thus to the rest of usthe Southern class sounds like «clae-is»; yes like «yea-is»  or   «yea-yis»; fine, I, ride, and timelike «fi-ahn,» «I-ah,»«ri-ahd,» anduti-ahm" (these all beinglong i sounds).
(2)  someof this slow dwelling on the vowel sounds weakens the following finalconsonants, especially d's, Vs, r's, and t's,   giving southerners   such  pronunciations  as fin(d), he(l)p,se(l)f, flo(or), mo(re), po(or), yo(ur), bes(t), kep(t).  (3)using such terms as the stereotyped Southern honey-chil(d)and you all as well as bucket (for pail), heap(for very), raise (for rear, children), reckon (think,judge), right (for very), snap bean (stringbean), spigot (for faucet) and tote (for carry). [9. p.121 ]
General American dialect isspoken in 4/5ths of the nation's area and by 2/3rds of the population,but is still a dialect. It is not called General American becausethat is what Americans should speak but because it just happensto be the dialect heard in the general regions outside of NewEngland and the South. It is heard in the area which starts as awedge between New England and the South, in western Connecticut, NewYork State, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, then broadens out toinclude West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin,Minnesota, Iowa, northern Missouri, northwestern Oklahoma and westTexas, and finally encompasses the entire western half of the country. Itactually includes at least four dialects: the North Central, the NewYork City Metropolitan Area dialect (including parts ofConnecticut and New Jersey), the Middle Atlantic, and the Midlands dialect(Philadelphia to the Rockies and the Potomac to New Mexico, sometimescon­sidered as separate Northern Midland and Southern Midlanddialects). All these have more in common with each other than withthe New England and Southern dialects, so can be grouped togetheras General American. It is characterized by:
(1) using the short flat a in such words as ask,brass, can't, class, dance, fast, grass, half, last, and path.
(2) sounding the unrounded o in such words as box,hot, lot, not, pot, and top almostas the broad a in father.
(3) the retention of a strong r sound in all positions,as caR, haKd, etc. [9. p.122 ]
Americans are still moving and communicating fromone part of the country to another. As easterners and midwesterners continueto move to the Sun Belt (1950s) the local Florida and Texasspeech patterns will be diluted; as people continue to leave largecities for small ones and for rural areas, pockets of local dialects will tendto weaken or disappear. Perhaps some­day in the future regionaldialects will be no more. Then we may have only two dialects, thatof educated, urban Americans and that of rural and poor Americans.Such dialects already exist, heard mainly in grammar andusage. />[9. p.123 ]

1.3. English vs American
 
·   American English (AmE) is the form of English used in the UnitedStates. It includes all English dialects used within the United States ofAmerica.
· BritishEnglish (BrE)is the form of English used in the United Kingdom. It includes all English dialectsused within the United Kingdom. [3 ]
This subject could, and does, fill many volumes, but the most obvi­ousand representative differences between English English and American Englishinclude:
[10. p.202 ]
 
1.4. Differences in American and English Vocabulary
 
It's easy to point out the differences between the American and theEnglish vocabulary: the differences seem quaint and there are comparatively sofew that Americans can easily spot them. Many of the differences are merely amatter of preference: Americans prefer railroad and store whilethe English prefer the synonyms railway and shop, but all fourwords are used in both England and America. In addition, Americans know or caneasily guess what braces, fishmonger's, or pram means, just asthe English know or can figure out what innerspring mattress, jumprope, and ice water mean. Finally, many of the words that onceseparated American English from English English no longer do: American cocktail(1806), skyscraper (1833), and supermarket (1920s) are nowheard around the world, and the English increasingly use radio, run (ina stocking), and Santa Claus instead of wireless, ladder, and FatherChristmas. The following list gives some of the most interesting andtypical differences between the American and English vocabulary, differ­encesthat may especially interest tourists and those who enjoy both American andEnglish books and movies.
Examples:
airfield—aerodrome.
apartment; apartment house, apartment building; block of flats (to an Englishman an apartmentmeans a room). Our high-rise apartment (building) is the English towerblock (of flats).
barbershop—barber's shop. The English frequently use the possessive -V or -s'where we do not, as in dolts house, ladies' room, and shop.
can opener—tin opener, candy—sweets[10. p.203 ]
There are, of course, hundreds of more terms that differ in AmericanEnglish and British English. American use of prepositions sometimes alsodiffers: Americans live on a street, the English live in it;Americans chat with people, the English chat to them; Americansspeak of an increase in something, the English of an increase on it;Americans get snowed in, they get snowed up; Americans saysomething is different/row something else, the English say it is different toit.
[10. p.210 ]
 
1.5. Differences in American and English Pronunciation
The major difference in American and English pronunciation is inintonation and voice timbre. Americans speak with less variety of tone than theEnglish. American voice timbre seems harsh or tinny to the English, their'sgurgling or throaty to Americans. English conclusion: Americans speak shrilly,monotonously, and like a schoolboy reciting. American conclu­sion: the Englishspeak too low, theatrically, and swallow their syllables. [2]
 The more precise differences include:
Americans pronounce the a in such words as ask, brass, can't,dance, fast, grass, half, last, and path as a short, fiat [a];the English pronounce it more as the broad [a:]in father.American shorter, flatter [a]is just a continuation of the wayfirst colonists from Southern England pronounced it; the English dropped thispronunciation in the 18th century and began to use the broad [a:](thissame change took place in parts of New England and the South, giving someAmericans the pronuncia­tion of aunt as «ahnt» and vase as«vahz»). [10. p.210]
On the other hand, most Americans sound the short [o ]  insuch words as box, hot, lot, not, pot, and top almost as thebroad [a: ]   in father, while the English (and some NewEnglanders) give it a more open sound, with the lips rounded.
And some are just unique pronunciations of individual words. Suchmiscellaneous differences in pronunciations include:
ate, Americans say «eight»—«et» is an accepted Englishpronunciation.
been, Americans say «bin»—the English say «bean.»
clerks- «dark.»
either, neither, most Americans say, «e-ther, ne-ther»—«I-ther,ni-
ther» is the English pronunciation.
issue, Americans say «ish-you»—the English say «is-sue.»
 leisure, most Americans say «le-sure»—the English say«laysure.»
lieutenant, Americans say «lew-tenant»—the English say«lef-tenant.»
nephew, Americans say «nef-hew»—the English say «nev-hew.»
 schedule, Americans say «sked-ule»—the English say«shed-ule.» [10. p.211 ]
1.6. Differences in American and English Spelling
When the colonists came to America, spelling was not a prob­lem—if a mancould write at all he was lucky. English spelling was not yet rule-ridden: iand y, as well as u and v, were often used interchangeably.Not until 135 years after the Pilgrims landed did English spelling have aguide in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language. Thismonumental work froze much of English spelling and, among other things, decreedthat such words as critick, loglck, musick, andpublick end in a final kand such words as colour, honour, etc., end in -our. [10.p.212 ]
England, including its colonies, began to follow Johnson's spell­ing;but, in 1758, three years after Johnson's dictionary was published, NoahWebster was born, in Hartford, Connecticut, and 21 years after Johnson'sdictionary the American Revolution began—two events that were to help separateEnglish English and American English. After graduating in law from Yale,Webster couldn't make a living doing legal work, so he became a teacher. Hethen found English schoolbooks hard to obtain, and unsatisfac­tory, so hecompiled his own three-part Grammatical Institute of the English Language, includingan elementary spelling book (in 1783), a grammar (in 1784) and a reader (in1785). Part I became the fantastically successful The American SpellingBook, which went through edition after edition and sold 80 million copiesin its first hundred years, 1783-1883. It was one of the most influential booksever published in America: from the time America became a nation, past theCivil War, and almost into the Gay 90s, genera­tions of Americans learned tospell and pronounce from it, spelling and pronouncing each syllable in everyword over and over again under stern teachers. It was known to millions as Webster'sSpeller, the Blue-Backed Spelling Book (1853) and the Blue-BackedSpeller. [10. p.213 ]
Americans aremore scrupulous about clearly articulating certain unaccented syllables,especially -ary, -ery, and -ory, and certain ds, gs, hs, Ps,rs (following vowels) and t's than the English. Thus the English saymelanchy, monastery, necessary, preparatory, secretary, etc, whenAmericans fully articulate the final syllables. Also, except in parts of NewEngland and the South, Americans articulate the firstl in fulfill, theh in forehead, the r in lord and there, and thefinal t in trait, rather than pronounce them as the English do: fu'fill,for 'rid, laud, theh, and trai. [10. p.214]
The English are also more conservative in using fewer abbrevia­tions andmore capital letters and commas than Americans do. They capitalize such wordsas the Bar, the Church, the Government, the Press, andSociety. By doing away with such capital letters, Americans are closerto the fashion of the 18th century, when the months, the days of the week, andthe names of religions were often not capitalized. [10. p.215 ]
Writtenforms of American English are fairly well standardized across the UnitedStates. An unofficial standard for spoken American English has developedbecause of mass media and of geographic and social mobility. This standard isgenerally called a General American or Standard Midwestern accent and dialect,and it can typically be heard from network newscasters, although localnewscasters tend toward more provincial forms of speech. Despite thisunofficial standard, regional variations of American English have not onlypersisted, but have actually intensified, according to William Labov. [1 ]
Regionaldialects in the United States typically reflect the elements of the language ofthe main immigrant groups in any particular region of the country, especiallyin terms of pronunciation and vernacular vocabulary. [5 ]
Britishand American English are the reference norms for English as spoken, written,and taught in the rest of the world. For instance, the English-speaking membersof the Commonwealth often closely follow British English forms while many newAmerican English forms quickly become familiar outside of the United States. [4 ]

Practical part.
Chapter II.  Origin of American English words and their culturalbackground
 
2. 1. Glimpses of origin of American words
 
2.2. Animals
Foreigners are charmed with the vivid descriptive names Americans havegiven their native animals. American settlers com­bine descriptive words togive  many vivid names for the mam­mals, reptiles, fish, birds, and insects—andAmericans have continued to name animals by descriptive combinations eversince. [9. p.180 ]
Examples:
bald eagle, 1688, because itswhite neck and head make it look bald.
This bird was considered our national symbol beforeits picture
was placed on the Great Seal of the United States in1785; since
then it has also been called the American eagle, 1798,and the
United States eagle, 1 847. Baltimoreoriole,  1771, originally called the Baltimorebird, 1669,because its black and orange colors were those onthe coat of arms of Lord Baltimore.
bullfrog, 1698, because itmakes a roaring noise like a bull. canvas back, 1782, from the color ofits back. [9.p.181 ]
catbird, 1709, becauseits call resembles the mewing of a cat. Like many words on this list itwas originally spelled with a hyphen, cat-bird.
catfish, 1612, thename first recorded by John Smith in Virginia, because of the fish's facialresemblance to a cat, especially its whiskers.
grizzly bear, 1791,because some of the animals have a grizzly or gray color; infact it's sometimes called the white bear, silver-tippedbear, etc. Shortened to grizzly by the early 1800s.
lightning bug, 1778. The Englishhad called this beetle a glow worm since the 16thcentury and a firefly since 1658. [9. p.182 ]
There some words denoting the famous American animalwhich enriches the American English very much. [9. p.66 ]
 Buffalo (Portuguese andSpanish bufalo from Greek boufdos, “wild ox”) is, ofcourse, a misnomer, a word Europeans had used for the smaller, weakerIndian and African ox. American buffalo is really the Americanbison (1796), but De Soto didn't know that when he firstcalled it bufalo in 1544. The word appears in many American com­binations,including:
    buffalo beef, 1722,buffalo meat.
buffalo robe, 1723, alsocalled buffalo rug, 1805. This Indian item
was first described by Marquette and Joliet in 1681;it served
many Indians and whites as robe, coat, blanket, and sleepingbag. buffalo-headedduck, 1731, now known as the bufflehead (1858), a
small, widely distributed duck with a large,squarish head. buffalo road, 1750; buffalotrace, 1823; buffalo trail, 1834. These are
all paths or trails worn by buffalo herds.
Buffalo Bill, William FrederickCody (1846-1917), who had been a pony express rider and cavalry scoutbefore earning this nickname as a buffalo hunter supplying largequantities of meat to Union Pacific Railroad construction crews in1867-68. The name Buffalo Bill was given him byNed Buntline (pen name of Edward Zane Carroll Judson, 1821 -86), a writer ofadventure fiction and one of the first dime novelists. Cody himself gave us theterm Wild West Show, opening Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Omaha, May 37,1883. [9.p.67 ]
         Such terms as in the buff(\n theskin, naked), the brownish yellow color called buff, and tobuff (to polish as with an animal skin) do not come from ourword buffalo but entered English in the 16th century via buffle,the French word for that Asiatic and African ox. [9. p.68 ]

2.3. Plants
 
Americans have given many of their native trees, grasses, flowers, andshrubs descriptive names, often by combining two old words. Thus they have:
bluegrass, 1751, being any of several American grasses of the for genusand having a bluish cast, earlier called Dutch grass (1671). Kentuckybluegrass, 1849, a type of bluegrass, Poa pratem valuable aspasturage and hay; Bluegrass region, Bluegrass country the Blue Grass, aregion in Kentucky, 1860s; the Bluegrass Stof Kentucky, 1886. [9. p.62 ]
butternut, 1741, or white walnut (1743), called butternut fromthe oiliness of the nut. By 1810 butternut also meant the brownish dyeobtained from the tree's bark, its color, and fabric dyed with it. During theCivil War Butternut (1862) meant a Confederate soldier, from thebutternut dye used on some homemade uni­forms. buttonwood, 1674, becauseof its buttonlike burrs. This name was given the tree in New England;Southerners called it sycameri (1709), thinking it was that familiarEnglish tree.
honey locust, 1743, because the pealike pods have a sweet taste.
Johnny-jump-up, 1842, from its quick growth. Also called JoktM jumper,Johnny jump up and kiss me, 1859; johnny jump, 1894. The Englishcall this the viola tricolor or heartsease (we use these namesfor any of the various American violets and wild pansies).
live oak, 1610,because, being an evergreen oak, it is «alive» all year.
poison ivy, 1784, earlier poison weed. It got its name because, asCaptain John Smith wrote in 1624, «The Poysoned weed is much in shape likeour English ivy.» Colonists, who had never seen or heard of it until theylanded in America, had to learn to recognize and avoid it, and care for its effects,by trial and error. It was particularly rampant in Virginia, all the moretroublesome because it could be mistaken by uninitiates for the local climbingvine the Virginia creeper (1670s).
poison oak, 1743, so called because its lobelike leaves resemblethose ofan oak tree. This plant also was troublesome in early Virginia where it seemsto have gotten its name.
The early settlers and frontiersmen also borrowed many plant names fromthe Indians, French, and Spanish. Other plants and trees are named afterpeople, as the Douglas fir (1884, for the Scot­tish botanist DavidDouglas who discovered it while collecting and exploring in the Northwest in1825) and the poinsettia (named in 1836 for Joel Poinsett, who collectedand sent back many rare plants, including this one, while serving as the firstU.S. minister to (Mexico in 1825-29). Other native American plants were mis­named,merely because the settlers who first saw them thought they were identical tothose back home in England when they weren't. Thus our beech, hemlock,laurel, and walnut are not the same as the English trees of the samenames and our bay trees and bay bushes also differ from theEnglish ones. [9. p.63 ]
 2.4. Banknotes and coins
The word dollar comes from the German  t(h)aler,   a  word the
Germans got from shortening Joachinistaler, a silver coin firstminted in Joachimstal, Bohemia, in 1519 (Joachimstaler itself liter­allymeans «of the Saint Joachim valley,» t(h)akr meaning «ofthe valley»). This original t(h)aler became such a common Europeancoin that t(h)aler or da(h)ler soon became the general name forany large silver coin in various German states and the name of the basic coinsof Denmark and Sweden, with the word being spelled dollar in England by1581.
The first dollar widely circulated in America was a Dutch coinbearing the likeness of a lion. Brought here by the original Dutch settlersaround 1620, it was a favorite of European merchants and sailors and continuedto be brought to America and to circulate widely long after the English tookover the Dutch lands in 1664 and turned the Dutch colony of New Netherland (sonamed by the Dutch in 1621) into New York and New Jersey. Wecalled this Dutch dollar a lion dollar or lion by 1725. ThisDutch dollar was not the only dollar the colonists had. The Spanish peso wasalso in wide use in all the American colonies and called a Spanish dollar fromat least 1684. By the early 1750s any peso, whether from Spain or SpanishAmerica, was called a Spanish dollar, Spanish mill(ed) dollar, or simplya dollar.[10. p.181 ]
With English money in short supply and colonial money uncer­tain, themost prized and trusted money was often gold and silver coins from Spain,France, Holland, Mexico, Portugal, Brazil— from just about every European country,possession, island, and even mission (the Spanish Jesuits in Tuban, Arizona,minted coins as early as 1707). Such gold and silver coins were brought toAmerica by its original Dutch, French, Spanish, and German settlers andcontinued to come in through merchants, sailors, and pirates from the entireWestern world. Besides British guineas, pounds, shillings, and pence, Dutch andSpanish dollars, and colonial bills and coins, early Americans used and talkedabout such coins as the:
peso. The Spanish peso (literally weight, from Latinpensum, some­thingweighted) was worth eight Spanish reals (see below) and marked with afigure 8. We called this Spanish coin and its value peso, eight reals, pieceof eight, and, of course, dollar.
picayune. This French coin (from French picaillon, a small copper coin) waswidely circulated in Louisiana and Florida in the late 18th century and wasstill in wide use at the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. By 1855 weused picayune to mean trifling, of small value.
pistole. The Spanish gold pistole (from Middle French pistolet, coin)was worth 2lh pesos. It also circulated freely in thecolonies and was associated not only with Spain but with pirates, who seemed toprefer it for its gold content, size, and weight—and for use as an earring.
real or bit. The small silver Spanish real (Spanish for«royal,» from Latin regal, regal) was worth one-eighth of apeso or 12!/z cents. By 1683 we also called it a bit (fromOld English bite, bit, morsel), which was an English term for any smallpiece of money, as in «six-penny bit,» though this monetary use ofthe word bit was reinforced in America by the Spanish word pieca, piece,bit, which sounded like «bika» to many colonists. [10. p.184 ]
New United States currency was called federal money (1806), lawfulmoney (1809), and specie dollars (1821) to distinguish it from theforeign coins still in circulation. [10. p.185 ]
From 1865 until 1933 the U.S. issued not only gold coins but paper goldcertificates (an 1863 term, the year Congress first autho­rized them) whichcertified that the U.S. Treasury had deposited gold for their redemption. In1933, when the U.S. was taken off the gold standard, gold coins were removedfrom circulation, gold certificates were called in, and our coins and papermoney were declared legal tender. From 1878 until 1963 the government alsoissued silver certificates, paper money backed by silver dollars. Today,about 90 percent of our paper money is in Federal Reserve Notes issuedthrough the twelve Federal Reserve Banks or «bankers' banks»created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to establish a unified bankingsystem. [10. p.187 ]
Some General Terms:
banknote, 1695 in England, originally as made out by a specific bank to a specificperson. The shortened form, note, was first recorded in 1696.
bean, any coin, 1810. It came to mean specifically a $5 gold piece in 1859,then meant $1 by 1905.
bill meant a letter or a legal document in English by the 15th century (fromLatin bulla, official seal, then a document bearing such a seal, whichwe still use in the term papal bull). By the late 16th century inEngland this «official document» meaning led to bill, whichwas used as a word for paper money.
cash, 1596 inEngland, when it also still meant money box, case (via French caisse, Italiancassa, cash box, merchant's case, from Latin capsa, box). Casharticle, valuable or worth an amount of money, 1835; cash crop, 1868.
currency, 1699 as money in England, because it is the current, generally acceptedmedium of exchange (from Latin currential currere, to run).[10. p.192 ]
Since 1969 all U.S. currency in denominations over one hun­dred dollarshas been withdrawn from circulation as the bills have come in to FederalReserve Banks. A thousand dollars has been called a thou since 1869, a grandsince 1900 (which was sometimes shortened to G by 1920), and a bigone by the 1950s. The $10,000 Federal Reserve Notes were the highestcurrency ever in general circulation and, although the last ones were printedin 1944, about four hundred are still in private hands. The $100,000 goldcertifi­cates, with President Woodrow Wilson's likeness, were first issuedin 1934 and were the highest denomination ever authorized in the world;however, they were never in general circulation, being for officialtransactions only (twelve of these are still in Federal Reserve Banks).Although U.S. currency has never come in larger denominations than this, it is,of course, possible to amass and talk about still larger amounts.
[10. p.202 ]
 
2.5. Mail
The British still speak of the post and of posting a letterwhile Americans are more apt to talk about the mail and mailing aletter (post came into English via the 15th-century French poste, station,from Latin positum, positioned, placed; mail has been in Englishsince the 13th century, from Old High German malha, satchel, bag). Ouruse of post and postal thus goes back to our British colonialdays; mail came later, with mail carrier in 1790, mail boat in1796, mail pouch, and the mail, the U.S. Mail in the1840s, and mail bag in 1867. Here are the dates of the first Americancolonial use of some British postal terms:
postal system, 1639, in Massachusetts. This first system was simple: incomingoverseas mail was to be left at the home of Richard Fairbanks in Boston and hetransmitted it for a penny a letter.
postal service, 1672, when a monthly service was started between New York andBoston, over what in 1692 became the Boston Post Road (a road fortransporting mail). By 1790 the U.S. had 20,000 miles of post roads.
post office, 1683, when the first American one was established inPhiladelphia. It gave us our first colonial use of the word postmaster, beingone Henry Waldy, whose main duty was to supply horses and riders.
postmaster general, 1694, when the British crown appointed Andrew Hamiltonpostmaster general of all the colonies, to establish intercolonial service.People were soon talking about his post riders and post walkers (poorroads made them faster than wagons or carriages). [10. p.533 ]
These were the major British contributions to postal lan­guage. BenjaminFranklin was appointed postmaster of Philadel­phia in 1737 and served as«co-deputy postmaster general» of the colonies from 1753 to 1774,when he was dismissed by the crown for being too pro-American. He got even withthe British by being appointed the first postmaster general of the Americanpostal system by the Continental Congress in 1775. Now American mail termsslowly began to take over:
mail coach, late 1780s (a British term); mail stage, from 1792.
Post Office Department, Americans used this term from its begin­nings in 1782until 1971, when it became the U.S. Postal Service, an independentagency.
U.S. Postmaster General, 1789, when President Washington ap­pointed SamuelOsgood as the first one, overseeing the nation's 75 post offices.
star route, 1820s, the route of a private contractor carrying mail forthe post office where its own service didn't go (so called for the stars orasterisks printed next to such routes on the Post Office Department list).
post officebox, 1833;general delivery, late 1830's.
Before 1847, U.S. postmasters printed their own postage stamps andsupplied glue pots—the adhesive stamp wasn't in­vented until 1840, in England(the famous penny black being the first issue). Then on July 1, 1847,Congress authorized the first U.S. Postage stamps: a 5^ Franklin anda 10Washington. Within fifteen years all Americans weresimply calling them stamps and calling their value postage. Atfirst, some Americans humorously called such an adhesive stamp a lick-and-stick.Postage still covered only the carrying of mail from post office to postoffice; there was not free home delivery.
overland mail, 1848, when the post office first started talking about astagecoach mail service from Missouri to California, which overland stage servicewas begun in 1858.
registered mail', 1855, when the service began.
mail boy, 1862, to distribute andcollect mail in offices, which were now growing rapidly in size and number.
In 1863, when many families were writing to and receiving letters fromtheir men who were fighting the Civil War, there were two big innovations inthe Union's mail service: (1) mail was divided into classes and postage wasbased on the class rather than the distance it was carried; (2) mail servicenow began to include free home delivery in cities. Before this everyone had topick up and deposit his own mail at the post office (or in a primitive letterbox) or pay a letter carrier (an 1825 term) a 2-cent fee for each letterhe delivered or picked up. [10. p.534 ]
Now Americans began to use the new terms:
first class (letters), second class (newspapers), third class (magazinesand circulars), 1863. Fourth class (merchandise) wasn't added until1879.
city delivery service, free city delivery, free delivery, 1863.
mailman soon became a common word after 1863, when he was employed and paid bythe post office for free delivery. By the 1880s mailmen delivered as many asfive times a day in commer­cial areas of New York and other major cities.
postal money order, 1864, originally created so Union soldiers could send moneyhome safely during the Civil War.
postal card, post card, 1871, when the U.S. Post Office first issued a plainpenny one, called a penny post card by 1873 (post cards had first beenused by the Austrian post office in I860).
branch post office, 1871.
mail box, 1872, two years after it was patented. Since the late 1850s people hadbeen calling primitive types letter boxes, street letter boxes, and streetboxes, but these were usually the brightly painted receiving boxes forindependent carriers and express agencies. The patented U.S. mailbox dida lot to give the U.S. Post Office Department control of the business. Theywere also often called letter drops in the 1890s.
After having been discussed for several years, free delivery was extendedto rural areas in 1896. Free rural delivery brought newspapers, magazines, andmail-order catalogs to farm families, breaking their isolation and«urbanizing» the outlook of rural America.
Rural Free Delivery, RFD,   1892; used in discussions four years
before it went into effect. mail order business,  1875; mailorder catalog,  1883; mail order house,1906. The mail order businessmushroomed after RFD was
introduced; Sears Roebuck entered the mail order business in1895.
And last, butnot least, people have been playing and giggling about the kissing game postoffice since 1851, just four years after they began «kissing»those new lick-and-stick adhesive stamps. [10. p.535 ]
 
2.6.   Indians
 
The word Indian comes from the most celebratedmistake in history. When Columbus discovered the Western Hemisphere hethought he had reached the Indies of Asia; hence the Caribbean Islandswere called the West Indies and their inhabitants Indi­ans. Theword then spread to include all the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. [9. p.195 ]
The Indian words Americans still use include: (1)thousands of place names; (2) scores of words about Indians used inour history and mythology; and (3) hundreds of names of plants, animals, and landscapeswhich have become part of American everyday speech. [9. p.196 ]
The words Americans use in talking about Indians include some real Indianwords plus others from our conceptions and misconcep­tions of Indians, wordsfrom American history and from American fiction:
brave (the French word for an Indian warrior), has had wide American use since1819. Before then we usually used the term Indian warrior.
firewater, 1817 is the earliest recorded use of this «Indiantalk» word for whiskey. It may be a translation of the Algonquian scoutiouabou,«fire water.»
Honest Indian?, «is ittrue?» 1851; Honest Injun «on my honor,» 1892,originally sarcastic use, because Indians were considered dishonest.
Indian country, 1664; Indianland, 1658; Indian territory, 1677; Indian Territory,1828, the territory, now Oklahoma, set aside by thegovernment for the Five Civilized Tribes.
Indian nation, a tribe, 1622. Tribeis a 13th century English word, used to refer to the tribes ofIsrael and to Roman tribes long before it was used to refer to aboriginalgroups in Africa and the Americas. The earliest settlersusually spoke of an Indian nation rather than anIndian tribe.
paleface, 1822. JamesFenimore Cooper put this term for White man into themouths of his Indian characters. He probably in­vented it.
papoose (Algonquian for baby, child).Colonists were calling Indian babies this by 1633.
peace pipe, 1760; earlier itwas called a pipe of peace, 1705. This long, decoratedceremonial pipe was first called a calumet, in 1678 (viaCanadian French from French calumeau, reed, any plant with strawsuitable for a pipe stem). Calumet is also a place name for ariver, county, village, etc., in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan,indicating places where such reeds grew.  [9. p.197 ]
Indian words for plants, animals, and landscapesbegan to appear in American language as soon as the colonistslanded and began to ask the Indians «What's that?» Most answers werein Algon­quian, the most widespread family of Indian languages,spoken by most Indians of the eastern half of the U.S. Since theIndians hadn't yet invented writing, and since each local tribemight have its own pronunciation of any given word, thecolonists had a hard time trying to spell and pronounce Indianwords. Often they shortened the Indian word or phrase (asquatas quash became «squash»), tried to pronounce theparts of the word like familiar English words (a process called folk etymology,mak­ing wejack or otchig into«woodchuck»), or took a whole Indian sentence orclause and made one word out of it. Virginia's Cap­tain John Smith introducedmany such words into English, be­ginning with his written description ofVirginia in 1608. If you had been in Jamestown, Plymouth, or onthe Kentucky fron­tier, or had crossed the prairie in a covered wagon,you would have heard your fellow Americans using a good many Indian words.Today about 130 Algonquian words, mainly for plants and animals, arestill in use, plus a sprinkling of words from other Indianlanguage families. [9. p.201 ]
The most frequently heard include:
bayou (via French from Choctaw bayuk,stream, creek), 1766
caribou (via Canadian French from Micmae khalibuor some­thing that sounded like maccaribpoo, «he whopaws the snow»), 1610.
catalpa tree (Creek kutuhlpa, «winged head,» referring tothe flowers), 1730; shortened to catalpa,1785.
hickory (Algonquian pawcohiccora,a dish of pounded hickory nuts and water), as pocketxhicory,pokahickory, 1618, modern spell­ing, 1670. Hickorynut, 1670. Hickory switch, 1734, for whip­ping children,later called a hickory stick. Hickory was used to meanfirm, unyielding by 1800, giving us such nicknames as «OldHickory» for Andrew Jackson and such terms as hickory cloth and hickoryshirt in the 1840s, referring to a strong cotton fabric. By 1848 hickoryalso meant a hickory walking stick and by 1900 was usedto mean a baseball bat.
hominy, 1629; pone, 1612;samp, 1643; succotash, 1751. Many of our«corn» words come from the Indians; these words are dis­cussedin detail at the entry Corn.
poke means several different plants tous because it is our final pronunciation of several different Indianwords. Poke originally was a name for the tobacco plant (from Algonquianuppoivoc) which we spelled apooke in 1618. Other pokeplants get their name from a Virginian Indian word puccoon,a plant they used for dyeing. Thus we have pokeroot by1687; pokeweed, 1751; pokeberr,. By 1778 poke alsomeant the skunk cabbage. Poke greens was firstrecorded in 1848 and poke salad in 1880.
skunk (Algonquian skekakwa, squnck, «mammalwho urinates» or sprays), 1588 by explorers, 1634 by colonists. It hasalso been called a polecat in America since the 1600s,after a related European animal. Skunk cabbage, 1751. Skunkwas used to mean a contemptible person by 1840. Toskunk, to defeat completely, keep an opponent from scoring, appeared in 1843.
squash (Narragansett asquatasquash, «eatenraw»), 1642. Winter squash, summer squash, 1750s;crook-neck squash, 1818, from its shape;Hubbard squash, late 1860s, from Mrs. Elizabeth Hub-bard of Massachusetts, whofirst cultivated it; zucchini squashy
toboggan (via CanadianFrench from Algonquian tabakun, drag, hand sled), 1829; tobogganing, asa sport, 1855; toboggan slide, a playground slide for children, 1890s; toboggancap, a stock­ing cap, especially withends to wrap around the neck as a muffler,1902.
wapiti, the NorthAmerican elk, named in 1806 by the American physician andnaturalist Benjamin Barton (using the Shawnee word for theanimal, literally meaning «white rump»). This wordnever replaced the less precise word elk, which had been usedin America since 1635.
whiskey-jack (Cree wisketjan),the Canadian jay. This name was first recorded by John J.Audubon, in 1839.
woodchuck (Algonquian wejack,Chippewa otchig, Cree otchek, the fisher),1674. This is a prime example of folk etymology, of pronouncingstrange words to resemble familiar words or word elements; it has nothing to dowith «wood» or «chuck» exceptin sound. [9. p.202 ]
In addition to the above, most Americans know about50 names for Indian tribes from Algonquin to Zuni, plussuch Indian words or words associated with Indians as caucus (1773,probably from Algonqman caucauasu, counselor), mackinaw (1820sas a blanket, 1902 as a jacket, from Ojibway mitchimakinak, «greatturtle,» which became the name of the strait between Lake Michiganand Lake Huron, an island on this strait, and a trading post wherethis heavy wool, plaid blanket, was common), pemmican (1791,Cree pimikkan from pimii, fat, grease), and podunk (Mohe-ganfor «neck of land,» used as a place name by Indians in Con­necticutand Massachusetts, as recorded in 1666, then used by Whites to mean asmall or insignificant town or rural region by 1841). Suchwords as potato and tobacco are West Indies Indian words and tomatoand chocolate are Aztec Indian words.[9. p.203]
 
2.7. Car
Americans thank Julius Caesar for the word car. Hepersonally borrowed a Celtic word sounding something like«karra» to name his chari­ots, and from that and itsLatinized carrus/carra, which came to mean wagon,cart, Americans get the English words chariot, carriage, and car. Thecolonists knew car only as a poetic word meaning chariot, asin the «Cars of the Gods.» It wasn't until the 1820s and 30s that commonpeople talked much about cars, by which they then meant railroadcars, horsecars and, by the 1860s, streetcars. Since about 1900,however, car has had one chief meaning to most Americans: anautomobile.
The word automobile (Greek auto-, self+ mobile, moving) ar­rived in the 1870s with the appearanceof the steam automobile, also called a steamer (the British hadcalled it a steam carriage since its beginnings inthe 1830s). The Stanley Steamer, also known as the flyingteapot, was manufactured from 1896 to 1925 by the Stanley twins, Francis andFreelan, and was the most talked-about auto­mobileof the late 1890s. Various electric automobiles, going 25-40 miles at 15 mph on a battery charge, were alsowidely talked about at the time, butthe gasoline automobile, first successfully built in the U.S. by the Duryea brothers in 1893, had fewsupporters-most people rememberedthat the famous Electrobat had beaten a Duryea gasoline automobile in a much-discussed 1895 race. But be itdriven by electricity, steam, or gasoline, automobile was the wordgenerally used in the late 1890s, and was already shortened to auto. Some of the over 50inventors-designers-manufacturers of auto­mobiles in 1898 were, however, using other terms, including
autopher, autovic, autobat, automotive, diamote, motorfly,self motor, and locomotive car. [9. p.75 ]
The first definition of motor-car appeared in the 1890 edition of the Century Dictionary: «Motor-car … acar which carries its own propellingmechanism, as an electric motor… .» Motor-car waj soon shortened to car and by 1910 car hadreplaced automobile a the more common word, though automobile,motorcar, and another early word for it, machine,were favored by some people well into the 1930s.
By 1900 the car was replacing the bicycle as a fad, andenthu­siasts willingly donned veils and theclothes-protecting driving smocks called dusters (words usedwith a special meaning by auto- mobile buffs since the 1870s) and goggles(which came in the 1890s). Since before 1890 driver hadbecome the accepted word for one who could manipulate a car, although chauffeurwas also in use (from French chauffer, to heat, originallymeaning a stoker and then humorously applied to the driver ofa steam automobile). By the end of the 1890s new names and words having to dowith cars came thick and fast, and talking about cars became one ofAmeri­ca's favorite pastimes—today new «car» wordsstill appear every year and we still talk about cars avidly. It's beena long love affair. A sampling of some car names heard over and over inAmerica includes:
Packard. In 1898 JamesWard Packard was so disgusted when the new car hepurchased from Alexander Winton, «bicycle and automobilemanufacturer,» broke down as he drove it home, that he decidedto build his own. His 1899 car was a buggy-type, one-cylinder,12-horsepower single-seater with a steering tiller.
Buick, famous since 1902 when bathtubmaker David Dunbar Buick built the first car having a water-cooled,valve-in-head engine.
Cadillac, first built in1902 by perfectionist Henry M, Leland and named after the French explorer.
Studebaker, first appearedin 1904, when only one of the five famous Studebakerbrothers was still living. They had built a blacksmith shop into one ofthe country's largest wagon and harness busi­nesses, whichhad been a major supplier of the Union army during the Civil War.
General Motors, established byWilliam C. Durant around 1909 from Oldsmobile, Buick, Cadillac, andmany smaller companies.
The Model T, introduced asHenry Ford's ninth model in 1909 (the first Ford was built in1903), it sold for $850 «In any color you choose aslong as it's black.» In 1914 Ford introduced the electricconveyor belt for the assembly of cars, and by 1926 mass productionhad lowered the price of a Model T to $350. Over 15 million Model Ts had beensold by 1927, when the Model A replaced it.
Chevrolet, introduced in1911 as the first six-cylinder touring car, both the car and the Chevrolet MotorCompany being named after and designed byformer racing car driver Louis Chevrolet.
Cord. E. L. Cord produced his L-29 in1929 and the classic^ 810 in 1937, introducing new designs,superchargers, and the disappearance of the running board.
Tucker. In 1947 the Tucker Corporationdisplayed pilot models of its rear-engine, three-headlight (the middle oneturned with the steering wheel) Tucker Torpedo, later calledthe Tucker 48, Due to legal involvements, widely thought tohave been initiated by «the big three» carmanufacturers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) supported bysome government agencies, the car was never sold.
Edsel, introduced with much fanfare bythe Ford Motor Company in 1957, it was one of the most talked-about,joked-about flops in automobile history. Named after Edsel Ford,1893-1943, son of Henry. [9. p.76 ]
In addition to talking about specific cars,Americans have constantly talked about parts of cars, types andstyles of cars, and words for things associated with cars, using termssuch as:
automobile tire, 1877 (wagontires date from the 15th century); jack, 1877;tread, 1877, retread, 1890; blowout, 1915; balloontire, early 1920s; tubeless tire, intro­ducedby B. F. Goodrich, 1948; radial ply tire, 1967.
automobile accident, 1882; carcrash, 1915;hit-and-run, 1920s.
fender, 1883; hood, 1906;running board, 1923; rumbleseat, 1931.
crank, 1883; self-starter, 1894.
runabout, 1891; touringcar, 1903; station wagon, 1 904; roadster,1908; coupe, 1918; sedan, 1920; sports car, 1925.
American Automobile Association, AAA, 1900.
license plate, 1901, when they werefirst issued by New York State.
garage, for housing an auto­mobile,1902. [9.p.77 ]
road hog, early 1900s,had been applied first to bicyclists in the 1890s.
gas, 1905, from the 1865 word gasoline,which was originally consideredmerely a dangerous by-product in the making of kerosene.
spark plug, 1908, used tomean an energetic leader by the 1930s.
give her the gas, 1912; step onthe gas, tramp on the gas, 1916; step onit, 1922; give it the gas, 1942. Thesereplaced the older «don't spare the horses.»
motorcade, 1912.
flivver, 1914 (the wordorig­inally 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 andprettied up on Sundays); crate, 1920,follow­ing the World War I use for an airplane; jalopy, 1924; gas buggy, 1925; rattletrap, 1929.
traffic cop, 1915; ticket,1930.
filling station, 1915; servicestation, 1922.
tourist camp, tourist court,1916;
The list goes on and on, for the car completelychanged American life and language. The car created the gasoline industry and all its words reshaped the family vacation andresort industry and spawned many oftravel and recreational terms. [9. p.78 ]ъ
2.8. American English Idioms.
 
It’s Raining Cats and Dogsseems to be a good old-fash­ionedAmerican 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 PoliteConversations—as examples of the banalities and clichés of politeBritish conversation! Swift also used another popular «American»expression in Hail fellow, well met, All dirty and wet; Find out if youcan, Who's master, who's man. «My Lady's Lamentation,» 1765.It justgoes to show that all American popular expressions don't originate in America.
During the last 200 years it seems it has almost literally been rainingcats and dogs in America. Although American Indians kept pets, with dogs andbeavers being the most common ones, the early colonists believed that keepingpets was a sign of witchcraft (two dogs were executed as witches in Salem,Massachusetts, in 1692). Keeping pets did become acceptable, however, duringthe mid 18th century, the habit spreading from European palaces and manorhouses into the average home. Today there are at least 100 million cats anddogs in the United States—and each year more than a million people are bittenby dogs. Cats and dogs have given us such terms as:
to bark up the wrong tree, 1832, probably from hunting dogs thinking they hadtreed 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 originalform was catnip fit it may have come into being merely as a corruption ofor 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.Thisaromatic mint plant, Napeta cataria, was named because of its attractionfor cats; it has been widely used in cooking. catty, given to spitefulremarks, around 1885.
dog, an unsuccessful, ugly, or disliked person or thing, early 1930s.
dogcatcher, 1835, also euphemistically called a humane officer, 1939,andbureaucratically 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 thePrevention 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; looklike
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 inEnglish use.
The older English it'sraining cats and dogs was joined byour to rain pitchforks in 1844, with the expression right as rain, meaningperfect, well, absolutely right, appearing in 1894. [10. p.465 ]
Another old English expression dealing with a rainstorm is to stealone's thunder. The story behind this expression is that in 1709 Englishplaywright John Dennis invented a new way to produce stage thunder for his playAppius and Virginia. Few people liked his tragedy and it soon closed,but not long after, Dennis was watch­ing a new production of Macbeth andheard his thunder being used. He angrily got up from his theater seat andshouted to all the audience, «See how the rascals use me! They will notlet my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!» So was born anotherpopular American expression—in England. [10. p.466 ]

Conclusion
 
Inthis work paper we investigated the peculiarities of American English emphasizingespecially the etimology of American English words.
So inthe research it was proved that:
NorthAmerica has given the English lexicon many thousands of words, meanings, andphrases. 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 lexicalitems started as soon as the colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliarflora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Among theearliest and most notable regular «English» additions to the Americanvocabulary, dating from the early days of colonization through the early 19thcentury, are terms describing the features of the North American landscape.
Americansettlers com­bine descriptive words to give  many vivid names for the mam­mals,reptiles, fish, birds, and insects—and Americans have continued to name animalsby descriptive combinations ever since.
Americanshave given many of their native trees, grasses, flowers, and shrubs descriptivenames, often by combining two old words.
Theearly settlers and frontiersmen also borrowed many plant names from theIndians, French, and Spanish. Other plants and trees are named after people.Other native American plants were mis­named, merely because the settlers whofirst saw them thought they were identical to those back home in England whenthey weren't.
Americansborrowed the names for their money generally from such languages as Dutch,Spanish, Portuguese, German and French. Or they merely used the money from someforeign country such as Spain, Italy or France.As for Mailingsystem Americans generally took the names of Mail sphere from British English.So British contribution to postal language was major. Then with the developmentof this industry Americans began to use new terms invented with the help ofPostal business.Indians greatly influenced American Englishvocabulary. The Indian words Americans still use include: (1) thousands ofplace names; (2) scores of words aboutIndians used in our history and mythology; and (3) hundreds of names of plants,animals, and landscapes which havebecome part of American everyday speech. The words Americans use intalking about Indians include some real Indian words plus others from ourconceptions and misconcep­tions of Indians, words from American history andfrom American fiction.As for the automobile itcompletely 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 recreationalterms.
Also appearanceof the car greatly influenced the names of roads and everything connected withthe traffic. The rise of capitalism, the development of industry and materialinnovations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries were the source of a massivestock of distinctive new words, phrases and idioms.
Most of AmericanEnglish Idioms are not purely American. Almost all of them were borrowed fromBritish English. Also many proverbs came from Indians.
Many of theItalian words in English entered the language dur­ing the Renaissance whenItalian culture was very much in vogue. Most Italian borrowings are onlypartially naturalized, still being associated mainly with Italians or thingsItalian which includes dozens of Italian food terms.
French has hada direct influence on American English:  via French explorers, trappers, andfur traders. The French have also given many place names, especially along theCanadian border, around the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi, throughout theold French Louisiana Territory, and in the plains and mountain regions of theWest.
AmericanEnglish has borrowed more words from Spanish than from any other language, andis still borrowing them— there are hundreds of thousands of Mexicans living inthe Southwest; 650,000 Puerto Ricans in New York City; and 100,000 Cubans inNew Orleans, plus several hundred thousand more in the Miami area. Spanish hasalso given many American place names, including the names of six states, over 2,000 names of U.S. cities andtowns, and thousands of names of riv­ers, mountains, valleys, etc.
So in the end ofour work paper we can assume that American English vocabulary was formed ingeneral 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 PhrasesUsually Regarded As Peculiar to the United States. New York: Bartlett andWelford.  
2. Kenyon,John S. (1950). American pronunciation (10th ed.). Ann Arbor: George Wahr. 
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. 
4. MacNeil,Robert; & Cran, William. (2005). Do you speak American? New York:Nan A. Talese, Doubleday.  
5. Mathews,Mitford M. (ed.) (1951). A Dictionary of Americanisms on HistoricalPrinciples. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
6. Mencken,H. L. (1936, repr. 1977). The American Language: An Inquiry into theDevelopment 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.   
8. Schneider,Edgar (Ed.). (1996). Focus on the USA. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.  
9. StuartBerg Flexner, I hear America Talking (1976).An Illustrated History        ofAmerican Words and Phrases. A Touchstone Book, Published by Simon andShuster, New York   
10. StuartBerg Flexner, Listening to America (1982).Illustrated History  of AmericanWords and Phrases. A Touchstone Book, Published by Simon and Shuster, NewYork   
[The dates in vocabularyindicate 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 AlabamaTerritory; also called the Cotton State, the Heart of Dixie.
2. Alaska,1959,49th state—the Russian version of the Eskimo Alakshak or Alayeksa, «greatland, mainland.» Previously called Russian America; also called theLast 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 windpeople.» Previously spelled Arkansaw; also called the WonderState, the Land of Opportunity.
5. allow, guess, reckon, meaning to think,which had all become obsolete in England.
6. automobile tire, 1877 (wagontires date from the 15th century); jack, 1877;tread, 1877, retread, 1890; blowout, 1915; balloontire, early 1920s; tubeless tire, intro­ducedby B. F. Goodrich, 1948; radial ply tire, 1967.
7. automobile accident, 1882; carcrash, 1915;hit-and-run, 1920s.
8. bluegrass,1751,being any of several American grasses of the for genus and having a bluishcast, earlier called Dutch grass (1671). Kentucky bluegrass, 1849,a type of bluegrass, Poa pratem valuable as pasturage and hay; Bluegrassregion, Bluegrass country the Blue Grass, a region in Kentucky, 1860s; theBluegrass Stof Kentucky, 1886.
9. butternut,1741, or whitewalnut (1743), called butternut from the oiliness of the nut. By1810 butternut also meant the brownish dye obtained from the tree'sbark, 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 familiarEnglish tree.
11. tobark up the wrong tree, 1832, probably from hunting dogs thinking they had treed araccoon.
12. catburglar, J907,when it first appeared in English.
13. catfit,catnip fit, a fit of anger or frenzied excitement, 1905. If the original form was catnipfit it may have come into being merely as a corruption of or by confusionwith conniption fit.
14. catnap, cat's nap, a short nap, 1820s.
15. catnip,1712,often called cat mint in bygone days; catnip tea, 1837.
     This aromatic mintplant, 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 Jeffer­sonin 1787.
17. bluff, used in the South since 1687,instead of tte British river «bank.» This has the dis­tinctionof being the first word attacked as being a«barbarous» American term.
18. bureau, meaning chest of drawers, which wasobsolete in England.
19. buffalo beef, 1722, buffalomeat.
20. buffalo robe, 1723, alsocalled buffalo rug, 1805. This Indian item
21. was first described by Marquette and Joliet in 1681; itserved
22. manyIndians and whites as robe, coat, blanket, and sleepingbag. buffalo-headedduck, 1731, now known as the bufflehead (1858), a
small,widely distributed duck with a large, squarish head. buffaloroad, 1750; buffalo trace, 1823; buffalo trail, 1834.These are all paths or trails worn by buffalo herds.
23. buffalo fish, 1768, variousfish of the sucker family, especially along the Mississippiand Ohio Rivers.
24. buffalo grass, 1784, alow-growing perennial grass common to the buffalo ranges.
25. buffalo dance, 1805, an Indianritual dance, often performed in a buffalo skin and mask.
26. buffalo horse, 1827, a horseused in buffalo hunts.
27. buffalo wallow, 1834. Thesehollow places made by buffaloes rolling in the dirtsometimes filled with water, preventing many a horse and rider fromsuffering from thirst.
28. buffalo chips, ,4840, driedbuffalo dung, the common fuel of the prairie, also calledbuffalowood, 1855.
29. buffalo boat, 1844, made bystretching buffalo skins over a wooden frame.
30. Buffalo Bill, William FrederickCody (1846-1917), who had been a pony express rider and cavalry scoutbefore earning this nickname as a buffalo hunter supplying largequantities of meat to Union Pacific Railroad construction crews in1867-68. The name Buffalo Bill was given him byNed Buntline (pen name of Edward Zane Carroll Judson, 1821 -86), a writer ofadventure fiction and one of the first dime novelists. Cody himself gave us theterm Wild West Show, opening Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Omaha, May 37,1883.
31. buffalo soldier, 1873, a Blacksoldier, so called by Indians because the soldiers' short, tightlycurled hair resembled that of buffalo (there were two Black infantryand two Black cavalry regiments serving permanently in the West for 30years following the Civil War). White soldiers called these Blacksoldiers 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 andhead 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 Baltimorebird, 1669,  because its black and orange colors were those onthe 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 ourdescriptive 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,
GreatSouth Bay, Long Island, New York.
34. bobcat, 1711, because   ofits stubby or «bobbed» tail (originally this name was givento the bay lynx).
35. bullfrog, 1698, because it makes a roaringnoise like a bull. canvas back, 1782, from the color of its back.
36. catbird, 1709, because its call resemblesthe mewing of a cat. Like many words on this list itwas originally spelled with a hyphen, cat-bird.
37. catfish, 1612, the name firstrecorded by John Smith in Virginia, because of the fish's facial resemblance toa cat, especially its whiskers.
38. copperhead, 1775, because of its coppery browncolor, on which are dark markings.
39. cottontail, 1869, because the underside of itstail has a white tuft, like a ball of cotton.
40. card, meaning a person who likes tojoke, an American use since 1835.
41. currency,1699 asmoney in England, because it is the current, generally accepted medium ofexchange (from Latin currential currere, to run).
42. clever, meaning sharp witted, an EastAnglia dialect use com­mon to all Americans.
43. crank,1883; self-starter,1894.
44. California,1850, 3lsr state— Spanish name for «an earthly paradise,» an imaginaryisland in Spanish lore. Previously called Alta California (UpperCalifornia, in opposition to Baja California); also called the GoldenState.
45. Colorado,1876,38th state—Span­ish word for «red,» literally «red land, redearth.» Previ­ously Colorado Territory; also called theCentennial State, be­cause of the year it entered the Union.
46. Connecticut,1788, 5thstate— from Mohican quinnitukqut, «at the long tidal river,»referring to the Connecticut River. Also called the Nutmeg State, theConstitution State.
47. dog,anunsuccessful, ugly, or disliked person or thing, early 1930s. dogcatcher, 1835,also euphemistically called a humane officer, 1939,
and bureaucraticallycalled a canine control officer, 1942. dog eat dog, everyone forhimself, 1834. dog it, to shirk, 1920.
48. dogmy cats!, anexclamation of surprise, 1839. dognapper, 1940.
49. dogpaddle, asa way to stay afloat or swim, 1904. dog pound, 1875. Many pounds are nowunder the auspices of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty toAnimals (ASPCA), founded by Henry Bergh in   1866,  when horses were often  underfed,overworked, and cruelly treated.
50. looklike the cat after it  had eaten the canary, look guilty, 1871;
51. looklike something the cat brought/dragged/drug in,  look bedraggled, late 1920s.
52. drive-in, 1931 (referring to a fill­ingstation), first popularly applied to movies and restau­rantsin the mid 1940s.
53. dinero,late 19thcentury, the Spanish word for money. We have also taken many other foreignwords for money or monetary units to use as slang words for money, as gelt (seebelow), ruble, yen, etc.
54. dough,1840,almost certainly from considering bread dough as the necessary, basic staff oflife. Do-re-mi, as a pun on dough and the musical do, 1925;oday, Pig Latin for dough, 1926.
55. easymoney, easilyobtained money, 1836; easy dollars, 1890s. For my money, as faras I'm concerned, 1840. To pay one's money and take one's choice, 1864. Moneytalks, money has influence, 1910. Money from home, easily obtainedmoney, 1913.
56. fall, obsolete in England where «autumn»was now the pre­ferred word.
57. fork, which the British ate with but which wealso drove or paddled on, using it since 1645 to mean thebranch of a road or river.
58. fender, 1883; hood, 1906; runningboard, 1923; rumble seat, 1931.
59. flivver, 1914 (the word orig­inallymeant a failure in the 1900s); heap, 1915; tinlizzie, 1915,originally meant only the Model T (Lizzie isfrom the common name for a Black maidwho, 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; servicestation, 1922.
61. French boot, a lightweightdress shoe, 1850.
62. French church, a French Pro­testantor Huguenot church, 1694.
63. French (salad) dressing, 1884. In­cidentally,thousand island dress­ing dates from the1920s.
64. Frencher, a Frenchman, 1826; Frenchy,a Frenchman, 1883, and used after1904 to mean capricious.
65. French flat, a sublet floorin 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 ofthe gambling card game, 1851. French toast, 1870s.
68. Frog, a Frenchman, was common in England by1870 but became well known in the U.S. only duringWorld War I. It is prob­ably from the French relishing frogs as adelicacy, reinforced by the toads on the coat of arms ofthe city of Paris.
69. gas, 1905, from the 1865 word gasoline,which was originally consideredmerely a dangerous by-product in the making of kerosene.
70. garage, for housing an auto­mobile,1902.
71. give her the gas, 1912; step onthe gas, tramp on the gas, 1916; step onit, 1922; give it the gas, 1942. Thesereplaced 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(AmericanSpanish for «gibberish,» from Spanish griego, Greek, literallyone whose language is «all Greek to me»), first used by Mexicansduring The Mexican War, now commonthroughout Latin America.
74. help, meaning servants, an Ameri­canuse since 1630.
75. how?, which only Americans usedas an interrogation, since 1815.
76. Hugers, our \«Jth century term forthe French Huguenots, who also gave us the place nameHuguenot on Staten Is­land and New Rochelle in West-chesterCounty, N.Y., and such names as New Yorker John Jay, thefamous Virginia Dabney (d'Aubigny) family, Boston's Peter Faneuiland Faneuil Hall, and Charles Gui-teau,who assassinated Presi­dent Garfield.
77. license plate, 1901, when they werefirst issued by New York State.
78. loan, which only Americans used as averb meaning „to lend.“
79. mailbox, 1872,two years after it was patented. Since the late 1850s people had been callingprimitive types letter boxes, street letter boxes, and street boxes, butthese were usually the brightly painted receiving boxes for independentcarriers and express agencies. The patented U.S. mailbox did a lot togive the U.S. Post Office Department control of the business. They were alsooften called letter drops in the 1890s.
80. mailmansoonbecame a common word after 1863, when he was employed and paid by the postoffice for free delivery. By the 1880s mailmen delivered as many as five timesa day in commer­cial areas of New York and other major cities.
81. menhaden (Algonquian munnoquohcttean, »thatwhich enriches the soil"), the fish Massachusetts Indians used tofertilize their corn crops and which they taught the Pilgrimsto use, spelled mun-nawhatteang by the colonistsin 1643.
82. moose (Passamaquoddy moosu, «hetrims smoothly,» referring to the bark moose strip and eat fromtrees), spelled mus, 1613, present spelling by 1673. TheLoyal Order of the Moose, a chari­table secret fraternal order, wasfounded in Louisville, Ken­tucky in 1888, its members called Moosesince then.
83. muskellunge (Ojibwa mashkinoje), avariety of Great Lakes pike, 1789.
84. motor court, 1936; motorhotel, 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 viaearlier Spanish explor­ers and settlers), spelled paccan, 1773.
86. persimmon (Cree pasiminan, «driedfruit»), as putchamin, 1612, as persimon, 1635,present spelling by 1709. In the 1850s and 60s Americans usedsuch expressions as bringing down the persim­mons, and walkingoff with the persimmons, meaning to succeed or win the prize.
87. poke means several different plants to usbecause it is our final pronunciation of several different Indianwords. Poke originally was a name for the tobacco plant (from Algonquianuppoivoc) which we spelled apooke in 1618. Other pokeplants get their name from a Virginian Indian word puccoon,a plant they used for dyeing. Thus we have pokeroot by1687; pokeweed, 1751; pokeberry, \11\. By1778 poke also meant the skunk cabbage. Poke greens wasfirst recorded in 1848 and poke salad in 1880.
88. raccoon (Algonquian arakunen, scraper,scratcher) was first re­corded in 1608, in Virginia, though early spellingsincluded arocoun and raugrougheun. Raccooncoat, 1649. Raccoon was short­ened to coon asearly as 1742, though most «coon» words and meaningsappeared in the 1830s and 40s, when coon hunts be­camepopular and coon was first used to mean a rustic frontiers­man (1832)and then a Black (1837). In the presidential election year of 1840the Whig party used a raccoon as its symbol and coon cameto mean a Whig, including the presidential candidate William Henry Harrison and such menas Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and JohnCalhoun; a coon song then meant not a Black minstrel song but a Whig political song (for moreon the racial use of coon see The Blacks).
89. parking, parking space, parking lot, 1924;parking meter, 1935, the first ones installed in Okla­homaCity.
90. runabout, 1891; touring car, 1903; stationwagon, 1 904; roadster, 1908; coupe, 1918; sedan,1920; sports car, 1925.
91. road hog, early 1900s, had been appliedfirst to bicyclists in the 1890s.
92. seaboard,anAmerican coinage for «shore,» usedsince 1788.
93. spell, which we have used to mean aperiod of time, a while, since 1705.
94. scuppernong (Algonquian askuponong,«place of the magnolias,» the ScuppernongRiver valley in North Carolina, where this variety of grape grows), 1811.
95. Sequoia is named after the CherokeeIndian Sikwayi (1770-1843) who invented an 85-syllable«alphabet» for recording the Cherokeelanguage, which was adopted by the Cherokee coun­cil in 1821. Born inTennessee, Sikwayi (sometimes spelled Sequoya) tookthe name George Guess when he grew up, from an American trader he believed to behis father. Sequoia was first used asa genus name of a tree, which includes the giant California redwoods, by Hungarian botanist Stephen Endlicher in 1847.
96. skunk (Algonquian skekakwa, squnck, «mammalwho urinates» or sprays), 1588 by explorers, 1634 by colonists. It hasalso been called a polecat in America since the 1600s,after a related European animal. Skunk cabbage, 1751. Skunkwas used to mean a contemptible person by 1840. Toskunk, to defeat completely, keep an opponent from scoring, appeared in 1843.
97. squash (Narragansett asquatasquash, «eatenraw»), 1642. Winter squash, summer squash, 1750s;crook-neck squash, 1818, from its shape;Hubbard squash, late 1860s, from Mrs. Elizabeth Hub-bard of Massachusetts, whofirst cultivated it; zucchini squashy
98. spark plug, 1908, used to mean an energeticleader by the 1930s.
99. tourist camp, tourist court,1916;
100. streamlining, 1934, with thedis­appearance or covering of the square radiator.