999. This week, we look at what shaped early American English, from Native American words to Noah Webster's spelling reforms. Then, we explore phrasal verbs, looking at their grammatical peculiarities and some tips to distinguish them from other types of verbs.
999. This week, we look at what shaped early American English, from Native American words to Noah Webster's spelling reforms. Then, we explore phrasal verbs, looking at their grammatical peculiarities and some tips to distinguish them from other types of verbs.
The "American English" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
The "phrasal verbs" segment was written by Edwin L. Battistella, who taught linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he served as a dean and as interim provost. His books include Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others?, Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology, and Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President, from Washington to Trump. It originally appeared on the OUP blog and is included here with permission.
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Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. Today we're going to talk about the earliest origins of American English and about tricky phrasal verbs.
by Valerie Fridland
With July 4 celebrations looming, it's a good time to consider how the American Revolution affected the English language itself. After all, Noah Webster didn’t take the U out of "colour" and "flavour" just for the heck of it. He was making an important statement about the linguistic independence of a new nation.
But before we get to Webster’s validation of a separate American language, we have to go back a bit in time to understand how American English even developed into a different thing from British English. And for that, we need to go back to the beginning of colonial times.
When British settlers first arrived in the New World, many indigenous languages were already spoken on its shores. Not only did early colonists encounter many of these languages for the first time, but they also encountered new places and new things, none of which had English names. So, to be able to have good colonial conversations about where they should live, what plants to eat, and what critters to be on the lookout for, they had to learn about them from the original inhabitants.
For instance, many place names in colonial America were based on the names given them by Native Americans. In fact, more than half of our modern states have names that are anglicized versions of Native American names. For instance, Massachusetts is derived from the Algonquin word, Massadchu-es-et, meaning something like “great hills place.” Connecticut comes from native word “Quonoktacut” which translates roughly to “a place along the river.” Michigan comes from Algonquin “Mishigamaw,” which has been translated as “great water” or “big lake.” And how about the great state of “Texas?” One longstanding theory is that it comes from the Native Caddo word, “taysha” meaning “friend” or “ally,” a word that was extended to a Spanish priest, Damián Massanet, who was sent to build a mission there. Massanet wrote the word down as “Tejas” and a state name was born, though there is at least one historian who suggests the name instead comes from a native Spanish word for the yew tree.
Beyond place names, colonial English borrowed a lot of new terms to describe objects or aspects that were new to them but were part of Native American culture like "moccasin" and "tomahawk" from Algonquin; "papoose," "squaw," and "powwow" from Narragansett; and "tepee" from Dakota.
British settlers also came upon many new plants, foods, and animals in this new land. Since, at least early on, Native Americans helped them learn about their new surroundings and often provided sustenance when the settlers were starving, it makes sense that the settlers used the native words for many of these things.
For instance, colonists borrowed native Algonquin words for the raccoons, terrapins, opossums, moose, chipmunks, and woodchucks they encountered, not to mention they also borrowed the word “skunk,” perhaps after experiencing the unique, if malodorous, joy of unexpectedly running into one.
Now, a couple of words borrowed from indigenous sources to describe native crops would end up becoming particularly important to colonial lifeways: "maize" and "tobacco." Both came from an extinct Arawakan language known as Taino.
"Maize," which comes from the Taino word “mahizwas,” became a lifesaving mainstay of the colonial diet, but the colonists referred to it not as "maize" but as “Indian corn.” This title reflected not only who cultivated the crop in the New World but was also an insult, as, at least until colonists became hungry enough to eat it — maize was first considered worthy of only animals or savages.
But why did they call it "corn" rather than "maize"? Well, back in Britain at the time, the word “corn,’ which is derived from the German “korn,” meant simply "grain," and could be used to refer to any type of grain grown locally in an area, be it wheat, rye, or the newly discovered maize. Interestingly, if you’ve ever wondered how the heck corn is involved in “corned beef,” it is through this sense of the word where “corned beef” comes by its name, as the corning process involved grains of salt, so “corned” in this context meant “beef with salt grains.”
The yellow kernelled cob Americans refer to by the name corn today was probably not entirely new to the colonists. Christopher Columbus had first brought maize back to Europe after discovering it during his travels in the Caribbean, where he transcribed the Taino word as “mahiz,” i.e., which became Spanish "maiz." But, as the word “corn” was more generic and common, it was the one the colonists used and, over time, in America, it became semantically narrowed, or limited to, only referring to this one plant, with the “Indian” label eventually dropped as it became one of the foundational foods.
"Tobacco" was another Taino word widely used by American colonists after they were introduced to its cultivational possibilities in the fertile soil of Virginia. Again, Columbus had brought tobacco leaves and seeds back to Europe after his travels, so it was not a completely new word. What was new, though, was the ability to grow it as a cash crop in large quantities, and it became a booming business in the Virginia colony. Tobacco cultivation – and the intense need for workers to harvest it – is unfortunately also what began the importation of enslaved labor to the colonies, with the first enslaved workers arriving as early as 1619. Slave ships brought not only people, but their West African languages as well, and this, in turn, contributed to the unique Southern American variety of English that developed in the Plantation South.
The languages of other European colonizers also ended up providing American English new terms for the New World. For example, after taking over the Dutch colony of New Netherland, which stood in what is present day New York and New Jersey (named after the Duke of York and the Isle of Jersey, respectively), British colonists started to make use of Dutch words like "cookie," "cruller," "yankee" and, most important of all, "Santa Claus." Many of the street and neighborhood names in New York City are of Dutch origin. Today’s Wall Street comes from “walstraat” which, in Dutch colonial days, was literally a wall built to defend the colony against the English (which obviously did not work out too well). The Queens neighborhood known today as Flushing came not from a celebration of the advent of indoor plumbing but from English attempts at pronouncing its Dutch name, Vlissingen, also the name of a town back in the Netherlands.
This linguistic diversity was all part of what led the English of the British settlers in the New World to change and morph once on American shores. But it was the American Revolution that really gave American English the power to stand on its own.
Prior to and shortly after the Revolutionary War, the British often bemoaned the new additions in American settler’s English, treating them as “barbarisms” or “vulgarities.” However, as the colonists found themselves united against the British crown and a new nation was born, they embraced and celebrated these differences. Several founding fathers including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin had deep conversations with Noah Webster about the need for a distinct American tongue to help reinforce the delicate union of the colonies. To that end, Webster published a wildly popular spelling book introducing some of his Americanized spelling conventions, like the U-less “colour” and “humour,” the reversal of ‘re’ to ‘er’ in “center” and “theater,” and dropping the extra L in words like “canceled” and “traveled.” A bit later, Webster also published the first dictionary based on American English, his American Dictionary of the English Language. While many of us know Webster because of his dictionary and spelling reforms, his political aims – that of uniting a fragile alliance of states and helping a new nation find its unique voice – is less well known.
So, the Fourth of July celebrates much more than the establishment of a new Republic – it also celebrates the linguistic diversity and power of innovation that came to shape the American language.
That segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
By Edwin Battistella
English contains a bewildering number of so-called phrasal verbs: two- or three-word compounds that seem to consist of a verb and a preposition—things like "bring up" "fill in," "give away," "pay back," "work out," and many more. The Oxford Phrasal Verbs Dictionary lists 6,000 of them in its 2016 edition.
Native speakers of English learn these naturally in the course of language acquisition, though the diversity and intricacy of phrasal verbs makes them difficult for English speakers to analyze and explain. What is the difference between "cleaning an office" and "cleaning up an office"? Or "writing something" and "writing up something"? If you clean an office, you are removing dirt, dust, and trash; if you clean up an office you are making it orderly. To write something often implies starting at the beginning, while to write up something suggests some result or organization is already evident.
Phrasal verbs are not only semantically idiosyncratic but grammatically complex as well. Grammatical descriptions of English can be helpful, but terminologically daunting: some sources say that phrasal verbs are made up of verbs plus prepositions. But other sources may refer to the second element as a particle—a somewhat vague grammatical term for a word which is uninflected and which forms a part of another word. And most prepositions can also be used as adverbs. "Look up," "call off," "drop in": are these verb plus preposition, verb plus particle, or verb plus adverb? Before you "give up," let me offer a few tips to navigate the complexity of phrasal verbs.
You can double check this another way too. If you suspect something is a prepositional phrase rather than a particle plus noun, you may be able to shift the prepositional phrase to the front of the sentence: "Up the trail, the hikers walked" or "Off the horse, the rider fell" are okay. But "Up the house, the new owners fixed" or "Off the character the writers killed" don’t work at all.
Less predictable meanings, more formal synonyms, particle hoppiness, and openness to the passive voice—those four tests can help you to decide when you are dealing with a phrasal verb.
Try them out. Who knows what you will turn up.
That segment was written by Edwin L. Battistella, who taught linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he served as a dean and as interim provost. His books include Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others?, Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology, and Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President, from Washington to Trump. It originally appeared on the OUP blog and is included here with permission.
Before we get to the familect, I have a quick note on the phrase "hair of the dog that bit you." A few episodes ago, we said this phrase comes from a 16th century belief that one should consume the hair of the offending dog as a remedy if you had the bad luck of encountering a rabid dog, and it's true that they believed that, but a listener named Tara Keiter also pointed me to a much older reference.
It turns out that the first known reference goes back to a city near modern-day Syria where researchers found a text that dates to at least 1200 BCE that describes treating a hangover with a salve that includes "hairs of a dog."
Thanks, Tara!
Finally, I have a familect story from Angela.
This is Angela from Salt Lake City, and I wanted to share with you our familect. The word in our family is "cucka-nucka" This is a word that developed over time. It started with when our children were very young, and we didn't want them to touch something, such as an electrical socket or a cat litter box. We would say "yucky, no, no." And because it was hard for them to say the word "yucky," they would say "cucky." So we would say "yucky, no, no," and they would repeat that, "cucky, no, no." So as they got older, they would say that to their younger siblings. They would say, "cucka, no, no, cucka, no, no." And then as those kids grew up and ended up getting shortened to "cucka-nucka," and so now that they're all grown up and adults, we just have this universal word for anything that we have an aversion to or that we dislike or we just find disgusting is a "cucka-nucka." So that's our family story.
Thanks so much Angela! That was such a timely story because it is so reminiscent of the way we get so many other words from mishearings or not being able to pronounce them like getting "Connecticut" from "Quonoktacut."
If you want to share your familect, a word or phrase your family and only your family uses, call the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL. Call from a nice quiet place, and be sure to tell me the story behind your familect because that's always the best part.
Finally, if you're an educator, have you checked out my free LinkedIn Learning courses at your university library. Or if you're not an educator, have you told a friend who is?
I have short videos — with transcripts — about every major topic you'd want to teach your students: commas, hyphens, dashes, commonly confused words, subject-verb agreement, it goes on and on.
And did I mention they are often free through your library?
So as you're thinking about your fall lesson plans, check out my courses and slot in some videos to make your teaching job easier. I'll put a link in the show notes or you can go to my profile on LinkedIn.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to ad operations specialist, Morgan Christianson; digital operations specialist, Holly Hutchings; director of podcasts, Brannan Goetschius; marketing associate, Davina Tomlin; and audio engineer, Nathan Semes, who is experimenting with hydroponic-grown pickles, tomatoes, and peppers this summer.
And I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. Remember to look for "Grammar Girl Conversations" in your feed. This Thursday, I have a special show because Thursday is episode 1000 of the podcast. Can you believe it? Episode 1,000. See you Thursday.
That's all. Thanks for listening.
The following references for the American English segment did not appear in the audio but are included here for completeness.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Wall Street." Encyclopedia Britannica, 20 Jun. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/money/Wall-Street-New-York-City. Accessed June 21 2024.
Finegan E. American English and its distinctiveness. In: Finegan E, Rickford JR, eds. Language in the USA: Themes for the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press; 2004:18-38.
Schneider EW. English in North America: Accounting for its Evolution. In: Buschfeld S, Kautzsch A, eds. Modelling World Englishes: A Joint Approach to Postcolonial and Non-Postcolonial Varieties. Edinburgh University Press; 2020:228-250.
Schneider EW. The cycle in hindsight: the emergence of American English. In: Postcolonial English: Varieties around the World. Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact. Cambridge University Press; 2007:251-308.
Wills, Matthew. 11/22/2023. Translating Corn. JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/translating-corn/. Accessed June 21 2024.
Origin of names of US states. U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs. https://www.bia.gov/as-ia/opa/online-press-release/origin-names-us-states. Accessed June 21 2024.