shown by a glance at the map. No less than 26 of the states have names
borrowed from the aborigines, and the same thing is true of most of
our rivers and mountains. There was an effort, at one time, to get rid
of these Indian names. Thus [Pg290] the early Virginians changed the
name of the /Powhatan/ to the /James/, and the first settlers in New
York changed the name of /Horicon/ to /Lake George/. In the same way
the present name of the /White Mountains/ displaced /Agiochook/, and
/New Amsterdam/, and later /New York/, displaced /Manhattan/, which
has been recently revived. The law of Hobson-Jobson made changes in
other Indian names, sometimes complete and sometimes only partial.
Thus, /Mauwauwaming/ became /Wyoming/, /Maucwachoong/ became /Mauch
Chunk/, /Ouabache/ became /Wabash/, /Asingsing/ became /Sing-Sing/,
and /Machihiganing/ became /Michigan/. But this vandalism did not go
far enough to take away the brilliant color of the aboriginal
nomenclature. The second city of the United States bears an Indian
name, and so do the largest American river, and the greatest American
water-fall, and four of the five great Lakes, and the scene of the
most important military decision ever reached on American soil.
The Dutch place-names of the United States are chiefly confined
to the vicinity of New York, and a good many of them have become
greatly corrupted. /Brooklyn/, /Wallabout/ and /Gramercy/ offer
examples. The first-named was originally /Breuckelen/, the second
was /Waale Bobht/, and the third was /De Kromme Zee/. /Hell-Gate/
is a crude translation of the Dutch /Helle-Gat/. During the early
part of the last century the more delicate New Yorkers transformed
the term into /Hurlgate/, but the change was vigorously opposed
by Washington Irving, and so /Hell-Gate/ was revived. The law of
Hobson-Jobson early converted the Dutch /hoek/ into /hook/, and it
survives in various place-names, /e. g./, /Kinderhook/ and /Sandy
Hook/. The Dutch /kill/ is a /Grundwort/ in many other names,
/e. g./, /Catskill/, /Schuylkill/, /Peekskill/, /Fishkill/ and
/Kill van Kull/; it is the equivalent of the American /creek/. Many
other Dutch place-names will come familiarly to mind: /Harlem/,
/Staten/, /Flushing/, /Cortlandt/, /Calver Plaat/, /Nassau/,
/Coenties/, /Spuyten Duyvel/, /Yonkers/, /Hoboken/ and /Bowery/
(from /Bouvery/).[40] /Block/ Island was originally /Blok/, and Cape
/May/, according to Schele de Vere, was /Mey/, both Dutch. [Pg291]
A large number of New York street and neighborhood names come down
from Knickerbocker days, often greatly changed in pronunciation.
/Desbrosses/ offers an example. The Dutch called it /de Broose/, but
in New York today it is commonly spoken of as /Dez-bros-sez/.
French place-names have suffered almost as severely. Few persons would
recognize /Smackover/, the name of a small town in Arkansas, as
French, and yet in its original form it was /Chemin Couvert/. Schele
de Vere, in 1871, recorded the degeneration of the name to /Smack
Cover/; the Postoffice, always eager to shorten and simplify names,
has since made one word of it and got rid of the redundant /c/. In the
same way /Bob Ruly/, a Missouri name, descends from /Bois Brulé/. "The
American tongue," says W. W. Crane, "seems to lend itself reluctantly
to the words of alien languages."[41] This is shown plainly by the
history of French place-names among us. A large number of them,
/e. g./, /Lac Superieur/, were translated into English at an early day,
and most of those that remain are now pronounced as if they were
English. Thus /Des Moines/ is /dee-moyns/, /Terre Haute/ is
/terry-hut/, /Beaufort/ is /byu-fort/, /New Orleans/ is /or-leens/,
/Lafayette/ has a flat /a/, /Havre de Grace/ has another, and
/Versailles/ is /ver-sales/. The pronunciation of /sault/, as in
/Sault Ste. Marie/, is commonly more or less correct; the Minneapolis,
St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad is popularly called the /Soo/.
This may be due to Canadian example, or to some confusion between
/Sault/ and /Sioux/. The French /Louis/, in /St. Louis/ and
/Louisville/, is usually pronounced correctly. So is the /rouge/ in
/Baton Rouge/, though the /baton/ is commonly boggled. It is possible
that familiarity with /St. Louis/ influenced the local pronunciation
of /Illinois/, which is /Illinoy/, but this may be a mere attempt to
improve upon the vulgar /Illin-i/.[42]
For a number of years the Geographic Board has been seeking [Pg292]
vainly to reestablish the correct pronunciation of the name of the
/Purgatoire/ river in Colorado. Originally named the /Rio de las
Animas/ by the Spaniards, it was renamed the /Rivière du Purgatoire/
by their French successors. The American pioneers changed this to
/Picketwire/, and that remains the local name of the stream to this
day, despite the effort of the Geographic Board to compromise on
/Purgatoire/ river. Many other French names are being anglicized with
its aid and consent. Already half a dozen /Bellevues/ have been
changed to /Belleviews/ and /Bellviews/, and the spelling of nearly
all the /Belvédères/ has been changed to /Belvidere/. /Belair/, La.,
represents the end-product of a process of decay which began with
/Belle Aire/, and then proceeded to /Bellaire/ and /Bellair/. All
these forms are still to be found, together with /Bel Air/. The
Geographic Board's antipathy to accented letters and to names of more
than one word[43] has converted /Isle Ste. Thérèse/, in the St.
Lawrence river, to /Isle Ste. Therese/, a truly abominable barbarism,
and /La Cygne/, in Kansas, to /Lacygne/, which is even worse.
/Lamoine/, /Labelle/, /Lagrange/ and /Lamonte/ are among its other
improvements; /Lafayette/, for /La Fayette/, long antedates the
beginning of its labors.
The Spanish names of the Southwest are undergoing a like process of
corruption, though without official aid. /San Antonio/ has been
changed to /San Antone/ in popular pronunciation and seems likely to
go to /San Tone/; /El Paso/ has acquired a flat American /a/ and a
/z/-sound in place of the Spanish /s/; /Los Angeles/ presents such
difficulties that no two of its inhabitants agree upon the proper
pronunciation, and many compromise on simple /Los/, as the folks of
/Jacksonville/ commonly call their town /Jax/. Some of the most
mellifluous of American place-names are in the areas once held by the
Spaniards. It would be hard to match the beauty of /Santa Margarita/,
/San Anselmo/, /Alamogordo/, /Terra Amarilla/, /Sabinoso/, /Las
Palomas/, /Ensenada/, /Nogales/, /San Patricio/ and /Bernalillo/. But
they are under a severe and double assault. Not only do the present
lords of the soil debase them in speaking them; in many cases they are
formally displaced by native names of the utmost harshness and
banality. Thus, [Pg293] one finds in New Mexico such absurdly-named
towns as /Sugarite/, /Shoemaker/, /Newhope/, /Lordsburg/, /Eastview/
and /Central/; in Arizona such places as /Old Glory/, /Springerville/,
/Wickenburg/ and /Congress Junction/, and even in California such
abominations as /Oakhurst/, /Ben Hur/, /Drytown/, /Skidoo/,
/Susanville/, /Uno/ and /Ono/.
The early Spaniards were prodigal with place-names testifying to their
piety, but these names, in the overwhelming main, were those of
saints. Add /Salvador/, /Trinidad/ and /Concepcion/, and their
repertoire is almost exhausted. If they ever named a town /Jesus/ the
name has been obliterated by Anglo-Saxon prudery; even their use of
the name as a personal appellation violates American notions of the
fitting. The names of the Jewish patriarchs and those of the holy
places in Palestine do not appear among their place-names; their
Christianity seems to have been exclusively of the New Testament. But
the Americans who displaced them were intimately familiar with both
books of the Bible, and one finds copious proofs of it on the map of
the United States. There are no less than seven /Bethlehems/ in the
Postal Guide, and the name is also applied to various mountains, and
to one of the reaches of the Ohio river. I find thirteen /Bethanys/,
seventeen /Bethels/, eleven /Beulahs/, nine /Canaans/, eleven
/Jordans/ and twenty-one /Sharons/. /Adam/ is sponsor for a town in
West Virginia and an island in the Chesapeake, and /Eve/ for a village
in Kentucky. There are five postoffices named /Aaron/, two named
/Abraham/, two named /Job/, and a town and a lake named /Moses/. Most
of the /St. Pauls/ and /St. Josephs/ of the country were inherited
from the French, but the two /St. Patricks/ show a later influence.
Eight /Wesleys/ and /Wesleyvilles/, eight /Asburys/ and twelve names
embodying /Luther/ indicate the general theological trend of the plain
people. There is a village in Maryland, too small to have a
postoffice, named /Gott/, and I find /Gotts Island/ in Maine and
/Gottville/ in California, but no doubt these were named after German
settlers of that awful name, and not after the Lord God directly.
There are four /Trinities/, to say nothing of the inherited Spanish
/Trinidads/. [Pg294]
Names wholly or partly descriptive of localities are very numerous
throughout the country, and among the /Grundwörter/ embodied in them
are terms highly characteristic of America and almost unknown to the
English vocabulary. /Bald Knob/ would puzzle an Englishman, but the
name is so common in the United States that the Geographic Board has
had to take measures against it. Others of that sort are /Council
Bluffs/, /Patapsco Neck/, /Delaware Water Gap/, /Curtis Creek/,
/Walden Pond/, /Sandy Hook/, /Key West/, /Bull Run/, /Portage/,
/French Lick/, /Jones Gulch/, /Watkins Gully/, /Cedar Bayou/, /Keams
Canyon/, /Parker Notch/, /Sucker Branch/, /Fraziers Bottom/ and /Eagle
Pass/. /Butte Creek/, in /Montana/, is a name made up of two
Americanisms. There are thirty-five postoffices whose names embody the
word /prairie/, several of them, /e. g./, /Prairie du Chien/, Wis.,
inherited from the French. There are seven /Divides/, eight /Buttes/,
eight town-names embodying the word /burnt/, innumerable names
embodying /grove/, /barren/, /plain/, /fork/, /center/, /cross-roads/,
/courthouse/, /cove/ and /ferry/, and a great swarm of /Cold Springs/,
/Coldwaters/, /Summits/, /Middletowns/ and /Highlands/. The flora and
fauna of the land are enormously represented. There are twenty-two
/Buffalos/ beside the city in New York, and scores of /Buffalo
Creeks/, /Ridges/, /Springs/ and /Wallows/. The /Elks/, in various
forms, are still more numerous, and there are dozens of towns,
mountains, lakes, creeks and country districts named after the
/beaver/, /martin/, /coyote/, /moose/ and /otter/, and as many more
named after such characteristic flora as the /paw-paw/, the
/sycamore/, the /cottonwood/, the /locust/ and the /sunflower/. There
is an /Alligator/ in Mississippi, a /Crawfish/ in Kentucky and a /Rat
Lake/ on the Canadian border of Minnesota. The endless search for
mineral wealth has besprinkled the map with such names as /Bromide/,
/Oil City/, /Anthracite/, /Chrome/, /Chloride/, /Coal Run/,
/Goldfield/, /Telluride/, /Leadville/ and /Cement/.
There was a time, particularly during the gold rush to California,
when the rough humor of the country showed itself in the invention of
extravagant and often highly felicitous place-names, but with the
growth of population and the rise of civic spirit they have tended to
be replaced with more seemly coinages. [Pg295] /Catfish/ creek, in
Wisconsin, is now the /Yahara/ river; the /Bulldog/ mountains, in
Arizona, have become the /Harosomas/; the /Picketwire/ river, as we
have seen, has resumed its old French name of /Purgatoire/. As with
natural features of the landscape, so with towns. Nearly all the old
/Boozevilles/, /Jackass Flats/, /Three Fingers/, /Hell-For-Sartains/,
/Undershirt Hills/, /Razzle-Dazzles/, /Cow-Tails/, /Yellow Dogs/,
/Jim-Jamses/, /Jump-Offs/, /Poker Citys/ and /Skunktowns/ have yielded
to the growth of delicacy, but /Tombstone/ still stands in Arizona,
/Goose Bill/ remains a postoffice in Montana, and the Geographic Board
gives its imprimatur to the /Horsethief/ trail in Colorado, to
/Burning Bear/ creek in the same state, and to /Pig Eye/ lake in
Minnesota. Various other survivors of a more lively and innocent day
linger on the map: /Blue Ball/, Ark., /Cowhide/, W. Va.,
/Dollarville/, Mich., /Oven Fork/, Ky., /Social Circle/, Ga., /Sleepy
Eye/, Minn., /Bubble/, Ark., /Shy Beaver/, Pa., /Shin Pond/, Me.,
/Rough-and-Ready/, Calif., /Non Intervention/, Va., /Noodle/, Tex.,
/Nursery/, Mo., /Number Four/, N. Y., /Oblong/, Ill., /Stock Yards/,
Neb., /Stout/, Iowa, and so on. West Virginia, the wildest of the
eastern states, is full of such place-names. Among them I find
/Affinity/, /Annamoriah/ (/Anna Maria?/), /Bee/, /Bias/, /Big
Chimney/, /Billie/, /Blue Jay/, /Bulltown/, /Caress/, /Cinderella/,
/Cyclone/, /Czar/, /Cornstalk/, /Duck/, /Halcyon/, /Jingo/, /Left
Hand/, /Ravens Eye/, /Six/, /Skull Run/, /Three Churches/, /Uneeda/,
/Wide Mouth/, /War Eagle/ and /Stumptown/. The Postal Guide shows two
/Ben Hurs/, five /St. Elmos/ and ten /Ivanhoes/, but only one
/Middlemarch/. There are seventeen /Roosevelts/, six /Codys/ and six
/Barnums/, but no /Shakespeare/. /Washington/, of course, is the most
popular of American place-names. But among names of postoffices it is
hard pushed by /Clinton/, /Centerville/, /Liberty/, /Canton/, /Marion/
and /Madison/, and even by /Springfield/, /Warren/ and /Bismarck/.
The Geographic Board, in its laudable effort to simplify American
nomenclature, has played ducks and drakes with some of the most
picturesque names on the national map. Now and then, as in the case of
/Purgatoire/, it has temporarily departed from this policy, but in the
main its influence has been thrown against the fine old French and
Spanish names, and against the [Pg296] more piquant native names no
less. Thus, I find it deciding against /Portage des Flacons/ and in
favor of the hideous /Bottle portage/, against /Cañada del Burro/ and
in favor of /Burro canyon/ against /Canos y Ylas de la Cruz/ and in
favor of the barbarous /Cruz island/. In /Bougére landing/ and /Cañon
City/ it has deleted the accents. The name of the /De Grasse river/ it
has changed to /Grass/. /De Laux/ it has changed to the intolerable
/Dlo/. And, as we have seen, it has steadily amalgamated French and
Spanish articles with their nouns, thus achieving such forms as
/Duchesne/, /Eldorado/, /Deleon/ and /Laharpe/. But here its policy is
fortunately inconsistent, and so a number of fine old names has
escaped. Thus, it has decided in favor of /Bon Secours/ and against
/Bonsecours/, and in favor of /De Soto/, /La Crosse/ and /La Moure/,
and against /Desoto/, /Lacrosse/ and /Lamoure/. Here its decisions are
confused and often unintelligible. Why /Laporte/, Pa., and /La Porte/,
Iowa? Why /Lagrange/, Ind., and /La Grange/, Ky.? Here it would seem
to be yielding a great deal too much to local usage.
The Board proceeds to the shortening and simplification of native names
by various devices. It deletes such suffixes as /town/, /city/ and
/courthouse/; it removes the apostrophe and often the genitive /s/ from
such names as /St. Mary's/; it shortens /burgh/ to /burg/ and /borough/
to /boro/; and it combines separate and often highly discreet words. The
last habit often produces grotesque forms, /e. g./, /Newberlin/,
/Boxelder/, /Sabbathday lake/, /Fallentimber/, /Bluemountain/,
/Westtown/, /Threepines/ and /Missionhill/. It apparently cherishes a
hope of eventually regularizing the spelling of /Allegany/. This is now
/Allegany/ for the Maryland county, the Pennsylvania township and the
New York and Oregon towns, /Alleghany/ for the mountains, the Colorado
town and the Virginia town and springs, and /Allegheny/ for the
Pittsburgh borough and the Pennsylvania county, college and river. The
Board inclines to /Allegheny/ for both river and mountains. Other Indian
names give it constant concern. Its struggles to set up
/Chemquasabamticook/ as the name of a Maine lake in place of
/Chemquasabamtic/ and /Chemquassabamticook/, and /Chatahospee/ as the
name of an Alabama creek in place of /Chattahospee/, [Pg297]
/Hoolethlocco/, /Hoolethloces/, /Hoolethloco/ and /Hootethlocco/ are
worthy of its learning and authority.[44]
The American tendency to pronounce all the syllables of a word more
distinctly than the English shows itself in geographical names. White,
in 1880,[45] recorded the increasing habit of giving full value to the
syllables of such borrowed English names as /Worcester/ and /Warwick/.
I have frequently noted the same thing. In Worcester county, Maryland,
the name is usually pronounced /Wooster/, but on the Western Shore of
the state one hears /Worcest-'r/.[46] /Norwich/ is another such name;
one hears /Nor-wich/ quite as often as /Norrich/.[47] Yet another is
/Delhi/; one often hears /Del-high/. White said that in his youth the
name of the /Shawangunk/ mountains, in New York, was pronounced
/Shongo/, but that the custom of pronouncing it as spelled had arisen
during his manhood. So with /Winnipiseogee/, the name of a lake; once
/Winipisaukie/, it gradually came to be pronounced as spelled. There
is frequently a considerable difference between the pronunciation of a
name by natives of a place and its pronunciation by those who are
familiar with it only in print. /Baltimore/ offers an example. The
natives always drop the medial /i/ and so reduce the name to two
syllables; the habit identifies them. /Anne Arundel/, the name of a
county in Maryland, [Pg298] is usually pronounced /Ann 'ran'l/ by its
people. /Arkansas/, as everyone knows, is pronounced /Arkansaw/ by the
Arkansans, and the Nevadans give the name of their state a flat /a/.
The local pronunciation of /Illinois/ I have already noticed. /Iowa/,
at home, is often /Ioway/.[48] Many American geographical names offer
great difficulty to Englishmen. One of my English acquaintances tells
me that he was taught at school to accent /Massachusetts/ on the
second syllable, to rhyme the second syllable of /Ohio/ with /tea/,
and to sound the first /c/ in /Connecticut/. In Maryland the name of
/Calvert/ county is given a broad /a/, whereas the name of /Calvert/
street, in Baltimore, has a flat /a/. This curious distinction is
almost always kept up. A Scotchman, coming to America, would give the
/ch/ in such names as /Loch Raven/ and /Lochvale/ the guttural Scotch
(and German) sound, but locally it is always pronounced as if it were
/k/.
Finally, there is a curious difference between English and American
usage in the use of the word /river/. The English invariably put it
before the proper name, whereas we almost as invariably put it after.
/The Thames river/ would seem quite as strange to an Englishman as
/the river Chicago/ would seem to us. This difference arose more than
a century ago and was noticed by Pickering. But in his day the
American usage was still somewhat uncertain, and such forms as /the
river Mississippi/ were yet in use. Today /river/ almost always goes
after the proper name.
§ 4
/Street Names/--"Such a locality as 'the /corner/ of /Avenue H/ and
/Twenty-third/ street,'" says W. W. Crane, "is about as distinctively
American as Algonquin and Iroquois names like /Mississippi/ and
/Saratoga/."[49] Kipling, in his "American Notes,"[50] gives testimony
to the strangeness with which the [Pg299] number-names, the phrase
"the corner of," and the custom of omitting /street/ fall upon the ear
of a Britisher. He quotes with amazement certain directions given to
him on his arrival in San Francisco from India: "Go six blocks north
to [the] corner of /Geary/ and /Markey/ [/Market?/]; then walk around
till you strike [the] corner of /Gutter/ and /Sixteenth/." The English
always add the word /street/ (or /road/ or /place/ or /avenue/) when
speaking of a thoroughfare; such a phrase as "/Oxford/ and /New Bond/"
would strike them as incongruous. The American custom of numbering and
lettering streets is almost always ascribed by English writers who
discuss it, not to a desire to make finding them easy, but to sheer
poverty of invention. The English apparently have an inexhaustible
fund of names for streets; they often give one street more than one
name. Thus, /Oxford/ street, London, becomes the /Bayswater/ road,
/High/ street, /Holland Park/ avenue, /Goldhawke/ road and finally the
/Oxford/ road to the westward, and /High Holborn/, /Holborn/ viaduct,
/Newgate/ street, /Cheapside/, the /Poultry/, /Cornhill/ and
/Leadenhall/ street to the eastward. The Strand, in the same way,
becomes /Fleet/ street, /Ludgate/ hill and /Cannon/ street.
Nevertheless, there is a /First/ avenue in /Queen's Park/, and
parallel to it are /Second/, /Third/, /Fourth/, /Fifth/ and /Sixth/
avenues--all small streets leading northward from the Harrow road,
just east of Kensal Green cemetery. I have observed that few Londoners
have ever heard of them. There is also a /First/ street in Chelsea--a
very modest thoroughfare near Lennox gardens and not far from the
Brompton Oratory.
Next to the numbering and lettering of streets, a fashion apparently
set up by Major Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's plans for Washington, the
most noticeable feature of American street nomenclature, as opposed to
that of England, is the extensive use of such designations as
/avenue/, /boulevard/, /drive/ and /speedway/. /Avenue/ is used in
England, but only rather sparingly; it is seldom applied to a mean
street, or to one in a warehouse district. In America the word is
scarcely distinguished in meaning from /street/.[51] /Boulevard/,
/drive/ and /speedway/ are almost [Pg300] unknown to the English, but
they use /road/ for urban thoroughfares, which is very seldom done in
America, and they also make free use of /place/, /walk/, /passage/,
/lane/ and /circus/, all of which are obsolescent on this side of the
ocean. Some of the older American cities, such as Boston and
Baltimore, have surviving certain ancient English designations of
streets, /e. g./, /Cheapside/ and /Cornhill/; these are unknown in the
newer American towns. /Broadway/, which is also English, is more
common. Many American towns now have /plazas/, which are unknown in
England. Nearly all have /City Hall parks/, /squares/ or /places/;
/City Hall/ is also unknown over there. The principal street of a
small town, in America, is almost always /Main street/; in England it
is as invariably /High/ street, usually with the definite article
before /High/.
I have mentioned the corruption of old Dutch street and neighborhood
names in New York. Spanish names are corrupted in the same way in the
Southwest and French names in the Great Lakes region and in Louisiana.
In New Orleans the street names, many of them strikingly beautiful,
are pronounced so barbarously by the people that a Frenchman would
have difficulty recognizing them. Thus, /Bourbon/ has become
/Bur-bun/, /Dauphine/ is /Daw-fin/, /Foucher/ is /Foosh'r/, /Enghien/
is /En-gine/, and /Felicity/ (originally /Félicité/) is /Fill-a-city/.
The French, in their days, bestowed the names of the Muses upon
certain of the city streets. They are now pronounced /Cal´-y-ope/,
/Terp´-si-chore/, /Mel-po-mean´/, /You-terp´/, and so on. /Bon
Enfants/, apparently too difficult for the native, has been translated
into /Good Children/. Only /Esplanade/ and /Bagatelle/, among the
French street names of the city, seem to be commonly pronounced with
any approach to correctness.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The great Irish famine, which launched the chief emigration to
America, extended from 1845 to 1847. The Know Nothing movement, which
was chiefly aimed at the Irish, extended from 1852 to 1860.
[2] A. B. Faust: The German Element in the United States, 2 vols.;
Boston, 1909, vol. ii, pp. 34 /et seq./
[3] Richard T. Ely: Outlines of Economics, 3rd rev. ed.; New York,
1916, p. 68.
[4] /Cf./ Seth K. Humphrey: Mankind; New York, 1917, p. 45.
[5] /Cf./ William G. Searle: Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum; Cambridge,
1897.
[6] /New York World/ Almanac, 1914, p. 668.
[7] It was announced by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance on March 30,
1918, that there were then 15,000 /Millers/ in the United States Army.
On the same day there were 262 /John J. O'Briens/, of whom 50 had
wives named /Mary/.
[8] /Cf./ Carlyle's Frederick the Great, bk. xxi, ch. vi.