Chapter 7: Pioneers! O Pioneers! (251-292)

1. Chapter 7:Pioneers! O Pioneers! (251-292) Pioneers! O Pioneers! 31

2. The Story of English By Don L. F. Nilsen Based on The Story of English By Robert McCrum, Robert MacNeil and William Cran (Penguin, 2003) 31

3. The Declaration of IndependencePhiladelphia, 1776 • We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; • That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, • That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…. • (McCrum 252-253) 31

4. Early Americanisms • NOTE # 1: The British Loyalists mostly fled to Canada and kept the British words and pronunciations as in “about the house.” (McCrum 267) • NOTE # 2: Words coming into American and British English from French, German, Italian, Spanish and Yiddish were very different in tone and texture. 31

5. Yankee Go Home!British Lyrics Stolen by Americans • Yankee Doodle went to town, a-ridin’ on a pony. • Stuck a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni. • Yankee Doodle went to town, • Yankee Doodle Dandy. • Stuck a feather in his hat, • And called it Macaroni. 31

6. Canadian English after 1776 (McCrum 246/266) 31

7. Early Americanisms 31

8. Canadian Loyalists after the War of 1812 • Out and about the house in the South • Canadian –eh • Schedule • Light • Center, twenty, Toronto 31

9. Steamboat Language—Down the Mississippi to New Orleans 31

10. Outlandish Dress and Behavior • Mark Twain said that a riverboat is like a wedding cake without the complications. • The West bank of the Mississippi River was called the “Outland,” and the dress and behavior of the people there was “outlandish” • Coonskin caps, buckskin clothes, etc. 31

11. 1849 Western Frontier (McCrum 258/280) 31

12. Riverboat Poker Language 31

13. Western (Frontier) Exaggerated Language 31

14. The Gold Rush in 1849 31

15. Spanish Frontier Ranch Life 31

16. Cattle Terms 31

17. The Railroad 31

18. Buffalo Bill • At 13, Bill Cody was panning for gold. • At 14, he was riding for the Pony Express. • At 16 he fought in the Civil War. • Then he was hired by the Kansas Pacific Railroad to hunt buffalo to feed the railroad workers. He was skilled at shooting from the saddle of a galloping horse. • In 1876 he served General Custer in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. • In 1883 he formed the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. (McCrum 276) • Later, Larry McMurtry and others wrote books about him. 31

19. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address • Written on the back of an envelope when Lincoln was on the train traveling to Gettysburg. 31

20. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. • Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” (McCrum 279) 31

21. American Dialects (McCrum 238/255) 31

22. Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) • In Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway said, • “All modern American literature comes from…Huckleberry Finn…. It’s the best book we’ve had. • All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” (McCrum 280-281) 31

23. Huckleberry Finn and Vernacular Literature • “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain and he told the truth, mainly.” • Because this book was written in the vernacular (speech), it was considered vulgar at the time. • At about the same time, Charles Dickens was writing vernacular literature in England. It was also considered vulgar. (McCrum 283) 31

24. Southern Dialects in Huckleberry Finn • “In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: The Missouri Negro dialect, the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect, the ordinary ‘Pike County’ dialect, and four modified varieties of this last. • The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion or by guesswork, but painstakingly and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.” (McCrum 283) 31

25. European Immigration to America in 19th Century (McCrum 266) 31

26. The Statue of LibertyEmma Lazarus inscribed the pedestal: • Give me your tired, your poor, • Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, • The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, • Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me: • I lift my lamp beside the golden door. • (McCrum 286) 31

27. O. Henry • O. Henry remarked: • “It was made by a Dago…on behalf of the French…for the purpose of welcomin’ Irish immigrants to the Dutch city of New York.” • (McCrum 286) 31

28. Ellis Island • In its heyday, Ellis Island processed 15,000 immigrants per day. • In the 1840s the Irish fled from the potato famine. • After the failure of the 1848 revolutions, many Germans and Italians left Europe. • In the 1880s, many Jews fled Central Europe fleeing persecutions and pograms. 31

29. German Words in English 31

30. Italian Words in English 31

31. !Yiddish Words in English 31

32. !Yiddish Expressions in English • Get lost. • He knows from nothin’. • Him she loves! • You’ll excuse the expression. • I should worry (Mad Magazine). • It shouldn’t happen to a dog. • I need it like a hole in the head. • Oedipus-schmoedipus, so long as he loves his mother. (McCrum 290) 31

33. !!The First World War 31

34. !!!PowerPoint • Jewish English and Yiddisher Dick and Jane 31

35. Works Cited • McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English. New York, NY: Penguin, 1986. (source of map citations) • McCrum, Robert, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil. The Story of English: Third Revised Edition. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. (source of text citations) 31