American Language Supplement 2 (113 page)

With the end of the war, however, the board returned to its home grounds, and since then it has been carrying on the work of getting something approaching order into the American map. Like its predecessor, it seems to be determined to knock all apostrophes out of the national place-names, even at the cost of logic. Thus the county in Maryland which was
St. Mary’s
for centuries is now
St. Marys
and the county which used to be
Prince George’s
is
Prince Georges
.
¹
Why the
s
was not deleted with the apostrophe I do not know. In various foreign names,
e.g.
, that of
St. John’s
, the capital of Newfoundland, the board has been constrained to retain the apostrophe, but not within the continental limits of the United States.
²
Accents appear to be similarly doomed. What was once
Santa Fé
, N. Mex., is now plain
Santa Fe
, though
Santa Fé
in Argentina remains unshorn. So with
Wilkes-Barre
, Pa., once -
Barré
. So with
San José
, Calif. So with
Coeur d’Alêne
, Idaho. The board also advocates simplified spelling and has changed
centre
to center in many town-names, and lopped the final
h
from -
burgh
,
³
and dropped many a redundant
City, -town
and -
ville
.

But in one respect, at least, it is conservative: it gives no countenance to such clumsy collision forms as
Jonespoint
,
⁴
Annarbor, Limesprings, Burroak, Wallawalla
and
Coscob
.
⁵
Also, it frowns upon the false delicacy that wars upon picturesque old names. Its
predecessor consented to changing the name of
Dishwater Pond
in New Hampshire to
Mirror Lake
, but it resisted the visionaries who sought to change
Cow Creek
on the Chesapeake into
Big Creek, Ironjaw Lake
, Mich., into
Crescent Lake
, and
Cat Island
, Mass., into
Lowell Island
. In general, however, it tries to follow local desires, and when a village or natural object has a name which arouses mirth it usually gives its imprimatur to a change. Thus it consented to turning
Muskrattown
, Md., into
Little Georgetown, Bug Lake
, Minn., into
Herriman Lake
, and
Great Gut
, Va., into
Houseboat Creek
. In most such cases it finds support for its decisions in local history or legend. In the matter of foreign names it has favored using native forms of the names of towns,
e.g., Firenze, ’s Gravenhage
and
München
, on outgoing mail in order to facilitate ultimate delivery, but the usual English forms for the names of countries,
e.g., Germany, Greece
and
Switzerland
, to facilitate sorting in the American Postoffice. It apparently looks forward to the day when the American names for foreign cities,
e.g., Florence, The Hague, Naples, Vienna
and
Munich
, will disappear altogether, but that day is not yet.
¹

The synthetic place-name seems to be indigenous to the United States: it may be encountered, now and then, elsewhere, but it must surely be rarely. Characteristic examples are
Texarkana
(
Texas
+
Arkansas
+
Louisiana
),
²
Penn Yan
(
Pennsylvanian
+
Yankee
),
Reklaw
(
Walker
spelled backward),
Wascott
(
W. A. Scott
),
Paragould
(
W. J. Paramore
and
Jay Gould
),
Carasaljo
(
Carrie
+
Sally
+
Josephine
), and
Asco
(
Atlantic Smokeless Coal Company
). Of the first class there are many examples along the borders of the States,
e.g., Kenova
(
Kentucky
+
Ohio
+
West Virginia
),
³
Texhoma
(
Texas
+
Oklahoma
),
Calexico
(
California
+
Mexico
),
Kanorado
(
Kansas
+
Colorado
),
Dakoming
(
Dakota
+
Wyoming
),
Nosodak
(
North Dakota
+
South Dakota
),
Mardela
and
Delmar
(
Maryland
+
Delaware),
Delmarva
or
Delmarvia
(
Delaware
+
Maryland
+
Virginia
),
¹
Arkana
(
Arkansas
+
Louisiana
),
Tennga
(
Tennessee
+
Georgia
,
²
Viropa
(
Virginia
+
Ohio
+
Pennsylvania
),
Pen-Mar
(
Pennsylvania
+
Maryland
),
Vershire
(
Vermont
+
New Hampshire
),
Moark
(
Missouri
+
Arkansas
), and
Nypenn
(
New York
+ Pennsylvania
).
³

All the other varieties of blend-names show numerous examples. Hamill Kenny reports
Ameagle
(
American Eagle Colliery
),
Anjean
(
Ann
+
Jean
),
Champwood
(
Champ Clark
+
Woodrow Wilson
),
Cumbo
(
Cumberland Valley Railroad
+
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
),
Itmann
(
I. T. Mann
),
Mabscott
(
Mabel
+
Scott
), and
Gamoca
(
Gauley
+
Moley
+
Campbell
) from West Virginia;
⁴
Fred I. Massengill reports
Maryneal
(
Mary
+
Neal
),
Alanreed
(
Allen
+
Reed
),
Fastrill
(
Farrington
+
Strauss
+
Hill
),
Gladstell
(
Gladys
+
Estell
),
Normangee
(
Norman
G.
Kittrell
),
Saspamco
(
San Antonio Sewer Pipe Company
) and
Tesnus
(
sunset
spelled backward) from Texas,
⁵
and Dorothy J. Hughes reports
Alkabo
(
alkali
+
gumbo
),
Cando
(from
We can do
),
Golva
(
Golden Valley
), and
Seroco
(a memorial of the fact that the first piece of mail reaching the village postoffice was a
Sears Roebuck
catalogue) from North Dakota.
⁶
Some curious specimens are to be found in other States,
e.g., Benld
in Illinois, a blend of
Benjamin L. Dorsey; Westkan
in Kansas, from
West Kansas; Miloma
in Minnesota, a blend of
Milwaukee
and
Omaha
, not formed directly from the names of the
two cities, but from those of the
Milwaukee Chicago & St. Paul
and the
Chicago, Minneapolis and Omaha Railroads; Marenisco
in Michigan, from
Mary Relief Niles Scott; Centrahoma
, from
central
+
Oklahoma; Ladora
in Iowa, from
la, do
and
re
of the musical scale;
Ardenwald
in Oregon, from
Arden Rockwood
, with the last syllable translated into German;
Ti
in Oklahoma, made up of the initials of
Indian Territory
reversed;
Pawn
in Oregon, the initials of
Poole, Aberley, Worthington
and
Nolen;
¹
Marhattianna
in Oklahoma, from
Mary, Hattie
and
Anna; E. T. City
in Utah, named for
E. T. Benson
, “an early miller and Mormon official,” and
Veyo
in the same State, “coined from the words
verdure
and
youth
by a group of Mormon Beehive Girls.”
²
Another American invention is the addition of
Courthouse
or
Court House
to the name of a county-town. Such forms are more prevalent in Virginia, but they are also to be found in New Jersey and North Carolina.
³
The low amperage of patriotic passion during World War II saved twelve of the thirteen
Berlins
in the United States from rechristening. The one casualty was
Berlin
, Ala., which became
Sardis
.
⁴
An effort by Easterners to induce the people of
Berlin
, Ore., to change its name to
Distomo
was rejected at a mass-meeting on October 10, 1944.
⁵
But the name of
Kobe
, Alaska, was apparently changed to
Rex
in 1944.
⁶

The Board on Geographical Names, save in very rare cases, does not concern itself with the pronunciation of place-names, and when other governmental agencies venture to do so it is seldom to much edification. The Legislature of Arkansas decided solemnly in 1881
that the name of the State “should be pronounced in three syllables, with the final
s
silent, the
a
in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables,”
¹
but it will be noted that the
a
’s in the second and third syllables, as one now hears them in
Árkansaw
, are actually anything but Italianate. Moreover, the name of the
Arkansas
river is the
Arkánsas
along its course through Kansas and so is the name of
Arkansas City
, which is in Kansas just over the Oklahoma line. “The
Arkansaw
Traveler,” the national hymn of the State, is always, however,
Árkansaw
, and evidence assembled by the DAE shows that the Indians who infested the region in the early days were called
Arkansaws
so early as 1772, and that Congress thus spelled the name in 1819. Indeed, there are Arkansawyers who argue spitefully that
Kansas
itself should be
Kansaw
.
²
Meanwhile,
Arkansaw
for the State has been accepted by the British Broadcasting Corporation, though it makes the Kansas town
Arkánsas City
.
³
The same authority now ordains
O-high-o
for
Ohio
and
Massachóosets
for
Massachusetts
, though the English schoolboys of past generations were taught to say
O-he-ó
and
Massátchusetts
.
⁴
The
Arkánsas
pronunciation, so abhorrent to all patriotic citizens of the State, may have arisen by assimilation with that of
Kansas
, and perhaps it was helped on by the Eastern schoolma’ams who once tried to substitute
Gloucéster
for
Gloster
and
Worcéster
for
Wooster
.
⁵
Similarly, the presence of an
a
instead
of an
i
at the end of
Missouri, Cincinnati, Miami
,
¹
etc., is probably the end product of a schoolma’amish war upon an early tendency to turn every terminal
a
into
y, e.g., Indiany, Ithacy, Floridy, Uticy, Alabamy, Caroliny, Susquehanny, Philadelphy, Nebrasky, sody, opery, asthmy, balony
.
²

The pronunciation of
Missouri
has been under debate for many years and has produced a large literature, some of it marked by anything but scholarly calm.
³
Allen Walker Read has published a characteristically comprehensive review of the whole matter.
⁴
In that review he rejects the theory just mentioned, first launched by E. S. Sturtevant,
⁵
that the -
a
-ending represents a fastidious effort to get rid of the apparent vulgarism of the -
y
-ending, though Sturtevant has since been supported by such accepted authorities as George Philip Krapp
⁶
and John Samuel Kenyon.
⁷
Instead he seeks an explanation in the disinclination of the carnivora of a proud and once bloodthirsty State to let it pass under a name which suggests a diminutive.
⁸
But he overlooks the unchallenged presence of the same diminutive in
Mississippi
,
⁹
one of the least infantile names on the American map, and in the names or pet-names of such testo-steronic towns as
Boise
, Idaho;
Tulsy
, Okla.;
¹⁰
Hickory
, N. C., and
Corpus Christi
, Texas. The early authorities show that
Missouri
,
not
Mizzoura
, was first in the field, and that it apparently remained in favor until the Civil War era. At that time a craze for elegance seized the nascent
intelligentsia
of the State, and the -
a
-ending was urged upon the plain people with such fervor that the overwhelming majority of them adopted it and have continued to use it to this day.
¹
But in the early 90s or thereabout a new wave of pedagogues, chiefly, it would appear, from the East, launched a counterattack in behalf of the -
i
-ending, and a bitter battle was soon joined. The gogues might have had some chance of success if they had been content to argue only for the -
i
-ending; unhappily, they also tried to unvoice the two
z’s
in the middle of the name, and so convert the manly Roman sound of
buzz
and
whizz
into the puny Phoenician cheep of
kiss
and
bliss
. This was a fatal blunder, for even those Missouri sophisticates who were willing to accept -
i
revolted against -
ss
- in disgust and indignation. Today even the dictionaries and encyclopedias, which are usually at least a generation behind-hand, prefer the -
zz
- to the -
ss
-, and most of them have also surrendered to the -
a
-ending.
²