American Language Supplement 2 (129 page)

This adroit parody of the New York
Sun’s
famous editorial on Santa Claus
²
had a powerful effect, and Mechem reports that when the smoke cleared away and the roars of indignation ceased to reverberate “it was hard to tell from appearances whether the educators were the hunters or the hunted.” Having learned from the combat that there was no description of the
jayhawk
in the official literature of Kansas, he at once unearthed one from the pages of “a famous Spanish ornithologist” of Coronado’s day, “now unfortunately apocryphal,” and it was printed in his brochure, lately mentioned. It ran as follows:

Mechem explained in a gloss that the learned Spaniard here referred to the buffaloes which then roamed the Kansas steppes. He adorned his brochure with beautiful drawings of the
jayhawk
, one of them by Frank Miller of the Kansas City
Star
. His labors lifted the bird at one stroke to the level of the guyascutus, the lunkus, the cutercuss, the lufferlang, the flitterbick, the billdad, the club-tailed glytodont, the wiffle-poofle and other such fauna of the Great Plains,
²
and greatly increased the pride taken in it by loyal Kansans.
³

Kentucky has been the
Blue Grass State
since the Civil War era, and is the heir to a much larger
Blue Grass region
that once included Tennessee and even extended into Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Bartlett, in the second edition of his “Dictionary of Americanisms,” 1859, described this area as “the rich limestone land of Kentucky and Tennessee,” and Schele de Vere, in 1872,
⁴
added Pennsylvania. The DAE’s first example of
Blue Grass State
as applied specifically to Kentucky comes from John S. Farmer’s “Americanisms Old and New,” 1889, but it is probably considerably older, though Schele de Vere omitted it from his list of accepted designations for the State. In place of it he gave
Bear State
, which has been disputed by Arkansas, and
Corncracker State
, the
cracker
part of which has been collared by Georgia. In the years immediately following the Revolution Kentucky was often called the
Dark and Bloody Ground
, which was supposed to be a translation of the Indian phrase from which its name was derived. That name, at the start, was variously spelled
Kentuck, Kentucke, Kaintuck
and even
Caintuck
, and after the War of 1812
Old
was often prefixed to it.
Dark and Bloody Ground
alluded, not to battles between Indians and the first white settlers, but to contests between Northern and Southern tribes of Indians, but by 1839, as the DAE shows, it had come to be accepted as a reference to “the
slaughter of white pioneers.” Kentucky has also been called the
Hemp State
, the
Rock-ribbed State
and the
Tobacco State
, but without much frequency. The first of these was applied to it, not because of the activity of its busy and accomplished hangmen, but because it produced large crops of hemp. It is rather surprising that the State has acquired no appellation calling up the speed of its race-horses, the traditional beauty of its women, or its Bourbon whiskey. The DAE’s first example of
Bourbon
whiskey is dated 1850, but the example given shows that the name was already preceded by
good old
.

Pelican State
for Louisiana goes back to 1859, and seems destined to outlive all rivals, for the
World
Almanac now lists it without an alternate. The pelican has appeared on the seal of the State since before the Civil War, and a committee of the State Convention of 1861, appointed to prepare a new State flag and seal, resolved to keep it there on the ground that it had “long been the cherished emblem of Louisiana.” The pelican was chosen originally because it is plentiful along the Gulf coast of the State. Schele de Vere, in 1872, listed
Creole State
as an alternative nickname for Louisiana, and explained that it had arisen “on account of the large number of its inhabitants who are descendants of the original French and Spanish settlers.” This designation was borne proudly so long as it was generally understood that a
Creole
was a Caucasian,
¹
but when ignorant Northerners began assuming that the term connoted African blood it passed out of favor. The DAE traces it to 1792, and shows that it began to be applied especially to the people of New Orleans by 1807. Shankle says that Louisiana was once called the
Sugar State
, and Charles J. Lovell traces the nickname to 1855, but the DAE does not list it. It appeared as the
French State
in the Hon. Amelia M. Murray’s “Letters From the United States, Cuba, and Canada” in 1856, but that designation has also vanished.

Maine is the
Pine Tree State
, and a pine tree appears upon its seal. The DAE’s first example of the use of the term is from
Harper’s Magazine
for March, 1860, but it appears in Bartlett’s second edition of 1859, and must be older. On the
Brother Jonathan
list of 1843 Maine is called the
Lumber State
, which is not listed at
all by the DAE. Shankle also lists
Border State, Polar Star State, Old Dirigo
and
Switzerland of America
. The first seems to have gone out when the States bordering on slave territory began to be called
Border States
(traced by the DAE to 1849), and the last is disputed, as we have seen, by Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey and West Virginia.
Dirigo
is taken from the motto on the State seal, a Latin word signifying “I direct, or guide.” This motto long antedated the saying, “As Maine goes, so goes the country,” which was first heard in the national campaign of 1888 and is now obsolete. Otherwise, Maine has led the country on but one occasion – when, in 1858, it passed a Prohibition law which paved the way for the Eighteenth Amendment of 1919. There is a single star on the State seal, but that it is Polaris, the pole star, is not in evidence.

Michigan is the
Wolverine State
in the
World
Almanac, but it has also been called the
Lady of the Lakes
, the
Lake State
and, in recent years, the
Auto State. Wolverine State
is traced by the DAE to 1846, when it appeared in the
Knickerbocker Magazine
. Schele de Vere said in 1872 that it was suggested by “the number of
wolverines
(literally, little wolves) which used to abound in the peninsula, and gave the inhabitants their name of
Wolverines
, by which they are still generally known.” The DAE’s first example of
Wolverine
is dated 1835. It appears also in the
Brother Jonathan
list of 1843. A writer in the Detroit
Free Press
,
¹
quoted by Shankle, calls it the impromptu invention of a young girl of 1800, based on the jocosity of a tavern-keeper named Conrad Tan Eyck. Tan Eyck was in the habit of telling his guests that any meat they had eaten in his house was a wolf steak, and when he launched his waggery on the girl she replied: “Then I suppose I am a
wolverine
.” But
wolverine
was not actually new in 1800, for it had been in use since the early Eighteenth Century to describe a small mammal of the marten family, plentiful in all the Northern woods. John Gyles, in his “Memoirs of Odd Adventures, Strange Deliverances, &c,” published in 1736, described it as “a very fierce and mischievous creature, about the bigness of a middling dog,” and Dr. Robert W. Hegner, in his “College Zoölogy,”
²
says that it is so greedy and so enterprising that it steals bait from traps, and even makes off with the traps themselves.
³
Why the name of this voracious creature
should have been given to the people of Michigan is still a matter of speculation. In
American Notes & Queries
for March, 1944,
¹
a Michigander named M. M. Quaife pointed out that the early fur-trade inventories offer no evidence that “the
wolverine
ever lived or was trapped in our Michigan southern peninsula,” and that during the 30s of the last century, when the people of the State became
Wolverines
, the State still had no northern peninsula. Nevertheless, the nickname was already current at that time, for in “A Winter in the West,” published in 1835, Charles Fenno Hoffman told of meeting a typical
Wolverine
at “Prairie Ronde, Kalamazoo Co., M.T.” This specimen he described as “a sturdy yeoman-like fellow whose white capot, Indian mocassins and red sash proclaimed, while he boasted a three years’ residence, the genuine
Wolverine
, or naturalized Michiganian.”
²
Lake State
for Michigan early collided with
Lake States
, which began to be applied generally to all the States bordering upon the Great Lakes so early as 1845.

Minnesota chooses to be called the
North Star State
, and has the motto,
L’Étoile du Nord
, on its seal. Schele de Vere, in 1872, listed it as the
New England of the West
, and before that it had been the
Gopher State
and the
Beaver State
. But
Gopher State
was also claimed,
c
. 1845, by Arkansas, and
Beaver State
was claimed, at various times, by other States,
e.g
., Oregon. Shankle quotes Charles E. Flandrau, author of “The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier,”
³
to the effect that the advocates of
Gopher State
and those of
Beaver State
fought it out bitterly in the 50s, and that the latter won. But
Gopher State
survived and the people of Minnesota are still called
Gophers
. Shankle also lists
Bread Basket of the Nation
, the
Bread and Butter State
, the
Cream Pitcher of the Nation
, the
Playground of the Nation
and the
Wheat State
, but all of these reflect the passion of boosters rather than
vox populi
.

Schele de Vere, in 1872, reported that Mississippi was the
Mudcat State
, after “a large catfish abounding in the swamps and the mud of the rivers,” and this designation was listed by the Encyclopedia Americana so late as 1932, but it seems to be obsolescent. The nickname of choice is now
Magnolia State
. It has rivals, according
to Shankle, in
Bayou State, Eagle State, Border-eagle State, Ground-hog State
and
Mud-waddler State. Bayou State
is listed by the New International Encyclopedia, and was included in the
World
Almanac list in 1922, along with
Eagle State
, but both seem to be passing out. The DAE traces
Bayou State
to 1867, but overlooks
Eagle State
. The latter is said to have been suggested, like
Border-eagle State
(traced by Lovell to 1846), by the fact that there is an eagle on the State seal. But there are also eagles on the seals of Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania.

Missouri, which in former days was the
Iron Mountain State
, the
Bullion State
, the
Lead State
, the
Ozark State
, the
Puke State
and the
Pennsylvania of the West
,
¹
but now it is known universally as the
Show Me State
. The origin of this designation is not yet established, but it seems to have been given nation-wide currency by a speech made by Willard D. Vandiver, then a congressman from Missouri, in Philadelphia in 1899 or thereabout.
²
The occasion was a dinner of the Five O’Clock Club. Vandiver, who, as a member of the Naval Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, was in Philadelphia on public business, had not expected to be invited, and had thus brought no dress clothes. Neither had another impromptu guest, Congressman John A. T. Hull, of Iowa. They decided to go in their ordinary clothes, but at the last minute Hull somewhere found a dress-suit, and thereby greatly embarrassed Vandiver, who was the only diner without one. When the time came for speeches Hull delivered an eloquent eulogy of Philadelphia, and the toastmaster then called upon Vandiver. Let him now tell his own story:

It will be noted that Vandiver did not claim the invention of the phrase; all he apparently intended to suggest was that his apt use of it before an Eastern audience served to spread it. It was further spread by its frequent use during the presidential campaign of 1912, when Champ Clark of Missouri was one of the candidates for the Democratic nomination. But its origin plainly goes beyond Clark and Vandiver; indeed, there are Missouri antiquarians who seek to run it back to pioneer days. A number of the etymologies that have been suggested were recorded in 1941 in an article by Paul I. Wellman, published in the Kansas City
Times
.
¹
The first was given as follows: