buffalo beef, 1722, buffalo meat.
buffalo robe, 1723, also called buffalo rug, 1805. This Indian item
was first described by Marquette and Joliet in 1681; it served
many Indians and whites as robe, coat, blanket, and sleepingbag. buffalo-headed duck, 1731, now known as the bufflehead (1858), a
small, widely distributed duck with a large, squarish head. buffalo road, 1750; buffalo trace, 1823; buffalo trail, 1834. These are
all paths or trails worn by buffalo herds.
Buffalo Bill, William Frederick Cody (1846-1917), who had been a pony express rider and cavalry scout before earning this nickname as a buffalo hunter supplying large quantities of meat to Union Pacific Railroad construction crews in 1867-68. The name Buffalo Bill was given him by Ned Buntline (pen name of Edward Zane Carroll Judson, 1821 -86), a writer of adventure fiction and one of the first dime novelists. Cody himself gave us the term Wild West Show, opening Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Omaha, May 37, 1883. [9. p.67 ]
Such terms as in the buff(\n the skin, naked), the brownish yellow color called buff, and to buff (to polish as with an animal skin) do not come from our word buffalo but entered English in the 16th century via buffle, the French word for that Asiatic and African ox. [9. p.68 ]
2.3. Plants
Americans have given many of their native trees, grasses, flowers, and shrubs descriptive names, often by combining two old words. Thus they have:
bluegrass, 1751, being any of several American grasses of the for genus and having a bluish cast, earlier called Dutch grass (1671). Kentucky bluegrass, 1849, a type of bluegrass, Poa pratem valuable as pasturage and hay; Bluegrass region, Bluegrass country the Blue Grass, a region in Kentucky, 1860s; the Bluegrass Stof Kentucky, 1886. [9. p.62 ]
butternut, 1741, or white walnut (1743), called butternut from the oiliness of the nut. By 1810 butternut also meant the brownish dye obtained from the tree's bark, its color, and fabric dyed with it. During the Civil War Butternut (1862) meant a Confederate soldier, from the butternut dye used on some homemade uniforms. buttonwood, 1674, because of its buttonlike burrs. This name was given the tree in New England; Southerners called it sycameri (1709), thinking it was that familiar English tree.
honey locust, 1743, because the pealike pods have a sweet taste.
Johnny-jump-up, 1842, from its quick growth. Also called JoktM jumper, Johnny jump up and kiss me, 1859; johnny jump, 1894. The English call this the viola tricolor or heartsease (we use these names for any of the various American violets and wild pansies).
live oak, 1610,because, being an evergreen oak, it is "alive" all year.
poison ivy, 1784, earlier poison weed. It got its name because, as Captain John Smith wrote in 1624, "The Poysoned weed is much in shape like our English ivy." Colonists, who had never seen or heard of it until they landed in America, had to learn to recognize and avoid it, and care for its effects, by trial and error. It was particularly rampant in Virginia, all the more troublesome because it could be mistaken by uninitiates for the local climbing vine the Virginia creeper (1670s).
poison oak, 1743, so called because its lobelike leaves resemblethose of an oak tree. This plant also was troublesome in early Virginia where it seems to have gotten its name.
The early settlers and frontiersmen also borrowed many plant names from the Indians, French, and Spanish. Other plants and trees are named after people, as the Douglas fir (1884, for the Scottish botanist David Douglas who discovered it while collecting and exploring in the Northwest in 1825) and the poinsettia (named in 1836 for Joel Poinsett, who collected and sent back many rare plants, including this one, while serving as the first U.S. minister to (Mexico in 1825-29). Other native American plants were misnamed, merely because the settlers who first saw them thought they were identical to those back home in England when they weren't. Thus our beech, hemlock, laurel, and walnut are not the same as the English trees of the same names and our bay trees and bay bushes also differ from the English ones. [9. p.63 ]
2.4. Banknotes and coins
The word dollar comes from the German t(h)aler, a word the
Germans got from shortening Joachinistaler, a silver coin first minted in Joachimstal, Bohemia, in 1519 (Joachimstaler itself literally means "of the Saint Joachim valley," t(h)akr meaning "of the valley"). This original t(h)aler became such a common European coin that t(h)aler or da(h)ler soon became the general name for any large silver coin in various German states and the name of the basic coins of Denmark and Sweden, with the word being spelled dollar in England by 1581.
The first dollar widely circulated in America was a Dutch coin bearing the likeness of a lion. Brought here by the original Dutch settlers around 1620, it was a favorite of European merchants and sailors and continued to be brought to America and to circulate widely long after the English took over the Dutch lands in 1664 and turned the Dutch colony of New Netherland (so named by the Dutch in 1621) into New York and New Jersey. We called this Dutch dollar a lion dollar or lion by 1725. This Dutch dollar was not the only dollar the colonists had. The Spanish peso was also in wide use in all the American colonies and called a Spanish dollar from at least 1684. By the early 1750s any peso, whether from Spain or Spanish America, was called a Spanish dollar, Spanish mill(ed) dollar, or simply a dollar.[10. p.181 ]
With English money in short supply and colonial money uncertain, the most prized and trusted money was often gold and silver coins from Spain, France, Holland, Mexico, Portugal, Brazil— from just about every European country, possession, island, and even mission (the Spanish Jesuits in Tuban, Arizona, minted coins as early as 1707). Such gold and silver coins were brought to America by its original Dutch, French, Spanish, and German settlers and continued to come in through merchants, sailors, and pirates from the entire Western world. Besides British guineas, pounds, shillings, and pence, Dutch and Spanish dollars, and colonial bills and coins, early Americans used and talked about such coins as the:
peso. The Spanish peso (literally weight, from Latinpensum, something weighted) was worth eight Spanish reals (see below) and marked with a figure 8. We called this Spanish coin and its value peso, eight reals, piece of eight, and, of course, dollar.
picayune. This French coin (from French picaillon, a small copper coin) was widely circulated in Louisiana and Florida in the late 18th century and was still in wide use at the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. By 1855 we used picayune to mean trifling, of small value.
pistole. The Spanish gold pistole (from Middle French pistolet, coin) was worth 2lh pesos. It also circulated freely in the colonies and was associated not only with Spain but with pirates, who seemed to prefer it for its gold content, size, and weight—and for use as an earring.
real or bit. The small silver Spanish real (Spanish for "royal," from Latin regal, regal) was worth one-eighth of a peso or 12!/z cents. By 1683 we also called it a bit (from Old English bite, bit, morsel), which was an English term for any small piece of money, as in "six-penny bit," though this monetary use of the word bit was reinforced in America by the Spanish word pieca, piece, bit, which sounded like "bika" to many colonists. [10. p.184 ]
New United States currency was called federal money (1806), lawful money (1809), and specie dollars (1821) to distinguish it from the foreign coins still in circulation. [10. p.185 ]
From 1865 until 1933 the U.S. issued not only gold coins but paper gold certificates (an 1863 term, the year Congress first authorized them) which certified that the U.S. Treasury had deposited gold for their redemption. In 1933, when the U.S. was taken off the gold standard, gold coins were removed from circulation, gold certificates were called in, and our coins and paper money were declared legal tender. From 1878 until 1963 the government also issued silver certificates, paper money backed by silver dollars. Today, about 90 percent of our paper money is in Federal Reserve Notes issued through the twelve Federal Reserve Banks or "bankers' banks" created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to establish a unified banking system. [10. p.187 ]
Some General Terms:
banknote, 1695 in England, originally as made out by a specific bank to a specific person. The shortened form, note, was first recorded in 1696.
bean, any coin, 1810. It came to mean specifically a $5 gold piece in 1859, then meant $1 by 1905.
bill meant a letter or a legal document in English by the 15th century (from Latin bulla, official seal, then a document bearing such a seal, which we still use in the term papal bull). By the late 16th century in England this "official document" meaning led to bill, which was used as a word for paper money.
cash, 1596 in England, when it also still meant money box, case (via French caisse, Italian cassa, cash box, merchant's case, from Latin capsa, box). Cash article, valuable or worth an amount of money, 1835; cash crop, 1868.
currency, 1699 as money in England, because it is the current, generally accepted medium of exchange (from Latin currential currere, to run).[10. p.192 ]
Since 1969 all U.S. currency in denominations over one hundred dollars has been withdrawn from circulation as the bills have come in to Federal Reserve Banks. A thousand dollars has been called a thou since 1869, a grand since 1900 (which was sometimes shortened to G by 1920), and a big one by the 1950s. The $10,000 Federal Reserve Notes were the highest currency ever in general circulation and, although the last ones were printed in 1944, about four hundred are still in private hands. The $100,000 gold certificates, with President Woodrow Wilson's likeness, were first issued in 1934 and were the highest denomination ever authorized in the world; however, they were never in general circulation, being for official transactions only (twelve of these are still in Federal Reserve Banks). Although U.S. currency has never come in larger denominations than this, it is, of course, possible to amass and talk about still larger amounts.
[10. p.202 ]
2.5. Mail
The British still speak of the post and of posting a letter while Americans are more apt to talk about the mail and mailing a letter (post came into English via the 15th-century French poste, station, from Latin positum, positioned, placed; mail has been in English since the 13th century, from Old High German malha, satchel, bag). Our use of post and postal thus goes back to our British colonial days; mail came later, with mail carrier in 1790, mail boat in 1796, mail pouch, and the mail, the U.S. Mail in the 1840s, and mail bag in 1867. Here are the dates of the first American colonial use of some British postal terms:
postal system, 1639, in Massachusetts. This first system was simple: incoming overseas mail was to be left at the home of Richard Fairbanks in Boston and he transmitted it for a penny a letter.
postal service, 1672, when a monthly service was started between New York and Boston, over what in 1692 became the Boston Post Road (a road for transporting mail). By 1790 the U.S. had 20,000 miles of post roads.
post office, 1683, when the first American one was established in Philadelphia. It gave us our first colonial use of the word postmaster, being one Henry Waldy, whose main duty was to supply horses and riders.
postmaster general, 1694, when the British crown appointed Andrew Hamilton postmaster general of all the colonies, to establish intercolonial service. People were soon talking about his post riders and post walkers (poor roads made them faster than wagons or carriages). [10. p.533 ]
These were the major British contributions to postal language. Benjamin Franklin was appointed postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737 and served as "co-deputy postmaster general" of the colonies from 1753 to 1774, when he was dismissed by the crown for being too pro-American. He got even with the British by being appointed the first postmaster general of the American postal system by the Continental Congress in 1775. Now American mail terms slowly began to take over:
mail coach, late 1780s (a British term); mail stage, from 1792.
Post Office Department, Americans used this term from its beginnings in 1782 until 1971, when it became the U.S. Postal Service, an independent agency.
U.S. Postmaster General, 1789, when President Washington appointed Samuel Osgood as the first one, overseeing the nation's 75 post offices.
star route, 1820s, the route of a private contractor carrying mail for the post office where its own service didn't go (so called for the stars or asterisks printed next to such routes on the Post Office Department list).
post office box, 1833; general delivery, late 1830's.
Before 1847, U.S. postmasters printed their own postage stamps and supplied glue pots—the adhesive stamp wasn't invented until 1840, in England (the famous penny black being the first issue). Then on July 1, 1847, Congress authorized the first U.S. Postage stamps: a 5^ Franklin and a 10<£ Washington. Within fifteen years all Americans were simply calling them stamps and calling their value postage. At first, some Americans humorously called such an adhesive stamp a lick-and-stick. Postage still covered only the carrying of mail from post office to post office; there was not free home delivery.
overland mail, 1848, when the post office first started talking about a stagecoach mail service from Missouri to California, which overland stage service was begun in 1858.
registered mail', 1855, when the service began.
mail boy, 1862, to distribute and collect mail in offices, which were now growing rapidly in size and number.
In 1863, when many families were writing to and receiving letters from their men who were fighting the Civil War, there were two big innovations in the Union's mail service: (1) mail was divided into classes and postage was based on the class rather than the distance it was carried; (2) mail service now began to include free home delivery in cities. Before this everyone had to pick up and deposit his own mail at the post office (or in a primitive letter box) or pay a letter carrier (an 1825 term) a 2-cent fee for each letter he delivered or picked up. [10. p.534 ]
Now Americans began to use the new terms:
first class (letters), second class (newspapers), third class (magazines and circulars), 1863. Fourth class (merchandise) wasn't added until 1879.
city delivery service, free city delivery, free delivery, 1863.
mailman soon became a common word after 1863, when he was employed and paid by the post office for free delivery. By the 1880s mailmen delivered as many as five times a day in commercial areas of New York and other major cities.
postal money order, 1864, originally created so Union soldiers could send money home safely during the Civil War.
postal card, post card, 1871, when the U.S. Post Office first issued a plain penny one, called a penny post card by 1873 (post cards had first been used by the Austrian post office in I860).
branch post office, 1871.
mail box, 1872, two years after it was patented. Since the late 1850s people had been calling primitive types letter boxes, street letter boxes, and street boxes, but these were usually the brightly painted receiving boxes for independent carriers and express agencies. The patented U.S. mailbox did a lot to give the U.S. Post Office Department control of the business. They were also often called letter drops in the 1890s.