Word-Shadows

— If shadows of material objects are grotesque, even more so are the shadows cast by words from fairly educated lips into the minds of almost totally ignorant people. Display in utterance of these quaint word-shadows, if one may so call them, makes dialect.

This grotesquerie, this quaint transformation of something well known, real, and admirable into something queer, fanciful, and awkward, yet bearing resemblance to the fair formation it shadows, gives to dialect writing and to dialect speech that piquant flavor that all the world favors. Especially is this true of that lately full fashionable style of literary production, song and story, in negro dialect. The words of our language that enter the mind of the old-time negro have indeed found their way into a dusky realm. Here is with us a race which has wholly forgotten its own language, or whatever methods of communication it made use of in its African home. The language of an utterly diverse race it must perforce employ, since it has lost the tongue of its own people. Into the minds of the individuals of this race, a people hardly a century out of barbarism, the light of civilization shines with dazzling effect. The language they must use is the growth of centuries of civilization, its roots reaching to even older civilizations, its branches grafted with luxuriant wordgrowths of almost every nation on earth. It is little wonder that this language of ours assumes in these startled brains most fanciful shapes. To take down some of these shadowy effects, with our language for cause, would be to make a dialect dictionary, a glossary of plantation patois, a work for which, happily, there is now no need. But an effort to show a few of these vague, dusky shapes that our words take on may not be wholly uninteresting.

See, for instance, how our simple word “ fertilizer ” becomes on the tongue of an old darky gardener “ pudlie.” A giant is dubbed a“ high-jinted man.” A maid who will prove obedient to orders is described as an “orderly gal.” A piece of ground that shows a bad yield of cotton or corn is called “ failery Ian’.” Farming in the mouth of a negro laborer is “crapping.” The favorite food of the cotton-field hand, the food he cannot live without, the strengthening bread made from corn meal, has its expressive name, “John Constant.” Wheaten bread, a rare treat to the field hand, is “ Billy Seldom.” Bacon has its name, “ Ole Ned.” The best field laborer is the “ lead hoe hand.” To quit work for the day is to “layby.” To rise early to go to the field is “ ter be in patch by hour by sun.” An early breakfast is “a soon brekkus.” Our word “accuse” — alas! one the negro often has occasion to use — is “ ’scuse.” There are too few of the race who have not been, at some time or other, “ ’scuse of a pig,” “ ’scuse of a cow,” “ ’scuse of cotton-pickin’ by night,” “ ’scuse of a pa’r shoes,” and so on down a long list of material and tempting articles.

The quaint technical phrases that the negroes make use of in their business talk are innumerable. To be ready to hire for a cook is to be “ des on ban’ ter jump in de cook-pot.” In ironing, to leave a cluster of wrinkles on the garment in hand is to put “cat-faces” on it. To wash only for visitors to a town or village is to “ des only take in trans’ washin’.” To take day boarders is to take “ transoms.” To say that one is obliged to turn a hand to anything is to say, “ Ever’ little drug dere is, I hatter wag it.”

A half-starved calf is a “calf dat’s been whipped wid de churn-dasher.” A good ploughman is a “ noble plough han’.” Rich land is “ strong ground.” To keep down grass is to “ fight wid Gen’al Green.”

To leave the technicalities for generalities, we find that any matter that is but ill adjusted is a matter “squowow;” ill adjusted in a lesser degree is “ weewow.” A well-arranged matter is pronounced all “ commojious,” —a shadow of our word “ commodious.” A matter well accomplished is “essentially done;” as, for instance, “ When she cooks, she des essentially cooks good.” A person fit to adorn wealth is a “ high-minded person,” or “bigminded,” or “great-minded.” A wealthy person is one “stout in worldly goods.” A proud person is an “ umptious somebody.” One who is only proud enough is “proud to de ikle.” One who is slightly petted by good Dame Fortune is “des pettish.” To be in trouble or distress is to “ walk on de wearried line.” To live easily and happily is to live “ jobly and wid pleadjure.” To be ill is to “have a misery.” To be quite well is to be “ des sorter tollerble.” Entertaining conversation becomes in that shadow-language “ mockin’-bird talk.” A girl who loves to stay at home, what the poets would call “a home-keeping heart,” becomes a “homely gal; ” keeping for the word its English meaning, not its American perversion.

A queer gamut of color they run in their descriptions of their race: “a dark man,” “a bright man,” “a light gal,” “a mustee ’oman,” “a gingerbread boy,” a “honeycolored lady.”

Entering the mystic world, we find that a ghost is “ a hant.” Magic, black art, becomes “conjure;” the accent on the first syllable. Entering the world of song, we find that all lively lyrics are “ sinner-songs,” or “reels,” or “corn-hollers,” “jump-upsongs,” or “chunes dat skip wid de banjo.” Religious songs are “ member-songs ” or “ hymn-chunes.” Long chants are “spirituelles.”

The dweller in the realm of negro religious beliefs and forms of worship endows our language with meanings entirely new to our experience. Not to be a church member is to be “settin’ on de sinnerseat,” “ still in de open fiel’,” “ drinkin’ de cup er damnation,” and many other such phrases. To enter the church is to “ jine de band,” to “ take up de cup er salvation,” to “git a seat wid de members,” to “be gethered in,” to “ put on a shine-line gyarment,” and so on ad infinitum.