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ENGLISH in AMERICA

EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

DUTCH:

• boss 1822 / cookie 1730 / landscape 1661 / Yankee (? no one really knows its origin, but Dutch is a good guess) a corruption of JAN KEES (John Cheese) - the Dutch equivalent of the British John Bull. See Charles Berlitz (1982) p.69 for a colourful history of the word.

PLACE NAMES: New Amsterdam (became New York),

FRENCH:

• chowder / dime / dollar - see German (Bohemian/Spanish/German = complex root) / gopher / prairie

PLACE NAMES: Detroit, Illinois, New Orleans, Louisiana,

GERMAN:

dollar comes from the large silver coin called JOACHIMSTHALER minted in the former Austrian Empire (formerly in what was the Czechoslovakia region). The English habit of abridgement chopped it down to 'dollar' - but do not ask me how.

There is a myth that America came very close to adopting German as its official language (Charles Berlitz, 1982, pp.43-44 could be the source). The error centres upon Pennsylvania: there was a majority German-speaking village who had a constitution drafted out in German so that they could vote on its contents. There was never any doubt that the new nation would adopt any other language than English.

IRISH:

hoodlum - originally members of Irish vigilante strong-arm squads in San Francisco directed against Chinese labourers. Hoodlum is reputedly the Irish family name MULDOON misspelt backwards. This story sounds similar to the British name Hooligan - also named after a criminal Irish family (in Manchester).

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