Contents
-SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
Page 103
Sauerkraut and
noodle, as we have seen, came in during the colonial period, apparently through the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch,
i. e., a mixture, much debased, of the German dialects of Switzerland, Suabia and the Palatinate. The later immigrants contributed
pretzel, pumpernickel, hausfrau, lager-beer, pinocle, wienerwurst (often reduced to
wiener or
wienie),
frankfurter, bock-beer, schnitzel, leberwurst (sometimes half translated as
liverwurst),
blutwurst, rathskeller, schweizer (cheese),
delicatessen, hamburger (
i. e., steak),
kindergarten and
katzenjammer. 36 From them, in all probability, there also came two very familiar Americanisms,
loafer and
bum. The former, according to the Standard Dictionary, is derived from the German
laufen; another authority says that it originated in a German mispronunciation of
lover, i. e., as
lofer. 37 Thornton shows that the word was already in common use in 1835.
Bum was originally
bummer, and apparently derives from the German
bummler. 38 Both words have produced derivatives:
loaf (noun),
to loaf, cornerloafer, common-loafer, to bum, bum (adj.) and
bummery, not to mention
on the bum. Loafer has migrated to England, but
bum is still unknown there in the American sense. In England, indeed,
