Page:The American Language.djvu/101

Rh both now extinct, to the same year. The origin of the rickey, fizz, sour, cooler, skin, shrub and smash, and of such curious American drinks as the horse's neck, Mamie Taylor, Tom–and–Jerry, Tom–Collins, John–Collins, bishop, stone–wall, gin–fix, brandy–champarelle, golden–slipper, hari–kari, locomotive, whiskey–daisy, blue–blazer, black–stripe, white–plush and brandy–crusta is quite unknown; the historians of alcoholism, like the philologists, have neglected them. But the essentially American character of most of them is obvious, despite the fact that a number have gone over into English. The English, in naming their drinks, commonly display a far more limited imagination. Seeking a name, for example, for a mixture of whiskey and soda–water, the best they could achieve was whiskey–and–soda. The Americans, introduced to the same drink, at once gave it the far more original name of high–ball. So with ginger–ale and ginger–pop. So with minerals and soft–drinks. Other characteristic Americanisms (a few of them borrowed by the English) are red–eye, corn–juice, eye–opener, forty–rod, squirrel–whiskey, phlegm–cutter, moon–shine, hard–cider, apple–jack and corpse–reviver, and the auxiliary drinking terms, speak–easy, sample–room, blind–pig, barrel–house, bouncer, bung–starter, dive, doggery, schooner, shell, stick, duck, straight, saloon, finger, pony and chaser. Thornton shows that jag, bust, bat and to crook the elbow are also Americanisms. So are bartender and saloon–keeper. To them might be added a long list of common American synonyms for drunk, for example, piffled, pifflicated, awry–eyed, tanked, snooted, stewed, ossified, slopped, fiddled, edged, loaded, het–up, frazzled, jugged, soused, jiggered, corned, jagged and bunned. Farmer and Henley list corned and jagged among English synonyms, but the former is obviously an Americanism derived from corn–whiskey or corn–juice, and Thornton he latter originated on this side of the Atlantic also.