♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[July 1, 1886. 



Yankee or New Englander. But as we approach the Down- 

 East region, the liowu Enster retreats, until we find his 

 true place to be in Maine. Possibly in Alaine he is pushed 

 forther east still. 



[Brat it. Bartlett treats this expression as an Ameri- 

 canism. While fully admitting that many expressions, 

 often used in Eagland, are properly classed as Americanisms, 

 if much oftener heard on the other side of the Atlantic, I 

 must draw the line at " Drat it," for there is no part of 

 England, .scarcely a house in England, where this .singularly 

 elegant expression of feminine wrath is not occasionall}' 

 heard.] 



Draw a Bead, To. To fcike aim. Probably old English 

 also. 



Dreadt'ul. Used for '■ very," is probably more common 

 in America than in England. " A dreadful, or dreffle nice 

 gall," is a very nice girl. A dreadful odd way of speaking 

 this. 



Drummer. A commercial traveller. Probably derived 

 from the good old times in England, when cheap-jacks and 

 mountebanks announced their enti-ance into a town with 

 sound of drum. 



Duhersome. Doubtful. Bartlett says duherous is often 

 used in England. I should imagine it was much oftener 

 used in America. I have never heard of any part of 

 England where " duberous " is used ; and I have heard it 

 pretty often in America. 



Dufj-out. A boat or canoe, dug out of a large log. 



Dump. To unload from a cart by tilting is surely as 

 much English as it is American ; and Dumpi/, for sad, is 

 about as old English as well can be. It must have been in 

 use long before the ballad of Chevy Chase, where the gallant 

 AVitherington, in most doleful dumps, when both his legs 

 were cut away, did fight upon his stumps. 



Du/ino'z I knoir. Lowell gives this as the nearest 

 approach a Yankee ever makes to saying, " I don't know." 



Dust. To get out, clear, may be an Americanism ; but 

 imagine finding. 



[Duster, a light garment, used for protection against dust, 

 so classified 1 We wonder how many Derby days ago the 

 " duster " first made its appearance on Epsom Downs.] 



[Dutch. " That baits the Dutch," again is given by 

 Bartlett as an Americanism, first used during the siege of 

 Boston in 177.5. It belongs in reality to Old England, time 

 of Charles II.] 



Dutch, for German, is, however, essentially American. 



Eajle. A gold coin, worth ten dollars. Double eajle, 

 half eagle, and quarter eajle need no explanation. 



EaM. " About east " is used in New England for " about 

 right," or what 'Arry in England would call terrlghts. 



Eat. To supply with food. " To eat guests " means to 

 bo.ird them, just as in England people say to " bed," meaning 

 to find a bed for a guest. Sometimes a host may eat his 

 guests in another sense. At a hotel where I once staj'ed, 

 I found a finely-coloured motto rather unfortunately spelt : 

 it ran " Watch and prey." Its owner carried out the idea. 



E'en a' most, an abridgment of " Even almost " is called 

 by Bartlett a vulgarism. It would be well if there were no 

 wor.se vulgarisms in America or England than this. 



" Eend." Yankee for "end." "Who'd expect to see a 

 tatur all on eend at being biled 'i " — Lowell. 



[Egg on, To. Corruption of " to urge on." See 

 Drat it?\ 



Egypt. Southern Illinois. Bartlett "wants to know" 

 whether this is on account of its fertility or the mental 

 darkness of its inhabitants. I should imagine that any one 

 who had seen the region around Cairo in the good old times 

 (remember that Cairo was the Eden of "Martin Chuzzlewit") 

 would need no explanation. Probably Cairo was so called 



because the region around Cairo in Egypt after an inunda- 

 tion of the Nile looked about as forbidding as the region 

 around Cairo in Illinois looked all the time. 



Elect, To. To choose to do something or other. The 

 American " elects " a president or member of Congress j ust 

 as the Englishman "elects" a member of Parliament or a 

 churchwarden; but, unlike the Englishman, the American 

 "elects " to do as he pleases about voting. 



Elephant. To " see the elephant " is to travel about and 

 see the world. 



Elevator. AVhat we call in England a hoist, or an 'oist, 

 according to our aspirations. Americans are not very fond 

 of using their legs, so that elevators there have attained a 

 much greater development than hoists with us. In some 

 American buildings, however, they are a real necessity, as 

 in the Tribune buildings at New York. I have had to call 

 on the editor of the I'ribune after the elevator had ceased 

 to run (midnight), and fond as I am of stair-climbing, which 

 is as good exercise for the legs as rowing for the arms, I 

 should have preferred being lifted part of the wa.y. 



Umpire State, The. New York State. 



Engineer, used substantively for an engine-driver. As a 

 verb, to engineer a road is to plan and work out the plans 

 for it. 



Enthuse, To. To grow enthusiastic, or to make others 

 become enthusiastic. 



Essence-pedlar. This euphonious name is applied to the 

 skunk, for obvious reasons. 



Euchre. A good card game, livelier and less difficult 

 than whist, yet involving a good deal of science. 



Euchred. As a card term, means to fail to make three 

 points at euchre, after making or ordering up a suit. 

 Merely to ful to make three means only the loss of a point, 

 but to be euchred means to lose two points. Hence the 

 expression is used for being foiled. 



PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE PRINTING-PRESS. 



HERE are many persons who regard the art 

 of [ihotography only as a ready means of 

 obtaining the portrait of some relative or 

 friend, or the image of some house or land- 

 scape round about which some pleasing 

 memories and a.ssociations cling, and of 

 which, therefore, it is desirable to have a 

 reminder in the shape of an accurate picture. Or, perhaps, 

 now that the photographic amateur is becoming such a very 

 familiar, if not to say obtrusive, person, the art of sun- 

 painting may, by the people adverted to, be regarded as a 

 fashion or fad, which, like croquet, lawn-tennis, rinking, and 

 many other amusements, will have its day and its earnest 

 votaries, to be presently forgotten as some newer thing turns 

 up for the attraction of the young and giddy. 



But those of a more mature habit of thought, and who 

 are therefore better able to gauge the signs of the times — 

 those particularly who care to look over the columns of the 

 technical journals, even though tliey may not find there any 

 matter to arouse great interest — cannot but be aware that 

 photography has of late years made rapid strides, not only 

 as a faithful reproducer of the beauties of nature, but as an 

 aid to nearly every branch of the arts and sciences. A brief 

 review of one of the modern applications of photography 

 will, we feel certain, interest a great number of our readers. 

 In one art at least the photographic plate is gradually 

 working, if it has not already caused, a revolution. We 

 allude to the art of wood engraving. Onlj^ a very few years 

 back the process of producing a picture suitable for the 



