cal phrases make tarry the talk of the people. "Where be you
a-cruising to?" asks one Nantucket matron of her gossip. "Sniver-dinner,
I'm going to Egypt; Seth B. has brought a letter from Turkey-wowner to
Old Nancy." "Dressed-to-death-and-drawers-empty, don't you see we're
goin' to have a squall? You had better take in your stu'n'-sails." The
good woman was dressed up, intending, "_as soon as ever_ dinner was
over," to go, not to the land of the Pharaohs, but to the negro-quarter
of the town, with a letter which "Seth B." (her son, thus identified by
his middle letter) had brought home from Talcahuana.

For the rural idioms we refer the reader to the late Sylvester Judd's
"Margaret" and "Richard Edney," and to the Jack Downing Letters.

The town is not behind the country. For, whatever is the current fancy,
pugilism, fire-companies, racing, railway-building, or the opera, its
idioms invade the talk. The Almighty Dollar of our worship has more
synonymes than the Roman Pantheon had divinities. We are not
"well-informed," but "posted" or "posted up." We are not "hospitably
entreated" any more, but "put through." We do not "meet with
misadventure," but "see the elephant," which we often do through the
Hibernian process of "fighting the tiger."

Purists deplore this, but it is inevitable; and if one searches beneath
the surface, there is often a curious deposit of meaning, sometimes
auriferous enough to repay our use of cradle and rocker. We "panned
out," the other day, a phrase which gave us great delight, and which
illustrated a fact in New England history worth noting. We were puzzling
over the word "socdollager," which Bartlett, we think, defines as
"Anything very large and striking,"--_Anglice_, a "whopper,"--"also a
peculiar fish-hook." The word first occurs in print, we believe, in Mr.
Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of
Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that
there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon
us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology."
This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or
"j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis,
both because its words were familiar to all without book, and because it
served instead of the chanted creed of their Anglican forefathers. The
last thing, after which nothing could properly follow, the most
impor