Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:36:45 -0400

From: "Barry A. Popik" Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: Hendrickson's MOUNTAIN RANGE book review



BOOK REVIEW:



MOUNTAIN RANGE:

A DICTIONARY OF EXPRESSIONS FROM APPALACHIA TO THE OZARKS

by Robert Hendrickson

147 pages, $14.95

1997, Facts on File



Robert Hendrickson is the author of THE FACTS ON FILE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

WORD AND PHRASE ORIGINS (which I quoted the other day). Other books in this

series are:

WHISTLIN' DIXIE: A DICTIONARY OF SOUTHERN EXPRESSIONS

HAPPY TRAILS: A DICTIONARY OF WESTERN EXPRESSIONS

YANKEE TALK: A DICTIONARY OF NEW ENGLAND EXPRESSIONS

and New York expressions (forthcoming).

I have all of these books. (The phrase "whistlin' dixie" was discussed

last year.) That does not necessarily mean that they're bad or good.

MOUNTAIN RANGE is the same formula and quality as the previous books. It's

an interesting collection of words; there are plenty of errors and omissions,

and the work is not intended to be scholarly. It should be accepted only at

its own "general interest" level.

Like the previous books I've reviewed recently, MOUNTAIN RANGE has no

bibliography. Ah, who needs it! It appears that Hendrickson surveyed a very

limited number of books of this type.

Also like BUZZWORDS: L.A. FRESHSPEAK, this book has no map, and the

words are not identified (noun used in South Carolina, verb used in eastern

Kentucky). The lack of a map hurt BUZZWORDS, but this hurts MOUNTAIN RANGE

even more. Say, what mountains are we talking about? The Ozarks in

Missouri? The Smokey Mountains in Tennessee? Arkansas? Kentucky?

Pennsylvania? What mountains are these words coming from?

Some lists would have been nice, such as a list of animal words, food

words, et al. by topic. Instead, it's a straight dictionary of words from

wherever. The cover shows a nice drawing of "hog wild," but there are no

other illustrations.

A short list of sources is given in the introduction, where Hendrickson

states that DARE "promises when completed to be one of the greatest

dictionaries ever compiled." Check out the state words Hendrickson gives:

there's Arkansas (Arkansas chicken, Arkansas toothpick, Arkansas travels,

but no Arkansas traveler), Kentucky (Kentucky rifle, Kentucky yell, but no

Kentucky fried chicken), and Missouri, but no Tennessee at all (Tennessee

tea, Tennessee tuxedo, Tennessee waltz, the pronunciation of Tennessee).

Then you realize that DARE HAS ONLY REACHED "O."

"You-all" is given as "often pronounced _y'all_," so why isn't there a

brief entry there as well? The recent scholarship on this word is completely

missed.

"Melungeon" (a frequent topic on this list) is here, but there's no

explanation of the origin of the term, and other similar terms that were

discussed here are left out.

"Puke" (an old name for a Missourian) is "Perhaps a corruption of the

earlier name _Pike_ for Missouri natives, a name given to them in California

because so many Missourians who came there during the gold rush were from

Pike County, Missouri." Actually, a simple check would should that "puke"

predates this gold rush by at least a decade. "Puke" originated in Illinois.

Under "Appalachia," Hendrickson adds "It is interesting to note that

Washington Irving once suggested (in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, August

1839) that the phrase _United States of Appalachia_ be substituted for the

_United States of America_." I have tons of stuff about this in my "America

Papers." It was "Allegania" (I may has misspelled that; I'm too lazy to

check) that Irving advocated, not "Appalachia."

Words are missing. There's no "sticks." No "hicks." No

"appleknockers." And let's REALLY check. No "fuck." No "shit." Not even a

"she-it." Obviously, mountain folk have the cleanest vocabulary around! Who

woulda thunk it!

Again, I have many Hendrickson books, and they're all moderately

informative. But the guy makes tons of mistakes, and his books shouldn't

enter any scholarly discussions.

New York is next. I'll buy that, too. Probably none of my stuff will

be in it, and I'll probably gag...