Date: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 21:36:45 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" 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...