Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1893 — Some Yankee Terms. [ARTICLE]

Some Yankee Terms.

How many people, asks the Boston Transcript, have heard the verb to strawn (Vermont) or to stram (Nantucket)," meaning to wander about aimlessly? Could the phrase “I don't guess it’s so” be properly attributed to a genuine Yankee, speaking the rustic speech? A Yankee says “I reckon” only less often than he says “I guess.” Is this as ancient a use with him as “I guess,” or did he somehow pick it up from the Southerners? Are doughnuts called simballs elsewhere than in Weymouth, Hingham and a few other towns in Southwestern Massachusetts? How far west or north must one go before a doughnut becomes a “nutcake,” and how much further west before it becomes s “friedcake?” What is the origin of the former New England term, now almost obsolete, of “dodunk” for a stupid, simple person? The word is often found in Mr. Bowland E. Robinson’s Vermont stories—which, by the way, are the best Vermont dialect yet put in print.