Say it like a cowboy
by Julie
Carter
Language ranks among the most visible, audible, extensive,
and useful cultural evidence that human societies create. Undeniably, it is one
of the more important parts of any culture.
Anyone looking into ranch life and cowboy history will find
that the culture of the American West has a language all its own. Yankees don’t
understand it and rarely recognize it as a real language.
I know that my personal dialect is that of a direct plain-spoken
Westerner. I use words that others don’t recognize as words and I leave out
words (that) others would place in the thought process I’m expressing. See
parenthesis. They might call it correct grammar, I call it unnecessary.
While I possess in the recesses of my upbringing a full
vocabulary of “range vernacular,” some very skilled mentors managed to round
off the edges of my speech.
As a young girl my mother came to the West from the
civilized world bringing with her a refined vocabulary. I was also blessed with
teachers that were able to guide me to hold my own in polite company when it
came to conversation.
I’m not embarrassed that I often have to look up the meaning
of words used casually and easily by my fellow scribes. Given the opportunity,
I could give them a few they would have to investigate, not because they are
unlearned but because it’s a foreign language to them. And those words won’t be
in ordinary dictionaries.
In the language called “cowboy,” jingle isn’t the sound that
a bell makes or a rhyme. It is a verb that means to gather the horses.
By definition, hooley-ann isn’t a country girl but a type of
loop thrown to catch a horse. Hoolihan is something completely different. While
dew claw is a part of bovine anatomy, the labels for saddle horses from the
remuda could include crow-hopper, craw-fisher or the blind bucker.
The early cowboy was generally not highly educated but he
never lacked for expression. The sharp directness of his speech seemed novel
and strange to conventional people but no one could accuse him of being boring.
His ability to turn a picturesque phrase was as refreshing as it was unexpected
and often showed his keen sense of humor.
His figures of speech are descriptive and clearly accurate.
Trying to accomplish the impossible is “like tryin’ to scratch your ear with
your elbow.” When expressing his idea of prominence, he might say it “stuck out
like a new saloon in a church district.”
Pretty is “prettier than a spotted dog under a red wagon,”
and ugly is expressed in colorful descriptions like “so narrow between the eyes
he could look through a keyhole with both eyes.” Chouse is chase -- either cows
or girls.
Today’s cowboy is quite often very educated, but you will
find that the book learnin’ never takes away his ability to employ his words in
a way that suits him. He will arrange them in a manner that best expresses his
idea and be completely unrestricted by tradition.
That cowboy slang, twang and verbal saunter is often worn
like the camouflage of a chameleon. It is not unusual for a cowboy to use it to
beguile his listener, lulling them into a false sense of superiority.
The dumb-ol’-boy trick has made many a cowboy a pile of
money. Their theory is to not ever tamper with the natural ignorance of a
greenhorn.
Whatever their dialect, phraseology, and vernacular, the
cowboy has always had a way of expressing a big thought in a few words.
“Success is the size of the hole a man leaves after he dies.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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