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 -- cows or girls and sometimes both.
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.
8.7.11
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