402

LIFE ON TJETJS MISSISSIPPI.

whah you was a-sett'n' at.' The very elect carelessly say e willJ
they mean f shall'; and many of them say, ' I didn't go to do it/
meaning*I didn't mean to do it.' The Northern word 'guess'—
imported from England, where it used to be common, and now
regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankee original—is but little
used among Southerners. They say e reckon/ They haven't any

* doesn't' in their language; they
say * don't' instead. The unpol-
ished often use <went' for 'gone.'
It is nearly as bad as the Northern
e hadn't ought.' This reminds me
that a remark of a very peculiar
nature was made here in my neigh-
bourhood (in the North) a few days
ago: e He hadn't ought to have
went.' How is that? Isn't that a
good deal of a triumph ? One kno"WB
the orders combined in this half-
breed's architecture without inquir-
ing : one parent Northern, tke
other Southern. To-day I heard a
schoolmistress ask, ' Where is John
gone 1 * This form is so common—
so nearly universal, in fact—that
if she had used * whither' instead
of ' where,* I think it would have
sounded like an affectation.

We picked up one excellent word
—a word worth travelling to New
Orleans to get; a nice limber, ex-
pressive, handy word—* lagniappe/

13iey pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish—so they said. We dis-
covered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune,
the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired whafe
it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth,
It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little
when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a. .

*WHAH YOU WAS?*