The common objects and phenomena of nature are often differently named in English and American. As we saw in a previous chapter, such Americanisms as /creek/ and /run/, for small streams, are practically unknown in England, and the English /moor/ and /downs/ early disappeared from American. The Englishman knows the meaning of /sound/ (/e. g./, Long Island /Sound/), but he [Pg109] nearly always uses /channel/ in place of it. In the same way the American knows the meaning of the English /bog/, but rejects the English distinction between it and /swamp/, and almost always uses /swamp/, or /marsh/ (often elided to /ma'sh/). The Englishman seldom, if ever, describes a severe storm as a /hurricane/, a /cyclone/, a /tornado/ or a /blizzard/. He never uses /cold-snap/, /cloudburst/ or /under the weather/. He does not say that the temperature is /29 degrees/ (Fahrenheit) or that the thermometer or the mercury is at 29 degrees, but that there are /three degrees of frost/. He calls ice water /iced-water/. He knows nothing of /blue-grass/ country or of /pennyr'yal/. What we call the /mining regions/ he knows as the /black country/. He never, of course, uses /down-East/ or /up-State/. Many of our names for common fauna and flora are unknown to him save as strange Americanisms, /e. g./, /terrapin/, /moose/, /persimmon/, /gumbo/, /egg-plant/, /alfalfa/, /sweet-corn/, /sweet-potato/ and /yam/. Until lately he called the /grapefruit/ a /shaddock/. He still calls the /beet/ a /beet-root/ and the /rutabaga/ a /mangel-wurzel/. He is familiar with many fish that we seldom see, /e. g./, the /turbot/. He also knows the /hare/, which is seldom heard of in America. But he knows nothing of /devilled-crabs/, /crab-cocktails/, /clam-chowder/ or /oyster-stews/, and he never goes to /oyster-suppers/, /clam-bakes/ or /burgoo-picnics/. He doesn't buy /peanuts/ when he goes to the circus. He calls them /monkey-nuts/, and to eat them publicly is /infra dig/. The common American use of /peanut/ as an adjective of disparagement, as in /peanut politics/, is incomprehensible to him.