[30] The majority of these words, it will be noted, relate to eating and drinking. They mirror the profound effect of German immigration upon American drinking habits and the American cuisine. It is a curious fact that loan-words seldom represent the higher aspirations of the creditor nation. French and German have borrowed from English, not words of lofty significance, but such terms as /beefsteak/, /roast-beef/, /pudding/, /grog/, /jockey/, /tourist/, /sport/, /five-o'clock-tea/, /cocktail/ and /sweepstakes/. "The contributions of England to European civilization, as tested by the English words in Continental languages," says L. P. Smith, "are not, generally, of a kind to cause much national self-congratulation." Nor would a German, I daresay, be very proud of the German contributions to American. [31] /Vide/ a paragraph in /Notes and Queries/, quoted by Thornton, vol. i, p. 248. [32] Thornton offers examples of this form ranging from 1856 to 1885. During the Civil War the word acquired the special meaning of looter. The Southerners thus applied it to Sherman's men. /Vide/ Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. xii, p. 428; Richmond, 1884. Here is a popular rhyme that survived until the early 90's: Isidor, psht, psht! Vatch de shtore, psht, psht! Vhile I ketch de /bummer/ Vhat shtole de suit of clothes! /Bummel-zug/ is common German slang for slow train. [33] Jan. 24, 1918, p. 4. [34] Nevertheless, when I once put it into a night-letter a Western Union office refused to accept it, the rules requiring all night-letters to be in "plain English." Meanwhile, the English have borrowed it from American, and it is actually in the Oxford Dictionary. [35] The word is not in the Oxford Dictionary, but Cassell gives it and says that it is German and an Americanism. The Standard Dictionary does not give its etymology. Thornton's first example, dated 1856, shows a variant spelling, /shuyster/, thus indicating that it was then recent. All subsequent examples show the present spelling. It is to be noted that the suffix /-ster/ is not uncommon in English, and that it usually carries a deprecatory significance, as in /trickster/, /punster/, /gamester/, etc. [36] The use of /dumb/ for stupid is widespread in the United States. /Dumb-head/, obviously from the German /dummkopf/, appears in a list of Kansas words collected by Judge J. C. Ruppenthal, of Russell, Kansas. (/Dialect Notes/, vol. iv, pt. v, 1916, p. 322.) It is also noted in Nebraska and the Western Reserve, and is very common in Pennsylvania. /Uhrgucker/ (=/uhr-gucken/) is also on the Kansas list of Judge Ruppenthal. [37] English As We Speak It in Ireland, 2nd ed.; London and Dublin, 1910, pp. 179-180.