Metaphorical and odd expressions often originated in some curious anecdote or event, which was transmitted by tradition, and soon made the property of all. Political writers and stump speakers perform a prominent part in the invention and diffusion of these phrases. Among others may be mentioned: _To cave in_, _to acknowledge the corn_, _to flash in the pan_, _to bark up the wrong tree_, _to pull up stakes_, _to be a caution_, _to fizzle out_, _to flat out_, _to fix his flint_, _to be among the missing_, _to give him Jessy_, _to see the elephant_, _to fly around_, _to tucker out_, _to use up_, _to walk into_, _to mizzle_, _to absquatulate_, _to cotton_, _to hifer_, _&c._ Many have been adopted from the Indians; from corn, come, _samp_, _hominy_, _and sapawn_; from the manive plant, _mandioca_, _and tapioca_, and from articles peculiar to the aborigines, the words, _canoe_, _hammock_, _tobacco_, _mocassin_, _pemmican_, _barbecue_, _hurricane_, _pow-wow_. The Spaniards have contributed their share to the general stock, as _canyon_, _cavortin_, _chaparral_, _pistareen_, _rancho_, _vamos_. The French have also furnished many more, such as _cache_, _calaboose_, _bodette_, _bayou_, _sault_, _levee_, _crevasse_, _habitan_, _charivari_, _portage_.[5] The “Edinburgh Review,” for April, 1844, in an article on the provincialisms of the European languages, states the result of an inquiry into the number of provincial words which had then been arrested by local glossaries at 30,687. “Admitting that several of them are synonymous, superfluous, or common to each county, there are nevertheless many of them which, although alike orthographically, are vastly dissimilar in signification. Making these allowances, they amount to a little more than 20,000; or, according to the number of English counties hitherto illustrated, to the average ratio of 1478 to a county. Calculating the twenty-six unpublished in the same ratio, (for there are supposed to be as many words collected by persons who have never published them,) they will furnish 36,428 additional provincialisms, forming in the aggregate, 59,000 words in the colloquial tongue of the lower classes, which can, for the chief part, produce proofs of legitimate origin.” The process of coinage has been far more rapid and extensive in America than in Europe. That of words predominates in the Western, and that of phrases in the Eastern States. The chief peculiarity in the pronunciation of the Southern and Western people, is the giving of a broader sound than is proper to certain vowels; as _whar_ for _where_, _thar_ for _there_, _bar_ for _bear_.