A DIALECT WORD

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 124, 21 November 1925, Page 16

A DIALECT WORD

WHERE DID "HIKING" COME FBOM? A genuine American has aomething to say one the subject of "noting" in the "Manchester Guardian": —"In America a hike is no ramble. It is not 'a pleasant discursive walk,' but a long and strenuous expedition. Moreover, the word was not originally applied in my country, the United States, to a pedestrian journey. Fifty years ago ' hiking' was the name of a peculiar form of boat-racing. In such races small boats of fishermen were equipped with huge sails, far out of proportion to the size of the boats. The crafts were manned with adventurous spirits who, to ballast the boat, would cling to beams projecting over the water on cither side. This was good fun when tho boat was flying before the wind, but when tho boat had to come round the human ballast must do some likely scrambling. 'Going a-hiking' became synonymous with great speed, and on this account, I suppose, tho word was gradually transferred to a walk which covered much ground at a fast pace. The fact that the word was formerly nautical makes it possible that it was born in England, and was, like so many odd words called ' American,' brought over to America by our English ancestors. A reference to Murray's Dictionary would probably settle that question."

If Murray bo taken as the test (says the "Guardian"), the question is soon settled, for the Oxford English Dictionary has no reference ■ to "hike" at all in its pages. Nor, for that matter, has the massive CenturyDictionary, which is an American ■work. The Standard (another American compilation) says that a "hike* is "a weary journey on foot (local U. 5.," and Webster defines the word as "dialect or colloquial," meaning "to march laboriously." The real way of testing whether these transAtlantic words arc genuino revivals or not is to turn to Dr. Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary. That establishes "hike" as an old enough word in English dialect, meaning in its first sense to hoist or to move with a jcrlt. But towards the end of its meanings Wright also gives "to move suddenly or hastily; to go away." "Hike" in the newer American sense is obviously based upon this usage. It is.(mother word which wont ovor to Amcriuu. from tUo ISiigliah countryside.