"mashmallow", the confection

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Fri Nov 5 14:46:05 UTC 2010


At 11/5/2010 03:20 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 2:16 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
> > City Gazette and Daily Advertiser [_Charleston, S.C._], 1802 Dec. 30,
> > page 1.  Advertisement.
> >
> > "Magazine of the Lombards.  Mr Hennequin Olman, Confectioner &
> > Distiller ... [has] a variety of the most delicious Pastils and
> > Sweet-Meats ... introduced into this city by himself, from Jamaica
> > and Cape-Francois ... / Paste of Gouiave, from the Havanna / Do. do.
> > of Marsh-_mellow_ / Marmalade of Apples ..."
>
>Noting the place of publication and adding the simplifying assumption
>that "marsh-mellow" was pronounced ['ma:S,mEl@], it's the same
>pronunciation that I grew up using 140 years later, in Texas.

But we had "mashes" in eastern Massachusetts, 270 years ago, when one
might hold horse races on "Rumly-Mash Beach".  Later known as "Rumney
Marsh", and presently part of Revere and Saugus.  (I don't know if
mash-mellows were grown there.)

Joel


>--
>-Wilson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list