Melvyn Bragg book

[Baker, John]

        According to an essay at http://www.compedit.com/native_humor.htm, there is a contemporaneous story in which Crockett calls a spittoon "a beautiful tin box with a leetle hole in the top of it" and refuses to use it, spitting on what he calls a "splendiferous carpit" instead.  The essay's footnoting is garbled in the online version, but I believe that this may be cited to The Crockett Almanac for 1839 (Nashville: B. Harding), p. xx.

John Baker


In a message dated  Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:08:12 -0000,  Michael Quinion
<TheEditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG> writes

> [Melvyn Bragg] also states that Davy Crockett "was one of the first
exponents of
>  'Tall Talk' - using new words like 'skedaddle', 'hunky-dory' and
>  'splendiferous'". The OED has first examples of these from 1861, 1866
>  and 1843 respectively, while Crockett, of course, died at the Alamo
>  in 1836.
>
>  Crockett is not on record anywhere I've looked as employing any of
>  these words. Before I assert catagorically Bragg is wrong about this,
>  would anyone who knows different tell me where there's evidence that
>  Crockett did indeed use them?