The AFU and Urban Legend Archive Books Legman arkansas pronunciation Select a topic - - - - - - - - Home Searches AFU FAQ - - - - - - - - AFU Animals Books Celebrities Classic Collegiate Death Disney Drugs Food GIF Language Legal Medical Misc Movies Politics Products Religion Science Sex Songs TV - - - - - - - - Other sites

From: lrudolph@panix.com (Lee Rudolph)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: ARKANSAS and KANSAS (difference in pronunciation)
Date: 15 Jan 1997 12:16:57 -0500

In alt.usage.english (note new crosspost and followup), slhinton17@aol.com (SLHinton17) writes:

>Re Arkansas, there's a little book, *Fabulous Facts About the 50 States*
>(by Ross and Cummings, Scholastic Book Services) which states "Arkansas
>is the only state to ,passa resolution on the right way to say its name --
>'Ark-an-saw.'" I've known several people from there who call themselves
>"Arkansawyers."

The following lengthy quotation from pp. 755-757 of G. Legman's Second Series of _Rationale of the Dirty Joke_ (with an embedded lengthy quotation from Vance Randolph's _Pissing in the Snow_) confirms both points, FWIW.

---begin quotation---

Nothing circulated in print in America can compare, for total dysphemistic mocking and dirtying of every possible authorityfigure, totem, and symbol presumably held sacred at the patriotic level, with the famous Ozark recitation known as "Change the Name of Arkansaw?!" which has circulated orally at least since the 1880's throughout the United States. This achieves its unquestioned humor by building up, with bawdy tall-talk and insults throughout, to an anal-sadistic climax in which flag, country, and all its great men and monuments are torn down and literally shat upon, under the purposely ludicrous pretext of preventing the name of the great state of Arkansas - the 19th century's laughing-stock state - from being mispronounced ArKANsas, instead of ARKansaw.

All public printings of this recitation in magazine and book form - mostly in backwoods kitsch publications about Arkansas - are heavily expurgated, the weakest text being that in John Gunther's _Inside U.S.A. (1947) p. 764. One honorable exception is the entire chapter devoted to Change the Name of Arkansaw?!" in James R. Masterson's pioneeringly unexpurgated _Tall Tales of Arkansaw_ (Boston: Chapman & Grimes, 1942) chap. 13, "Hell, No!" pages 180- 85, with the authentic texts given in the notes, p. 352-8. The only unexpurgated printing of this recitation at the popular level has been in the form of a small anonymous broadside containing this text only, which, according to a pencilled note on the only-known copy, in the files of the Arkansas History Commission, was distributed to edify and ennoble the patriotic sentiments of the super-patriotic American Legion at its New York convention in 1937. No more perfect example of Freud's `Return of the Repressed' could be probably ever be found than these auspices for such a text - as will be seen.

Rather than reprint here any of James R. Masterson's texts of "Change the Name of Arkansaw?!" it seems more useful to print a form given only in manuscript in Vance Randolph's 'Unprintable' Ozark collection, Pissing in the Snow, and other Ozark folktales (Ms. 1954) No. 69, as "Senator Johnson's Great Speech," and collected from a gentleman in Little Rock, 1949, who 'had a manuscript copy of the speech, but recited the whole thing from memory.' This manuscript copy was apparently being committed to memory) with the final text given by Masterson, p. 354-5, stating that this was sent him by Miss Nancy Clemens of the family of Mark Twain. It also seems quite possible that Twain may have been the author of the original - which is extremely similar to the expurgated contest in brag that precedes the fight on the raft in Twain's _Life on the Mississippi_ in 1883.

Here is Randolph's field-collected text of 1949. In this the opening and closing paragraphs, given in roman type, are not part of the recitation itself, but are this particular reciter's personal introduction and conclusion. Another such reciter - who also stated, apocryphally, that 'this is taken down on the legislative rolls...under the date Of July 23rd, 1867' - gave as his introduction: 'This is what the home-town boy [the speaker] had to say. I think first he pulled out his horse-pistol and laid it across his desk so he wouldn't be interrupted.'

One time there was a goddam Yankee moved to Arkansas, and got elected to the Legislature. The first thing he done was put in a bill to make Arkansas rhyme with Kansas, just because it is spelled that way. The Arkansawyers got pretty mad, of course, so they begun to stomp and holler. There was one old man that hollered louder than anybody else, and finally the rest of 'em quietened down to hear what he had to say.

"Mister Speaker, God damn your soul," says he, I've been trying to get the floor for thirty minutes, but all you do is squirm around like a dog with a flea in his ass! I'm Senator Cassius M. Johnson from Johnson county, where we raise men with peckers on, and the women are glad of it. Why, gentlemen, at the tender age of sixteen them girls can throw their left tit over their right shoulder, and squirt milk up their ass-hole as the occasion demands! When I was fourteen years old my prick was as big as a roasting-ear, the pride and joy of the whole goddam settlement. Gentlemen, I could piss hall-way across the Ouachita!"

Everybody clapped when they heard that, but the Speaker begun to holler "Out of order! Out of order! and pound on his desk.

"You're goddam right it was out of order," says Senator Johnson, "Otherwise I could have pissed clear across the son-of-a-bitch! That's the kind of folks we raise in Johnson county, gentlemen, and we ain't never been dictated to by nobody. And now comes this pusillanimous, blue-bellied Yankee who wants to change the name of Arkansas. Why, Mr. Speaker, he compares the great state of Arkansas to KANSAS! You might as well liken the noonday sun in all its glory to the feeble glow of a lightning-bug's ass, or the fragrance of an American Beauty rose to the foul quintessence of a Mexican burro's fart! Can all the power of this Assembly enlargen the puny penis of a Peruvian prince to a ponderous pagan prick, or the tiny testicles of a Turkish tyrant to the bulky bollyx of a Roman gladiator? Change the name of Arkansas? Great God Almighty damn! No, gentlemen! Hell fire, no!

What the God dam hell is things a-coming to, anyhow? Why, gentlemen, it's got so a man can't take down his pants for a good country shit without getting his ass full of birdshot. Change the name of Arkansas? Great God Almighty damn! You may piss on Jefferson's grave, gentlemen. You may shit down the White House steps, and use the Declaration of Independence for a corncob. You may rape the Goddess of Liberty at high noon, and wipe your tallywhacker on the Star Spangled Banner. You may do all this, gentlemen, and more. But you can't change the name of Arkansas! Not while one Patriot lives to prevent such desecration! Change the name of Arkansas? Hell fire, no!

History don't tell us what happened after that, but everybody knows the Yankee's bill was killed, dead as a whore's turd in a piss-pot. Them sons-of- a-bitches up North think the whole thing was just a joke, and some of 'em claim Senator Johnson didn't make no speech at all. But every true-blooded Arkansawyer knows that Senator Cassius M. Johnson jumped into the breach that day, to save the Bear State from treason and disgrace. We ain't going to forget it, neither.

Unfortunately, as both Masterson and Randolph are forced to observe, there is no official record of an Arkansas State Senator named Cassius M. Johnson, nor any evidence that such a speech was ever actually made. It is a fact, however, that the pronunciation as ARKansaw - with the spelling: Arkansas - was formally established by the State Legislature in 1881, which is doubtless about the date when this burlesque oration was created, whether by Mark Twain or some lesser humorist forever anonymous. (As to the real controversy concerning the pronunciation of the state name, see the full documentation by Allen Walker Read, in _American Speech_, 1933, VIII. 42-6.)

---end quotation---

Lee Rudolph

Article 304330 of alt.folklore.urban:
Path: newsgate.duke.edu!agate!howland.erols.net!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.idt.net!cdc2.cdc.net!news.texas.net!news1.best.com!nntp1.best.com!usenet From: george@apan.org.NO_UCE (George Byrd)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: ARKANSAS and KANSAS (difference in pronunciation)
Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 22:29:37 GMT
Organization: AIDS Prevention Action Network (APAN), Inc. Lines: 65
Message-ID: <5bjlg0$ipa@nntp1.best.com> References: <1997Jan13.145015.1@ahecas> <19970114175800.MAA29223@ladder01.news.aol.com> <5bj3e9$5ck@panix.com> Reply-To: george@apan.org.SPAM_NOT
NNTP-Posting-Host: jt4rigs.vip.best.com X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82

In <alt.folklore.urban>, 15 Jan 1997 12:16:57 -0500, On "Re: ARKANSAS and KANSAS (difference in pronunciation)", <lrudolph@panix.com (Lee Rudolph)> wrote:

> [. . .] It is a fact, however, that the
>pronunciation as ARKansaw - with the spelling: Arkansas - was
>formally established by the State Legislature in 1881, which is
>doubtless about the date when this burlesque oration was created,
>whether by Mark Twain or some lesser humorist forever anonymous.
>(As to the real controversy concerning the pronunciation of the
>state name, see the full documentation by Allen Walker Read, in
>_American Speech_, 1933, VIII. 42-6.)

According to Fred W. Allsop, in _Folklore_of_Romantic_Arkansas_, (1931, The Grolier Society), Vol. 1, pp 35-36, a Concurrent Resolution of the Arkansas State Legislature in 1881 declared that the only correct pronunciation was (resolution, as quoted by Allsop):

"that received by the French from the Native Indians, and committed in writing by the French word representing the sound; and in accordance with same it should be pronounced in three syllables, with the final 's' silent, the 'a' in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first and last syllables."

Allsop also notes, "This was the pronunciation usually observed by natives from the beginning, but strangers generally pronounce the name 'Ar-kan-sas' with the accent on the second syllable."

FWIW, Allsop makes no mention of any Cassius Johnson, but Johnson County was indeed named for a prominent politician.

Arkansas journalist Ernie Dean, in _Arkansas_Place_Names_ (The Ozarks Mountaineer, Branson, Mo., 1986, no ISBN#), does note (I synopsize):

Johnson County was formed in 1833 from a portion of Pope County, and named for a judge, Benjamin Johnson, a Kentucky native appointed to the Arkansas Territorial Superior Court by Pres. James Monroe.

"Johnson was a prominent member of the Conway-Rector-Johnson political machine."

Dean further notes:

"Johnson County, in Arkansas folklore, has achieved a certain distinction as the home of the noted - but fictitious - orator, Senator Cassius Johnson. He is erroneously credited with having orated with great fervor and vulgarity on the question of 'Change the name of Arkansaw?' By legendary account, the Arkansas legislature had under consideration a proposal to change the pronunciation of Arkansaw to Ar-kansas, as in Kansas, a change that 'Senator Johnson' so vigorously opposed."

HTH

George "prefer 'Bug Scuffle Church' myself"

--
Opinions above are NOT those of APAN, Inc.and are NOT legal advice.

"I am not arguing with you -- I am telling you." << J. McN. Whistler, _The_Gentle_Art_of_Making_Enemies_ >>