Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker

Abstract

A GROUP of young men from universities in England visiting New York City not so long ago, surprised their New York hosts by being only indifferently interested in the sky-high structures of Manhattan, such as the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center. They seemed not to be awed or amazed by these wonders of America. Less visible but more audible curiosities attracted them. For one thing they were fascinated by the lingo and the agility of the American soda jerkers-perhaps none but American soda jerkers exist. Time after time, according to newspaper accounts, these young English scholars absented themselves from the tours arranged for their pursuit of the serious business of sight-seeing, in order to loiter in eating establishments and hear the camouflaged language spoken there, especially in the soda fountains and related joints of the American family of eat-a-terias. What they heard there, and the skill of the dispensers serving the colorfully named concoctions, provided an attraction much stronger than stone and concrete piled high. To foreigners in search of local American color, the soda fountains are as good as made to order. For the soda fountain has become an institution in this country like the public school, the movie, or baseball. One may drop into soda fountains in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix, or Tuscaloosa, and he will find them all pretty much alike in construction, in personnel, in their lists of servings, in their atmosphere, and in their lingo. Yet the current encyclopedias give very meager information on the subject and give no space to illustrations. If what the encyclopedias do say is accurate, the manufacture of soda water was begun in Europe, London perhaps or Paris, sometime early in the nineteenth century. But the marble soda fountain from beginning to the present has been a peculiarly American phenomenon. At first it was only a marble box containing an ice chest or compartment. From such a simple beginning it has expanded and developed into its present elaborate proportions. It may be said that all the important changes and improvements in the soda fountain have taken place in America. Eugene Roussel, proprietor of a perfumery establishment in Philadelphia, is reputed to have been the first to use fruit syrups with soda water, and John Matthews of New York was the first to start the business of manufacturing soda water apparatus. The Matthews equipment was strictly utilitarian. It remained