This interesting article details the saga of the American bison — colloquially known as the buffalo — in the United States. I transcribed it for the blog in Anniversary Gregg.
Attachment: the-unvanished-american.pdf
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Well, that was an exciting read – in several places at least.
I could not find an online version of Mr Fenimore's article, so I have more questions than I'd like to trouble you with, though some are just a clarification on names. The first one is on the first line.
(1) p1c1l1: "is one of the ? creatures"
(2) p2c1l5: "it was a ? they'll never forget" (The only word I could guess was "spectacle" but my dictionary did not show that.)
(3) p3c1l4: Is the first word "medicine"? (It seems a strange word to use in that context.)
(4)(5) p3c1 lines 20/21: "near Oxford Nebrasca a ? ? owned a"
(6) p4c1l12: " ? ? in Mexico"
(7)(8) P5c118: is it South Caralolina? (My book only showed the abbreviation S.C.) And what is the last word on that line?
(9) p5c2l19: "natural enemy was ? nature itself"
(10) p6c1l5: just to get the name right — I guessed "Shine Wells" (?)
(11) p6c2l14: "darker and more ? buffalo"
(12) p6c2l17: "mountains of central(?) ? "
(13) p7c2l17: I presume this is "Central Pacific" but I am not familiar with American railroads.
(14) p8c2l20 "Eastern states.) ? voices were"
(15) p9c9l8: again I guess the railroad to be "Union Pacific"
(16) p9c1l15: " ? hunters"
(17) p10c1l10: " ? a private herd"
(18) p10c2l18: Is the word "didn't"? I've always omitted the "e". Would that be bad? (And by the way, two lines earlier "to behave"; when studying Psychology, and during my Simplified Gregg period, I used just b-v for behavior.)
(19) p11c2l6: "and six thousand ? "
It was a real page-turner. But I didn't realise that Buffaloes were so dumb!
Actually, bison are more intelligent than cattle, but like all wildlife, it's better to keep them at a distance!
This article had lots of phrases, and some of the outlines you were wondering about were phrases:
Page 1 column 1 line 1: "orneriest"
Page 2 column 1 line 5: "experience"
Page 3 column 1 line 4: Yes, in this case "bad medicine."
Page 3 column 1 lines 20/21: "near Oxford, Nebraska, a number of years ago. Cole owned a six-year-old"
Page 4 column 1 line 12: "Montezuma's zoo in Mexico"
Page 5 column 1 line 18: Yes, South Carolina. The last word is "Georgia" (I had forgotten the capitalization marks, so I added them.)
Page 5 column 2 line 19: "to some extent"
Page 6 column 1 line 5: "Cheyenne Wells", a small town in Colorado, near the Kansas border.
Page 6 column 2 line 14: "handsome"
Page 6 column 2 line 17: "Centre County", a county in Pennsylvania that includes the city of State College, home of Penn State University's main campus.
Page 7 column 2 line 17: "Kansas Pacific" (most of these railroads no longer exist). The KP eventually became part of the Union Pacific, which still operates in the US.
Page 8 column 2 line 20: "Here and there"
Page 9 column 1 line 8: Yes.
Page 9 column 1 line 15: "Hide" (I had forgotten the h-dot).
Page 10 column 1 line 10: "which had"
Page 10 column 2 line 18: No worries if you don't add the e to "didn't." The e is added to make it consistent with "did not", which as an e in Anniversary, so that it is not confused with “would not/wouldn’t.” The e was removed in Simplified and later. For "behave", as long as you don't confuse it with "before" I don't see an issue.
Page 11 column 2 line 6: "in the United States"
Thanks Carlos.
Well I should have got "experience" !!
But as for "orneriest" it was not in my Oxford English Dictionary. But I now see that in North America "ornery" means bad tempered or difficult to deal with — very appropriate for a buffalo. (I will try to find a use for it if cross the Atlantic!)
As you see, I find phrases hard to read and I only use simple ones in writing — though I am adding to them as I find more which come naturally.
Things like didn't, wouldn't, would-not, do-not, don't etc I also find hard. Even after trying to make a table of all the variants, no underlying pattern seems to emerge.
(As for behave, I always emphasis it with a long "v".)
Many thanks for your reply and the background details you gave.
Nick
You're welcome!