Below you'll find a few expressions I found interesting while going through Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms ©1859 Bartlett's not only gives a brief description about the quote but if there is a source they provide it as well.
Huckleberry Above The Persimmon. To be a huckleberry above one's persimmon is a Southern phrase,
meaning to be above one's ability.
The way he and his companions used to destroy the beasts of the forests was huckleberry above the persimmon of any native in the country. — Thorpe, Backwoods, p. 166.
Basswood. (Tilia americana.) A tree resembling the European lime or linden; from the use of its inner bark for making mats or cordage, the tree is also called bast or bass. The name, however, is now obsolete in England. In the United States it is also called White-wood.
From the idea of pliability (both in the bark and wood), the name of the tree is made a reproach in the following extract from one of Brigham Young's "sermons!"
I say, as the Lord lives, we are bound to become a sovereign State in the Union, or an independent nation by ourselves ; and let them drive us from this place if they can, — they cannot do it. I do not throw this out as a banter. You Gentiles and hickory and basswood Mormons can write it down, if you please; but write it as I speak it.
Distressed. (Pron. dis-tress'-ed.) Miserable, wretched. "Distressed man!" was, and perhaps is, a favorite exclamation with ladies at the North.
"Why," said the peddler to the Widow Bedott, who had selected an article for her wedding dress, "abody'd think 'twas some everlastin' old maid, instead of a handsome young widder that had chosen such a distressed thing for a weddin' dress."— Widow Bedott Papers, p. 113.
Do Tell! A vulgar exclamation common in New England, and synonymous with really! indeed! is it possible!
A bright-eyed little demoiselle from Virginia came running into the dairy of a country-house in New Hampshire, at which her mother was spending the summer, with a long story about a most beautiful butterfly she had been chasing; and the dairy-maid, after hearing the story through, exclaimed, Do tell! The child immediately repeated the story, and the good-natured maid, aflcr hearing it through a second time, exclaimed again, in a tone of still greater wonder, Do tell! A third time the story was told, and the third time came the exclamation of wonder, Do tell! The child's spirits were dashed, and she went to her mother with a sad tale about Ruth's teasing her; while poor Ruth said that "those daown country gals were so strange; keep telling me the same thing over and over, —I never see any thing like it l"—N. Y. Com. Adv.
Oak Barrens. Straggling forests of oak trees, where the soil is very poor, and the trees small, stunted, and gnarled. The oak barrens differ from the " oak openings," inasmuch as the latter are usually on good soil, and hence thrifty.
Our march to-day lay through straggling forests of the kind of low, scrubbed trees, called post-oaks and black-jacks. The soil of these oak barrens is loose and unsound; being little better than a mere quicksand; in which, in rainy weather, the horse's foot slips, and now and then sinks in a rotten, spongy turf, to the fetlock. — Irving's Tour on the Prairies, p. 95.
Shave Down. A riotous, boisterous dance, so called in the West. In the Eastern States, the Virginia reel, which generally closes a social ball or dancing party, is called a break-down.
An innocent countryman, on going to church in New York, heard, for the first time, before entering, the organ, from which he concluded that some sort of a "shave down" was about to commence. Just at that moment, a gentleman invited him to walk in and take a seat. "Not 'zactly, Mister — I ain't used to no such doin's on Sunday; and, besides, I don't dance!"
Shingle. A jocose term for a sign-board placed over a shop-door or office. The use of this term is said to have originated in the lumbering districts of Maine, where shingles, being the handiest plane surface, are used to write directions, etc., on, and stuck up against trees.
Doctors and dentists from the United States have stuck up their shingles in Mexico.— N. Y. Com. Adv., Dec. 24, 1848.
Several made bold to peep inside, in spite of the "No Admittance!" which frowned from a shingle over the door. —Drama at Pokerville.
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