Guess

Used by Hampole, Chaucer, Wiclif, and Gower: see N.E.D. Mr. Lowell, in his Introduction to the ‘Biglow Papers,’ writes: “I have never seen any passage adduced where guess was used as the Yankee uses it. The word was familiar in the mouths of our ancestors, but with a different shade of meaning from that we have given it, which is something like rather think, though the Yankee implies a confident certainty by it when he says ‘I guess I du!’”

1798.  I guess my husband won’t object to my taking one, if they are good and cheap.—Mass. Spy, Feb. 2.

1815.  You may hear [a Southerner] say “I count”—“I reckon”—“I calculate”; but you would as soon hear him blaspheme as guess.—Mass. Spy, Nov. 8.

1816.  When I pass a house, and see the yard covered with stumps, old hoops, and broken earthen, I guess the man is a horse-jockey, and the woman a spinner of street-yarn.—Mass. Spy, March 6: from The Visitor.

1816.  It seems to be so generally conceded that [Mr. Monroe], the hero of Bladensburg, will be the next President, that there is hardly room for Yankee guessing about it.—Id., Sept. 4.

1816.  The truth is, we Virginians are no less fond of guessing than our Yankee brethren.—Letter to the same, Sept. 11.

1818.  My boss, I guess, ordered me to turn out every coloured man from the store right away. [For fuller quotation see BOSS.]—H. B. Fearon, ‘Sketches of America,’ p. 59 (Lond.).

1818.  [An old woman who kept a tavern in Long Island loq.:] What do you want with a public-house? What is your name? Where are you going? You are from York, I guess. You want a bed, I guess. Now I guess, if you be not a hard character, I will let you have elegant lodgings.—Id., p. 66.

1822.  

1823.  “I guess,” says he, “that we Ohio folk do not manage potatoes as well as they do in Ireland and England.”—W. Faux, ‘Memorable Days in America,’ p. 177 (Lond.).

1841.  As there are a good many Yankees around and about me, I will venture a few guesses as to the manner in which the “secret service money” is applied. I guess a portion of it is applied to purchasing wines and suppers to regale party leaders during their nocturnal deliberations. I guess a portion of it goes to pay political drill sergeants for their services in running from post to post, in drumming up the people, in making stump speeches, and in distributing circulars and documents. I guess a portion of it goes to pay for gingerbread and liquor, and in some cases direct bribery. Here is so much for your vote. Give the vote and take the money. I guess a good deal of it goes to pay the printer. And then the character of the publications which he furnishes for the money!—Mr. Underwood of Kentucky, House of Repr., Feb. 20: Cong. Globe, p. 343, App.

1842.  Let Pennsylvania, with her forty millions, and Maryland, and Indiana, repudiate, and so on and so on, and by that time I guess we shall know something of the merits of repudiation.—Mr. Arnold of Tennessee, the same, July 2: id., p. 573, App.

1849.  If the proposition were adopted, he reckoned, yea, being a Yankee, he guessed, that the House would have … much trouble.—Mr. Root of Ohio, the same, Dec. 13: id., p. 26.

1857.  I am a Yankee guesser; and I guess that James Buchanan has ordered this Expedition to appease the wrath of the angry hounds who are howling around him.—Brigham Young, July 26: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ v. 77.

1888.