“Do you know the locus classicus of that exquisitely American intransitive verb, to absquatulate?” I am often asked. “Prefix, ab- as in from or out of; root, squat– from the reflexive verb, to seat oneself upon the hams or haunches; suffix -ulare, emulating other Latinate infinitives such as ‘to emulate’? Literally, to depart dragging one’s hindquarters; colloquially, to haul a** or tuck tail and skedaddle; literarily, to hasten away abjectly; melodramatically, to abscond in shame?”
“I believe I do,” is my unwavering reply, though these things are, of course, subject to eternal debate among those who care. “It is to be found on the second page of the Gold Hill Daily News in the Comstock, Nevada Territory, May 30, 1864.”
Some background and context are called for. In September 1862, Samuel Clemens, not yet boasting his soon-to-be famous nom de plume “Mark Twain,” walked into the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise office and started work as a reporter at $25 a week. In Virginia City, Twain would later write, “There were military companies, fire companies, brass bands, banks, hotels, theatres, ‘hurdy-gurdy houses,’ wide-gambling palaces, political powwows, civic processions, street fights, murders, inquests, riots, [and] a whisky mill every fifteen steps.”
