Word of the day: druthers
There’s an English phrase — primarily an Americanism — that you may not have encountered, at least not recently. If I had my druthers, of course, people would still use it all the time, but its use has always tended to be regional (used more in the southern states), and like many regional variations, usage is dropping. Maybe as travel, relocation, and media all become more common and pervasive, the uniqueness of any single region tends to be homogenized away. But still, “if I had my druthers” — is the phrase I’m talking about.
“Having your druthers” means you have a preference. It’s sometimes written as “ruther” instead of “druther”, but its derivation is clearer with the leading “d.” It comes from “I’d rather,” and there’s also a more obscure form: “drather,” which seems like it might be the original. “Druther” first appeared in print in 1833 in the “American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine”. You can find some digitized copies of the magazine online, and it turns out that by “Turf Register” they’re not talking about categories of lawns; it’s about horses and horseracing, as well as other activities that I guess they found related in some way, like taking care of dogs.
“Druthers” is an unusual word because it changed from an adverb (actually an adverb phrase, “I would rather”) to a noun. It also has a mythical origin story believed by many (probably most) people at least at one time. The comic strip “L’il Abner” was published for 43 years (1934-1977) and had an enormous audience. It was set in “Dogpatch” and chronicled the adventures of the residents, who were “hillbillies.” The main character, L’il Abner himself, used the word “druthers” so often that readers thought Al Capp, the cartoonist, had invented the word. He did, in fact, invent some other words and “traditions” that entered the language and the culture, including “shmoo” and “Sadie Hawkins Day”, but not “druthers.”
“Rather”, the basis of “druthers” is interesting in its own way. It’s from Old English and was in those days just a form of a long-forgotten root word “rathe.” “Rathe” meant “quickly,” so “rather” meant “faster” or “sooner.” For example, you might say: “if we take this road to town we’ll pass that old barn rather than the little waterfall”. Nowadays that means there’s an option; you’ll pass the old barn instead of the little waterfall. But long ago it would have meant you’d pass them both, but you’d come to the old barn first (sooner).
Today “rather” has three general senses: contrast (passing one landmark “rather” than another), degree (that was a “rather” long walk to town), and preference (I’d “rather” walk to the park than the town). Everybody uses “rather,” but of course you can make your own choice about whether you’d rather use “druthers.”
