Chrysti The Wordsmith: Goldrush - 1

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith from Montana State University in Bozeman on January 24th 1848 a carpenter named John Wilson Marshall found nuggets of gold in the American River just west of the present day city of Sacramento California. Marshall who had been hired by one John Sutter to build a sawmill on the river presented the nuggets to his employer secretly the two entered into a mining partnership but the sawmill laborers soon began to discover their own flakes of gold in the water. The discovery of the precious metal didn't remain a secret for long. By the spring of 1849 the largest gold rush in American history was underway. News of plentiful gold brought hundreds of thousands of prospectors from all parts of the world to the California mountains. The Gold Rush changed American finance politics and history. It influenced American English as well. The now common expressions to pan out and to strike it rich and hit paydirt and stake a claim are linguistic inventions of California miners gold rush activity also contributed

the terms bedrock and levis to the American English vocabulary. Join me on the next few words with additions when we'll look at words and expressions inspired by the California gold rush of 1849. I'm Christie the wordsmith. This series is produced and recorded in the studios of KGO L.T. FM on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman. The Dave herbivores Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry Web dot com.