Reader Response: A Critique of the Swenson/McCafferty Linguistic Analysis of the Word "Chicago"

• Published in: Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998) Vol. 97; no. 2; pp. 169 - 185
• Main Author: Weber, Carl J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Springfield Illinois State Historical Society 01.07.2004
• Subjects: Dictionaries; Etymology; Garlic; Lakes; Linguistics; Museums; Onions; Place names; Reading; Society of Jesus; Valleys; Words; Mississippi; Illinois; Chicago Illinois
• ISSN: 1522-1067; 2328-3335

Native Americans had a penchant in their naming practices for communicating "geophysical, spiritual, biological, or ethnonymic information" as the most salient features of their practices. Why this entire "vital cultural element" argument fails is found by way of the answer to the query, "Why name the place after the onions?" The Swenson/McCafferty smelly onion theory rests on the importance of this plant to the well being of the Indians and French. Nearly a century before Swenson wrote, the plant had been identified by Kirkland.17 Kirkland provides an illustration of the plant, provides the Latin nomenclature of this allium (albeit with a misspelling), and he specifies, "the wild onion, leek or garlic, 'Chicagou.'" My thoughts are that Kirkland's works, found for more than a century in the Chicago Public Library and all the regional reference libraries, is the primary source for the smelly onion/garlic/leek theory in the twentieth century.18 McCafferty explains that the plant did not have to grow "everywhere [McCafferty's emphasis] along a river or a lake [in order to name the body of water], but that it only had to grow in eye-catching abundance at some point(s). McCafferty attempts to circumvent the implications by saying that "abusive" written next to the "skunk" word used for the plant "is no doubt a slang term for the same plant," and leaves it at that.36 As much as the onion theorists would like to make a connection between the Allium tricoccum and the place name, there is only one bit of evidence, Joutel's, that connects the place name with the plant, and it is seriously flawed.