| 词汇 | powder river let ’er buck |
| 词源 | Powder River! Let ’er buck! A slogan of encouragement used since about 1893, when it was said to have originated as a joke by a cowboy who drove horses across the almost dry Powder River near Casper, Wyoming. It later became a battle cry among Wyoming volunteers and then all troops in the Argonne dur- ing World War I. There is controversy about the phrase, some contending that it first applied to the Platte River, not the Pow- der River. As a character notes in James A. Michener’s Centen- nial (1974): “The full challenge was ‘Powder River, let ’er buck. A mile wide and an inch deep. Too thin to plow, too thick to drink. Runs uphill all the way from Texas.’ Today, wherever rodeos are held, the cowboy who draws the toughest bronco shouts as he leaves the chute, ‘Powder River! Let ’er buck!’ So do drunks entering strange bars . . . Wyoming is divided across the middle on this one. Those in the north are sure that the phrase belongs to the Powder; those in the south claim it for their Platte, and each side is ready to fight. My own guess is that the words go far back in history and were probably applied to the Platte years before the Powder was discovered. But I am not brave enough to say so in print.” |
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