The American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United StatesMencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
General
The American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States
Mencken, H. L. (Henry Louis)
Americanisms; English language; Names -- United States; Names, Personal -- United States
In England a /hack/ is not a public coach, but a horse let out at
hire, or one of similar quality. A life insurance policy is usually
not an insurance policy at all, but an /assurance/ policy. What we
call the normal income tax is the /ordinary/ tax; what we call the
surtax is the /supertax/.[10] An Englishman never lives /on/ a street,
but always /in/ it. He never lives in a /block/ of houses, but in a
/row/; it is never in a /section/ of the city, but always in a
/district/. Going home by train he always takes the /down-train/, no
matter whether he be proceeding southward to Wimbleton, [Pg110]
westward to Shepherd's Bush, northward to Tottenham or eastward to
Noak's Hill. A train headed toward London is always an /up-train/, and
the track it runs on is the /up-line/. /Eastbound/ and /westbound/
tracks and trains are unknown in England. When an Englishman boards a
bus it is not at a /street-corner/, but at a /crossing/, though he is
familiar with such forms as Hyde Park /Corner/. The place he is bound
for is not three /squares/ or /blocks/ away, but three /turnings/.
/Square/, in England, always means a small park. A backyard is a
/garden/. A subway is always a /tube/, or the /underground/, or the
/Metro/. But an underground passage for pedestrians is a /subway/.
English streets have no /sidewalks/; they always call them /pavements/
or /footways/. An automobile is always a /motor-car/ or /motor/.
/Auto/ is almost unknown, and with it the verb /to auto/. So is
/machine/. So is /joy-ride/.
An Englishman always calls russet, yellow or tan shoes /brown/ shoes
(or, if they cover the ankle, /boots/). He calls a pocketbook a
/purse/, and gives the name of /pocketbook/ to what we call a
/memorandum-book/. His walking-stick is always a /stick/, never a
/cane/. By /cord/ he means something strong, almost what we call
/twine/; a thin cord he always calls a /string/; his /twine/ is the
lightest sort of /string/. When he applies the adjective /homely/ to a
woman he means that she is simple and home-loving, not necessarily
that she is plain. He uses /dessert/, not to indicate the whole last
course at dinner, but to designate the fruit only; the rest is /ices/
or /sweets/. He uses /vest/, not in place of /waistcoat/, but in place
of /undershirt/. Similarly, he applies /pants/, not to his trousers,
but to his drawers. An Englishman who inhabits bachelor quarters is
said to live in /chambers/; if he has a flat he calls it a /flat/, and
not an /apartment/;[11] /flat-houses/ are often /mansions/. The
janitor or superintendent thereof is a /care-taker/. The scoundrels
who snoop around in search of divorce evidence are not /private
detectives/, but /private enquiry agents/. [Pg111]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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