In Charles street, in Baltimore, some time ago, the proprietor of a fashionable stationery store directed me, not to the elevator, but to the /lift/. Occasionally, some uncompromising patriot raises his voice against these importations, but he seldom shows the vigorous indignation of the English purists, and he seldom prevails. White, in 1870, warned Americans against the figurative use of /nasty/ as a synonym for /disagreeable/.[10] This use of the word was then relatively new in England, though, according to White, the /Saturday Review/ and the /Spectator/ had already succumbed. His objections to it were unavailing; /nasty/ quickly got into American and has been there ever since. In 1883 Gilbert M. Tucker protested against /good-form/, /traffic/ (in the sense of travel), /to bargain/ and /to tub/ as Briticisms that we might well do without, but all of them took root and are perfectly sound American today. There is, indeed, no intelligible reason why such English inventions and improvements should not be taken in, even though the motive behind the welcome to them may occasionally cause a smile. English, after all, is the mother of American, and the child, until lately, was still at nurse. The English, confronted by some of our fantastic innovations, may well regard them as impudences to be put down, but what they [Pg138] offer in return often fits into our vocabulary without offering it any outrage. American, indeed, is full of lingering Briticisms, all maintaining a successful competition with native forms. If we take back /shop/ it is merely taking back something that /store/ has never been able to rid us of: we use /shop-worn/, /shoplifter/, /shopping/, /shopper/, /shop-girl/ and /to shop/ every day. In the same way the word /penny/ has survived among us, despite the fact that there has been no American coin of that name for more than 125 years. We have /nickel-in-the-slot/ machines, but when they take a cent we call them /penny-in-the-slot/ machines. We have /penny-arcades/ and /penny-whistles/. We do not play /cent/-ante, but /penny/-ante. We still "turn an honest /penny/" and say "a /penny/ for your thoughts." The pound and the shilling became extinct a century ago, but the penny still binds us to the mother tongue. § 2