not pronounce the /r/ ...; just as certainly the majority of educated Americans pronounce it distinctly."[83] Henry James, visiting the United States after many years of residence in England, was much harassed by this persistent /r/-sound, which seemed to him to resemble "a sort of morose grinding of the back teeth."[84] So sensitive to it did he become that he began to hear where it was actually non-existent, save as an occasional barbarism, for example, in /Cuba-r/, /vanilla-r/ and /California-r/. He put the blame for it, and for various other departures from the strict canon of contemporary English, upon "the American common school, the American newspaper, and the American Dutchman and Dago." Unluckily for his case, the full voicing of the /r/ came into American long before the appearance of any of these influences. The early colonists, in fact, brought it with them from England, and it still prevailed there in Dr. Johnson's day, for he protested publicly against the "rough snarling sound" and led the movement which finally resulted in its extinction.[85] Today, extinct, it is mourned by English purists, and the Poet Laureate denounces the clergy of the Established Church for saying "the /sawed/ of the /Laud/" instead of "the sword of the Lord."[86] But even in the matter of elided consonants American is not always the conservator. We cling to the /r/, we preserve the final [Pg172] /g/, we give /nephew/ a clear /f/-sound instead of the clouded English /v/-sound, and we boldly nationalize /trait/ and pronounce its final /t/, but we drop the second /p/ from /pumpkin/ and change the /m/ to /n/, we change the /ph/(=/f/)-sound to plain /p/ in /diphtheria/, /diphthong/ and /naphtha/,[87] we relieve /rind/ of its final /d/, and, in the complete sentence, we slaughter consonants by assimilation. I have heard Englishmen say /brand-new/, but on American lips it is almost invariably /bran-new/. So nearly universal is this nasalization in the United States that certain American lexicographers have sought to found the term upon /bran/ and not upon /brand/. Here the national speech is powerfully influenced by Southern dialectical variations, which in turn probably derive partly from French example and partly from the linguistic limitations of the negro. The latter, even after two hundred years, has great difficulties with our consonants, and often drops them. A familiar anecdote well illustrates his speech habit. On a train stopping at a small station in Georgia a darkey threw up a window and yelled "Wah ee?" The reply from a black on the platform was "Wah oo?" A Northerner aboard the train, puzzled by this inarticulate dialogue, sought light from a Southern passenger, who promptly translated the first question as "Where is he?" and the second as "Where is who?" A recent viewer with alarm[88] argues that this conspiracy against the consonants is spreading, and that English printed words no longer represent the actual sounds of the American language.