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
/Foreign Observers/--What English and American laymen have thus
observed has not escaped the notice of continental philologists. The
first edition of Bartlett, published in 1848, brought forth a long and
critical review in the /Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen
und Literaturen/ by Prof. Felix Flügel,[31] and in the successive
volumes of the /Archiv/, down to our own day, there have been many
valuable essays upon Americanisms, by such men as Herrig, Koehler and
Koeppel. Various Dutch philologists, among them Barentz, Keijzer and
Van der Voort, have also discussed the subject, and a work in French
has been published by G. A. Barringer.[32] That, even to the lay
Continental, American and English now differ considerably, is
demonstrated by the fact that many of the popular German
/Sprachführer/ appear in separate editions, /Amerikanisch/ and
/Englisch/. This is true of the "Metoula Sprachführer" published by
Prof. F. Lanenscheidt[33] and of the "Polyglott Kuntz" books.[34] The
American edition of the latter starts off with the doctrine that
"/Jeder, der nach Nord-Amerika oder Australien will, muss Englisch
können/," but a great many of the words and phrases that appear in its
examples would be unintelligible to many Englishmen--/e.g./,
/free-lunch/, /real-estate agent/, /buckwheat/, /corn/ (for /maize/),
/conductor/, /pop-corn/ and /drug-store/--and a number of others would
suggest false meanings or otherwise puzzle--/e. g./, /napkin/,
/saloon/, /wash-stand/, /water-pitcher/ and /apple-pie/.[35] To
[Pg019] these pedagogical examples must be added that of Baedeker, of
guide-book celebrity. In his guide-book to the United States, prepared
for Englishmen, he is at pains to explain the meaning of various
American words and phrases.
A philologist of Scandinavian extraction, Elias Molee, has gone so far
as to argue that the acquisition of correct English, to a people grown
so mongrel in blood as the Americans, has become a useless burden. In
place of it he proposes a mixed tongue, based on English, but
admitting various elements from the other Germanic languages. His
grammar, however, is so much more complex than that of English that
most Americans would probably find his artificial "American" very
difficult of acquirement. At all events it has made no progress.[36]
§ 5
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