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
1. Archaisms, /i. e./, old English words, obsolete, or nearly so, in
England, but retained in use in this country.
2. English words used in a different sense from what they are in
England. These include many names of natural objects differently
applied.
3. Words which have retained their original meaning in the United
States, though not in England.
4. English provincialisms adopted into general use in America.
5. Newly coined words, which owe their origin to the productions or
to the circumstances of the country.
6. Words borrowed from European languages, especially the French,
Spanish, Dutch and German.
7. Indian words.
8. Negroisms.
9. Peculiarities of pronunciation.
Some time before this, but after the publication of Bartlett's first
edition in 1848, William C. Fowler, professor of rhetoric at Amherst,
devoted a brief chapter to "American Dialects" in his well-known work
on English[58] and in it one finds the following formidable
classification of Americanisms:
1. Words borrowed from other languages.
a. Indian, as /Kennebec/, /Ohio/, /Tombigbee/; /sagamore/,
/quahaug/, /succotash/.
b. Dutch, as /boss/, /kruller/, /stoop/.
c. German, as /spuke/ (?), /sauerkraut/.
d. French, as /bayou/, /cache/, /chute/, /crevasse/, /levee/.
e. Spanish, as /calaboose/, /chapparal/, /hacienda/, /rancho/,
/ranchero/.
f. Negro, as /buckra/.
2. Words "introduced from the necessity of our situation, in order
to express new ideas."
a. Words "connected with and flowing from our political
institutions," as /selectman/, /presidential/, /congressional/,
/caucus/, /mass-meeting/, /lynch-law/, /help/ (for /servants/).
b. Words "connected with our ecclesiastical institutions," as
/associational/, /consociational/, /to fellowship/, /to
missionate/.
c. Words "connected with a new country," as /lot/, /diggings/,
/betterments/, /squatter/.
3. Miscellaneous Americanisms.
a. Words and phrases become obsolete in England, as /talented/,
/offset/ (for /set-off/), /back and forth/ (for /backward and
forward/).
b. Old words and phrases "which are now merely provincial in
England," as /hub/, /whap/ (?), /to wilt/.
c. Nouns formed from verbs by adding the French suffix /-ment/,
as /publishment/, /releasement/, /requirement/.
d. Forms of words "which fill the gap or vacancy between two
words which are approved," as /obligate/ (between /oblige/ and
/obligation/) and /variate/ (between /vary/ and /variation/).
e. "Certain compound terms for which the English have different
compounds," as /bank-bill/, (/bank-note/), /book-store/
(/book-seller's shop/), /bottom-land/ (/interval land/),
/clapboard/ (/pale/), /sea-board/ (/sea-shore/), /side-hill/
(/hill-side/).
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