at the broad /a/, in 1789, as an Anglomaniac affectation. In the
course of the next 25 years, however, he seems to have suffered a
radical change of mind, for in "The American Spelling Book," published
in 1817, he ordained it in /ask/, /last/, /mass/, /aunt/, [Pg095]
/grant/, /glass/ and their analogues, and in his 1829 revision he
clung to this pronunciation, beside adding /master/, /pastor/,
/amass/, /quaff/, /laugh/, /craft/, etc., and even /massive/. There is
some difficulty, however, in determining just what sound he proposed
to give the /a/, for there are several /a/-sounds that pass as broad,
and the two main ones differ considerably. One appears in /all/, and
may be called the /aw/-sound. The other is in /art/, and may be called
the /ah/-sound. A quarter of a century later Richard Grant White
distinguished between the two, and denounced the former as "a British
peculiarity." Frank H. Vizetelly, writing in 1917, still noted the
difference, particularly in such words as /daunt/, /saunter/ and
/laundry/. It is probable that Webster, in most cases, intended to
advocate the /ah/-sound, as in /father/, for this pronunciation now
prevails in New England. Even there, however, the /a/ often drops to a
point midway between /ah/ and /aa/, though never actually descending
to the flat /aa/, as in /an/, /at/ and /anatomy/.
But the imprimatur of the Yankee Johnson was not potent enough to stay
the course of nature, and, save in New England, the flat /a/ swept the
country. He himself allowed it in /stamp/ and /vase/. His successor
and rival, Lyman Cobb, decided for it in /pass/, /draft/, /stamp/ and
/dance/, though he kept to the /ah/-sound in /laugh/, /path/, /daunt/
and /saunter/. By 1850 the flat /a/ was dominant everywhere West of
the Berkshires and South of New Haven, and had even got into such
proper names as /Lafayette/ and /Nevada/.[41]
Webster failed in a number of his other attempts to influence American
pronunciation. His advocacy of /deef/ for /deaf/ had popular support
while he lived, and he dredged up authority for it out of Chaucer and
Sir William Temple, but the present pronunciation gradually prevailed,
though /deef/ remains familiar in the common speech. Joseph E.
Worcester and other rival lexicographers stood against many of his
pronunciations, and he took the field against them in the prefaces to
the successive editions of his spelling-books. Thus, in that to "The
Elementary Spelling [Pg096] Book," dated 1829, he denounced the
"affectation" of inserting a /y/-sound before the /u/ in such words as
/gradual/ and /nature/, with its compensatory change of /d/ into a
French /j/ and of /t/ into /ch/. The English lexicographer, John
Walker, had argued for this "affectation" in 1791, but Webster's
prestige, while he lived, remained so high in some quarters that he
carried the day, and the older professors at Yale, it is said,
continued to use /natur/ down to 1839.[42] He favored the
pronunciation of /either/ and /neither/ as /ee-ther/ and /nee-ther/,
and so did most of the English authorities of his time. The original
pronunciation of the first syllable, in England, probably made it
rhyme with /bay/, but the /ee/-sound was firmly established by the end
of the eighteenth century. Toward the middle of the following century,
however, there arose a fashion of an /ai/-sound, and this affectation
was borrowed by certain Americans. Gould, in the 50's, put the
question, "Why do you say /i/-ther and /ni/-ther?" to various
Americans. The reply he got was: "The words are so pronounced by the
best-educated people in England." This imitation still prevails in the
cities of the East. "All of us," says Lounsbury, "are privileged in
these latter days frequently to witness painful struggles put forth to
give to the first syllable of these words the sound of /i/ by those
who have been brought up to give it the sound of /e/. There is
apparently an impression on the part of some that such a pronunciation
establishes on a firm foundation an otherwise doubtful social
standing."[43] But the vast majority of Americans continue to say
/ee-ther/ and not /eye-ther/. White and Vizetelly, like Lounsbury,
argue that they are quite correct in so doing. The use of /eye-ther/,
says White, is no more than "a copy of a second-rate British
affectation."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In Studies in History; Boston, 1884.
[2] Benson J. Lossing: Our Country....; New York, 1879.
[3] The thing went, indeed, far beyond mere hope. In 1812 a conspiracy
was unearthed to separate New England from the republic and make it an
English colony. The chief conspirator was one John Henry, who acted
under the instructions of Sir John Craig, Governor-General of Canada.
[4] Maine was not separated from Massachusetts until 1820.
[5] /Vide/ Andrew Jackson...., by William Graham Sumner; Boston, 1883,
pp. 2-10.
[6] Indiana and Illinois were erected into territories during
Jefferson's first term, and Michigan during his second term. Kentucky
was admitted to the union in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, Ohio in 1803.
Lewis and Clark set out for the Pacific in 1804. The Louisiana
Purchase was ratified in 1803, and Louisiana became a state in 1812.
[7] Barrett Wendell: A Literary History of America; New York, 1900.
[8] "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or
goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue?"
/Edinburgh Review/, Jan., 1820.
[9] /Cf./ As Others See Us, by John Graham Brooks; New York, 1908, ch.
vii. Also, The Cambridge History of American Literature, vol. i, pp.
205-8.
[10] Our Dictionaries and Other English Language Topics; New York,
1890, pp. 30-31.
[11] It is curious to note that the center of population of the United
States, according to the last census, is now "in southern Indiana, in
the western part of Bloomington city, Monroe county." Can it be that
this early declaration of literary independence laid the foundation
for Indiana's recent pre-eminence in letters? /Cf./ The Language We
Use, by Alfred Z. Reed, /New York Sun/, March 13, 1918.
[12] Support also came from abroad. Czar Nicholas I, of Russia,
smarting under his defeat in the Crimea, issued an order that his own
state papers should be prepared in Russian and American--not English.
[13] A Plea for the Queen's English; London, 1863; 2nd ed., 1864;
American ed., New York, 1866.
[14] J. R. Ware, in Passing English of the Victorian Era, says that
/to burgle/ was introduced to London by W. S. Gilbert in The Pirates
of Penzance (April 3, 1880). It was used in America 30 years before.
[15] This process, of course, is philologically respectable, however
uncouth its occasional products may be. By it we have acquired many
everyday words, among them, /to accept/ (from /acceptum/), /to exact/
(from /exactum/), /to darkle/ (from /darkling/), and /pea/ (from
/pease/=/pois/).
[16] All authorities save one seem to agree that this verb is a pure
Americanism, and that it is derived from the name of Charles Lynch, a
Virginia justice of the peace, who jailed many Loyalists in 1780
without warrant in law. The dissentient, Bristed, says that /to linch/
is in various northern English dialects, and means to beat or
maltreat.
[17] The correct form of this appears to be /halloo/ or /holloa/, but
in America it is pronounced /holler/ and usually represented in print
by /hollo/ or /hollow/. I have often encountered /holloed/ in the past
tense. But the Public Printer frankly accepts /holler/. /Vide/ the
/Congressional Record/, May 12, 1917, p. 2309. The word, in the form
of /hollering/, is here credited to "Hon." John L. Burnett, of
Alabama. There can be no doubt that the hon. gentleman said
/hollering/, and not /holloaing/, or /holloeing/, or /hollowing/, or
/hallooing/. /Hello/ is apparently a variation of the same word.
[18] /Rough-neck/ is often cited, in discussions of slang, as a
latter-day invention, but Thornton shows that it was used in Texas in
1836.
[19] This use goes back to 1839.
[20] Thornton gives an example dated 1812. Of late the word has lost
its final /e/ and shortened its vowel, becoming /scrap/.
[21] /Cf./ Terms of Approbation and Eulogy.... by Elise L. Warnock,
/Dialect Notes/, vol. iv, part 1, 1913. Among the curious recent
coinages cited by Miss Warnock are /scallywampus/, /supergobosnoptious/,
/hyperfirmatious/, /scrumdifferous/ and /swellellegous/.
[22] /E.g./, /single-track mind/, /to jump the rails/, /to collide
head-on/, /broad-gauge man/, /to walk the ties/, /blind-baggage/,
/underground-railroad/, /tank-town/.
[23] Political Americanisms....; New York and London, 1890.
[24] Gustavus Myers: The History of Tammany Hall; 2nd ed.; New York,
1917, ch. viii.
[25] Knickerbocker's History of New York; New York, 1809, p. 241.
[26] Extensive lists of such drinks, with their ingredients, are to be
found in the Hoffman House Bartender's Guide, by Charles Mahoney, 4th
ed.; New York, 1916; in The Up-to-date Bartenders' Guide, by Harry
Montague; Baltimore, 1913; and in Wehman Brothers' Bartenders' Guide;
New York, 1912. An early list, from the /Lancaster (Pa.) Journal/ of
Jan. 26, 1821, is quoted by Thornton, vol. ii, p. 985.
[27] Many such words are listed in Félix Ramos y Duarte's Diccionaro
de Mejicanismos, 2nd ed. Mexico City, 1898; and in Miguel de Toro y
Gisbert's Americanismos; Paris, n. d.
[28] Prescott F. Hall: Immigration.... New York, 1913, p. 5.
[29] Most of the provisions of this act, however, were later declared
unconstitutional. Several subsequent acts met the same fate.
[30] The majority of these words, it will be noted, relate to eating
and drinking. They mirror the profound effect of German immigration
upon American drinking habits and the American cuisine. It is a
curious fact that loan-words seldom represent the higher aspirations
of the creditor nation. French and German have borrowed from English,
not words of lofty significance, but such terms as /beefsteak/,
/roast-beef/, /pudding/, /grog/, /jockey/, /tourist/, /sport/,
/five-o'clock-tea/, /cocktail/ and /sweepstakes/. "The contributions
of England to European civilization, as tested by the English words in
Continental languages," says L. P. Smith, "are not, generally, of a
kind to cause much national self-congratulation." Nor would a German,
I daresay, be very proud of the German contributions to American.
[31] /Vide/ a paragraph in /Notes and Queries/, quoted by Thornton,
vol. i, p. 248.
[32] Thornton offers examples of this form ranging from 1856 to 1885.
During the Civil War the word acquired the special meaning of looter.
The Southerners thus applied it to Sherman's men. /Vide/ Southern
Historical Society Papers, vol. xii, p. 428; Richmond, 1884. Here is a
popular rhyme that survived until the early 90's:
Isidor, psht, psht!
Vatch de shtore, psht, psht!
Vhile I ketch de /bummer/
Vhat shtole de suit of clothes!
/Bummel-zug/ is common German slang for slow train.
[33] Jan. 24, 1918, p. 4.
[34] Nevertheless, when I once put it into a night-letter a Western
Union office refused to accept it, the rules requiring all
night-letters to be in "plain English." Meanwhile, the English have
borrowed it from American, and it is actually in the Oxford
Dictionary.
[35] The word is not in the Oxford Dictionary, but Cassell gives it
and says that it is German and an Americanism. The Standard Dictionary
does not give its etymology. Thornton's first example, dated 1856,
shows a variant spelling, /shuyster/, thus indicating that it was then
recent. All subsequent examples show the present spelling. It is to be
noted that the suffix /-ster/ is not uncommon in English, and that it
usually carries a deprecatory significance, as in /trickster/,
/punster/, /gamester/, etc.
[36] The use of /dumb/ for stupid is widespread in the United States.
/Dumb-head/, obviously from the German /dummkopf/, appears in a list
of Kansas words collected by Judge J. C. Ruppenthal, of Russell,
Kansas. (/Dialect Notes/, vol. iv, pt. v, 1916, p. 322.) It is also
noted in Nebraska and the Western Reserve, and is very common in
Pennsylvania. /Uhrgucker/ (=/uhr-gucken/) is also on the Kansas list
of Judge Ruppenthal.
[37] English As We Speak It in Ireland, 2nd ed.; London and Dublin,
1910, pp. 179-180.
[38] "Our people," says Dr. Joyce, "are very conservative in retaining
old customs and forms of speech. Many words accordingly that are
discarded as old-fashioned--or dead and gone--in England, are still
flourishing--alive and well, in Ireland. [They represent] ... the
classical English of Shakespeare's time," pp. 6-7.
[39] Pope rhymed /join/ with /mine/, /divine/ and /line/; Dryden
rhymed /toil/ with /smile/. William Kenrick, in 1773, seems to have
been the first English lexicographer to denounce this pronunciation.
/Tay/ survived in England until the second half of the eighteenth
century. Then it fell into disrepute, and certain purists, among them
Lord Chesterfield, attempted to change the /ea/-sound to /ee/ in all
words, including even /great/. /Cf./ the remarks under /boil/ in A
Desk-Book of Twenty-Five Thousand Words Frequently Mispronounced, by
Frank H. Vizetelly; New York, 1917. Also, The Standard of
Pronunciation in English, by T. S. Lounsbury; New York, 1904, pp.
98-103.
[40] Amusing examples are to be found in Donlevy's Irish Catechism. To
the question, "Is the Son God?" the answer is not simply "Yes," but
"Yes, certainly He is." And to the question, "Will God reward the good
and punish the wicked?", the answer is "Certainly; there is no doubt
He will."
[41] Richard Meade Bache denounced it, in /Lafayette/, during the
60's. /Vide/ his Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech, 2nd ed.,
Philadelphia, 1869, p. 65.
[42] R. J. Menner: The Pronunciation of English in America, /Atlantic
Monthly/, March, 1915, p. 361.
[43] The Standard of Pronunciation in English, pp. 109-112.
[Pg097]
IV
American and English Today
§ 1
/The Two Vocabularies/--By way of preliminary to an examination of the
American of today I offer a brief list of terms in common use that
differ in American and English. Here are 200 of them, all chosen from
the simplest colloquial vocabularies and without any attempt at plan
or completeness:
/American/ /English/
ash-can dust-bin
baby-carriage pram
backyard garden
baggage luggage
baggage-car luggage-van
ballast (railroad) metals
bath-tub bath
beet beet-root
bid (noun) tender
bill-board hoarding
boarder paying-guest
boardwalk (seaside) promenade
bond (finance) debenture
boot Blucher, or Wellington
brakeman brakesman
bucket pail
bumper (car) buffer
bureau chest of drawers
calendar (court) cause-list
campaign (political) canvass
can (noun) tin
candy sweets
cane stick
canned-goods tinned-goods
car (railroad) carriage, van or waggon
checkers (game) draughts
chicken-yard fowl-run
chief-clerk head-clerk
city-editor chief-reporter
city-ordinance by-law
clipping (newspaper) cutting
coal-oil paraffin
coal-scuttle coal-hod
commission-merchant factor
conductor (of a train) guard
corn maize, or Indian corn
corner (of a street) crossing
corset stays
counterfeiter coiner
cow-catcher plough
cracker biscuit
cross-tie sleeper
delicatessen-store Italian-warehouse
department-store stores
Derby (hat) bowler
dime-novel shilling-shocker
druggist chemist
drug-store chemist's-shop
drummer bagman
dry-goods-store draper's-shop
editorial leader, or leading-article
elevator lift
elevator-boy lift-man
excursionist tripper
express-company carrier
filing-cabinet nest-of-drawers
fire-department fire-brigade
fish-dealer fishmonger
floor-walker shop-walker
fraternal-order friendly-society
freight goods
freight-agent goods-manager
freight-car goods-waggon
frog (railway) crossing-plate
garters (men's) sock-suspenders
gasoline petrol
grade (railroad) gradient
grain corn
grain-broker corn-factor
grip hold-all
groceries stores
hardware-dealer ironmonger
haystack haycock
headliner topliner
hod-carrier hodman
hog-pen piggery
hospital (private) nursing-home
huckster coster (monger)
hunting shooting
Indian Red Indian
Indian Summer St. Martin's Summer
instalment-business credit-trade
instalment-plan hire-purchase plan
janitor caretaker
legal-holiday bank-holiday
letter-box pillar-box
letter-carrier postman
livery-stable mews[1]
locomotive engineer engine-driver
lumber deals
mad angry
Methodist Wesleyan
molasses treacle
monkey-wrench spanner
moving-picture-theatre cinema
napkin (dinner) serviette
necktie tie, or cravat
news-dealer news-agent
newspaper-man pressman, or journalist
oatmeal porridge
officeholder public-servant
orchestra (seats in a theatre) stalls
overcoat great-coat
package parcel
parlor drawing-room
parlor-car saloon-carriage
patrolman (police) constable
pay-day wage-day
peanut monkey-nut
pie (fruit) tart
pitcher jug
poorhouse workhouse
post-paid post-free
potpie pie
prepaid carriage-paid
press (printing) machine
program (of a meeting) agenda
proof-reader corrector-of-the-press
public-school board-school
quotation-marks inverted-commas
railroad railway
railroad-man railway-servant
rails line
rare (of meat) underdone
receipts (in business) takings
Rhine-wine Hock
road-bed (railroad) permanent-way
road-repairer road-mender
roast joint
roll-call division
rooster cock
round-trip-ticket return-ticket
rutabaga mangel-wurzel
saleswoman shop-assistant
saloon public-house
scarf-pin tie-pin
scow lighter
sewer drain
shirtwaist blouse
shoe boot
shoemaker bootmaker
shoestring bootlace
shoe-tree boot-form
sick ill
sidewalk pavement
silver (collectively) plate
sled sledge
sleigh sledge
soft-drinks minerals
spigot tap
squash vegetable-marrow
stem-winder keyless-watch
stockholder shareholder
stocks shares
store-fixtures shop-fittings
street-cleaner crossing-sweeper
street-railway tramway
subway tube, or underground
suspenders (men's) braces
sweater jersey
switch (noun, railway) points
switch (verb, railway) shunt
taxes (municipal) rates
taxpayer (local) ratepayer
tenderloin (of beef) under-cut
ten-pins nine-pins
thumb-tack drawing-pin
ticket-office booking-office
tinner tinker
tin-roof leads
track (railroad) line
trained-nurse hospital-nurse
transom (of door) fanlight
trolley-car tramcar
truck (vehicle) lorry
truck (of a railroad car) bogie
trunk box
typewriter (operator) typist
typhoid-fever enteric
undershirt vest
vaudeville-theatre music-hall
vegetables greens
vest waistcoat
warden (of a prison) governor
warehouse stores
wash-rag face-cloth
wash-stand wash-hand-stand
wash-wringer mangle
waste-basket waste-paper-basket
whipple-tree[2] splinter-bar
witness-stand witness-box
wood-alcohol methylated-spirits
[Pg102]
§ 2
/Differences in Usage/--The differences here listed, most of them
between words in everyday employment, are but examples of a divergence
in usage which extends to every department of daily life. In his
business, in his journeys from his home to his office, in his dealings
with his family and servants, in his sports and amusements, in his
politics and even in his religion the American uses, not only words
and phrases, but whole syntactical constructions, that are
unintelligible to the Englishman, or intelligible only after laborious
consideration. A familiar anecdote offers an example in miniature. It
concerns a young American woman living in a region of prolific
orchards who is asked by a visiting Englishman what the residents do
with so much fruit. Her reply is a pun: "We eat all we can, and what
we can't we can." This answer would mystify nine Englishmen out of
ten, for in the first place it involves the use of the flat American
/a/ in /can't/ and in the second place it applies an unfamiliar name
to the vessel that every Englishman knows as a /tin/, and then adds to
the confusion by deriving a verb from the substantive. There are no
such things as /canned-goods/ in England; over there they are
/tinned/. The /can/ that holds them is a /tin/; /to can/ them is /to
tin/ them.... And they are counted, not as /groceries/, but as
/stores/, and advertised, not on /bill-boards/ but on /hoardings/.[3]
And the cook who prepares them for the table is not /Nora/ or
/Maggie/, but /Cook/, and if she does other work in addition she is
not a /girl for general housework/, but a /cook-general/, and not
/help/, but a /servant/. And the boarder who eats them is not a
/boarder/ at all, but a /paying-guest/, though he is said /to board/.
And the grave of the tin, once it is emptied, is not the /ash-can/,
but the /dust-bin/, and the man who carries it away is not the
/garbage-man/ or the /ash-man/ or the /white-wings/, but the
/dustman/.
An Englishman, entering his home, does not walk in upon the [Pg103]
/first floor/, but upon the /ground floor/. What he calls the /first
floor/ (or, more commonly, /first storey/, not forgetting the
penultimate /e/!) is what we call the /second floor/, and so on up to
the roof--which is covered not with /tin/, but with /slate/, /tiles/
or /leads/. He does not /take/ a paper; he /takes in/ a paper. He does
not ask his servant, "is there any /mail/ for me?" but, "are there any
/letters/ for me?" for /mail/, in the American sense, is a word that
he seldom uses, save in such compounds as /mail-van/ and /mail-train/.
He always speaks of it as /the post/. The man who brings it is not a
/letter-carrier/, but a /postman/. It is /posted/, not /mailed/, at a
/pillar-box/, not at a /mail-box/. It never includes /postal-cards/,
but only /post-cards/; never /money-orders/, but only /postal-orders/.
The Englishman dictates his answers, not to a /typewriter/, but to a
/typist/; a /typewriter/ is merely the machine. If he desires the
recipient to call him by telephone he doesn't say, "/phone me/ at a
quarter /of/ eight," but "/ring me up/ at a quarter /to/ eight." And
when the call comes he says "/are you there?/" When he gets home, he
doesn't find his wife waiting for him in the /parlor/ or
/living-room/,[4] but in the /drawing-room/ or in her /sitting-room/,
and the tale of domestic disaster that she has to tell does not
concern the /hired-girl/ but the /slavey/ and the /scullery-maid/. He
doesn't bring her a box of /candy/, but a box of /sweets/. He doesn't
leave a /derby/ hat in the hall, but a /bowler/. His wife doesn't wear
/shirtwaists/ but /blouses/. When she buys one she doesn't say
"/charge it/" but "/put it down/." When she orders a /tailor-made
suit/, she calls it a /coat-and-skirt/. When she wants a /spool of
thread/ she asks for a /reel of cotton/. Such things are bought, not
in the /department-stores/, but at the /stores/, which are
substantially the same thing. In these stores /calico/ means a plain
cotton cloth; in the United States it means a printed cotton cloth.
Things bought on the instalment plan in England are said to be bought
on the /hire-purchase/ plan or system; the instalment business itself
is the /credit-trade/. Goods ordered by /post/ (not mail) on which the
dealer pays the cost of transportation are said to be sent, not
/postpaid/ or /prepaid/, but /post-free/ or /carriage-paid/. [Pg104]
An Englishman does not wear /suspenders/ and /neckties/, but /braces/
and /cravats/. /Suspenders/ are his wife's garters; his own are
/sock-suspenders/. The family does not seek sustenance in a /rare
tenderloin/ and /squash/, but in /underdone under-cut/ and /vegetable
marrow/. It does not eat /beets/, but /beet-roots/. The wine on the
table, if miraculously German, is not /Rhine wine/, but /Hock/.... The
maid who laces the stays of the mistress of the house is not /Maggie/
but /Robinson/. The nurse-maid is not /Lizzie/ but /Nurse/. So, by the
way, is a trained nurse in a hospital, whose full style is not /Miss
Jones/, but /Nurse Jones/. And the hospital itself, if private, is not
a hospital at all, but a /nursing-home/, and its trained nurses are
plain /nurses/, or /hospital nurses/, or maybe /nursing sisters/. And
the white-clad young gentlemen who make love to them are not /studying
medicine/ but /walking the hospitals/. Similarly, an English law
student does not study law, but /the/ law.