Let me note a few of the Americanisms, good, bad, and indifferent, which
specially struck me, whether in talk or in books, during my recent visit
to the United States. I call them Americanisms without inquiring into
their history. Some of them may be of English origin; but for practical
purposes an Americanism may be taken to mean an expression commonly used
in America and not commonly used in England.
I had not been three hours on American soil before I heard a charming
young lady remark, "Oh, it was bully!" I gathered that this expression
is considered admissible, in the conversation of grown-up people, only
in and about New York. I often heard it there, and never anywhere else.
A very distinguished officer, who served as a volunteer in Cuba, was
asked to state his impressions of war. "War," he said, "is a terrible
thing. You can't exaggerate its horrors. When you sit in your tent the
night before the battle, and think of home and your wife and children,
you feel pretty sick and downhearted. But," he added, "next day, when
you're in it, oh, it _is_ bully!"
The general use of picturesque metaphor is of course a striking feature
of American conversation. Many of these expressions have taken firm root
in England, such as "to have no use for" a man, or "to take no stock in"
a theory. But fresh inventions crop up on every hand in America. For
instance, where an English theatrical manager would say, "We must get
this play well talked about and paragraphed in advance," an American
manager puts the whole thing much more briefly and forcibly in the
phrase, "We don't want this piece to come in on rubbers." Metaphor
apart, many Americans have a gift of fantastic extravagance of phrase
which often produces an irresistible effect. A gentleman in high
political office had one day to receive a deputation with whose objects
he had no sympathy. He listened for some time to the spokesman of the
party, and then, at a pause, broke in with the remark: "Gentlemen, you
need proceed no further. I am not an entirely dishevelled jackass!" One
would give something for a snapshot photograph of the faces of that
deputation.
Small differences of expression (other than those with which every one
is familiar--such as "elevator," "baggage," "depot," &c.)--strike one in
daily life. The American for "To let" is "For rent;" a "thing one would
wish to have expressed otherwise" is, more briefly, "a bad break;"
instead of "He married money" an American will say "He married rich;"
but this, I take it, is a vulgarism--as, indeed, is the English
expression. I find that in the modern American novel, setting forth the
sayings and doings of more or less educated people, there are apt to be,
on an average, about half a dozen words and phrases at which the English
reader stumbles for a moment. Mr. Howells, a master of English, may be
taken as a faithful reporter of the colloquial speech of Boston and New
York. In one of his comediettas, he makes Willis Campbell say, "Let me
turn out my sister's cup" (pour her a cup of tea). Mrs. Roberts, in
another of these delightful little pieces, says, "I'll smash off a
note," where an English Mrs. Roberts would say "dash off "; and where an
English Mrs. Roberts would ring the bell, her American namesake "touches
the annunciator." It is commonly believed in England that there is no
such thing as a "servant" in America, but only "hired girls" and
"helps." This is certainly not so in New York. I once "rang up" a
friend's house by telephone, and, on asking who was speaking to me,
received the answer, in a feminine voice, "I'm one of Mr. So-and-so's
servants."
The heroine of _The Story of a Play_ says to her husband, "Are you still
thinking of our scrap of this morning?" "Scrap," in the sense of
"quarrel," is one of the few exceedingly common American expressions
which, have as yet taken little hold in England.[V] Admiral Dewey, for
instance, is admired as a "scrapper," or, as we should phrase it, a
fighting Admiral. Mr. Henry Fuller, of Chicago, in his powerful novel
_The Cliff Dwellers_, uses a still less elegant synonym for "scrap"--he
talks of a "connubial spat." In the same book I note the phrases "He
teetered back and forth on his toes," "He was a stocky young man," "One
of his brief noonings," "That's right, Claudia--score the profession."
"Score," as used in America, does not mean "score off," but rather, I
take it, "attack and leave your mark upon." It is very common in this
sense. For instance, I note among the headlines of a New York paper,
"Mr. So-and-so scores Yellow Journalism." Talking of Yellow Journalism,
by the way, the expressions "a beat," and "a scoop," for what we in
England call an "exclusive" item of news, were unknown to me until I
went to America. I was a little bewildered, too, when I was told of a
family which "lived on air-tights." Their diet consisted of canned (or,
as we should say, tinned) provisions.
The most popular slang expression of the day is "to rubberneck," or,
more concisely, "to rubber." Its primary meaning is to crane the neck in
curiosity, to pry round the corner, as it were.[W] But it has numerous
and surprising extensions of meaning. It appears to be one of the laws
of slang that when a phrase strikes the popular fancy, it is pressed
into service on every possible or impossible occasion. Another
favourite expression is "That cuts no ice with me."[X] I was unable to
ascertain either its origin or its precise significance. On the other
hand, a piece of slang which supplies a "felt want," and will one day, I
believe, pass into the literary language, is "the limit" in the sense of
"le comble." A theatrical poster, widely displayed in New York while I
was there, bore this alluring inscription: