English and boast a Shakespearean pedigree, although they are no longer
heard in the country of that consummate master of our speech.[13]
Somehow, they seem to have drifted out of the main current of British
English. Perhaps they have been caught up by an eddy and carried into
one of the provinces where they are still preserved, as they are in
America, fresh and vigorous. A moment’s reflection will show that
we Americans come rightly by our Elizabethan English. For surely
New England, Maryland and Virginia were settled by those who spoke
the tongue of Shakespeare, even though they did not all hold the
faith and morals of Milton. Many of these settlers--both Puritan and
Cavalier--were college-bred men, graduates of Oxford and Cambridge.
Therefore they inherited the best traditions of the English speech and
transmitted it uncorrupted to their children. Nor were their children
wilful traducers and corruptors of the King’s English, but contrariwise
they conserved it and safeguarded its purity quite as sedulously as the
inhabitants of the mother country. Thus the English speech was handed
down, undefiled, from one generation to another, in America. Hence some
words and phrases of good Elizabethan usage have been preserved in
America, which long ago became obsolete and dropped out of the living
speech in England, where the growth of the language was, of course,
not arrested by the rude shock incident to its being transplanted in a
foreign country.
Let us now point out a few examples of reputed Americanisms, social
pariahs which have lost caste and no longer move in polite circles in
England. An interesting example is found in the word “fall” used in the
sense of autumn. Both these terms are in favor in America, although the
pedants, following the lead of British critics, proscribe the use of
“fall.” We are told it is not employed in standard English, and hence
must be censured as provincial. Yet “fall,” which enjoys a certain
poetic association with the fall of the leaf, can offer in its support
the high authority of Dryden, who employed it in his translation of
Juvenal’s satires:
What crowds of patients the town doctor kills,
Or how last fall he raised the weekly bills.
In his “Northern Farmer,” Tennyson used the offending word, but of
course under the cloak of a provincialism. Still Freeman did not deign
to employ it. Commenting on it, he remarks: “If fall as a season of the
year has gone out of use in Britain, it has gone out very lately. At
least I remember perfectly well the phrase of ‘spring and fall’ in my
childhood.”
Another good illustration of a word still surviving in American
usage, but long ago discarded in England, is “sick” in the sense of
ill. British usage restricts the meaning to nausea, employing ill to
describe a man suffering with a disease of whatever sort. Yet “sick”
is supported by the very best literary authority. The term occurs
again and again in Elizabethan literature. Reference to Bartlett’s
concordance will convince even the most skeptical that the word
abounds in Shakespeare, and that, too, in passages where the correct
interpretation leaves no doubt that “ill” is meant. Suffice it to
cite only an example or two: In “Midsummer Night’s Dream” (act 1,
scene 1), Shakespeare makes Helena say, “Sickness is catching”; again
in “Cymbeline” (act 5, scene 4), we read, “Yet am I better than one
that’s sick of the gout”; and in “Romeo and Juliet” (act 5, scene
2), we read, “Here in this city visiting the sick.” Not only so.
“Sick,” in the American acceptation, has an unbroken line of the best
literary authority from Chaucer, “that well of English undefiled,”
down to Doctor Johnson, whose dictionary defines the word in reference
to a person afflicted with disease. American usage, furthermore, is
supported by the King James version, in which “ill” is nowhere found,
and also by the Anglican Church ritual. It is needless to multiply
citations. If Americans sin in the improper use of “sick,” it may be
urged in extenuation that they can at least plead a long array of
illustrious and unimpeachable authority and are in good company.
The use of “well” as an interjection is mentioned by Bartlett in
his dictionary as one of “the most marked peculiarities of American
speech.” Moreover, he adds, “Englishmen have told me that they could
always detect an American by the use of this word.” If this is an
infallible hall-mark of American speech, then American English is
nearer the tongue of Shakespeare than British English of the present
day. For the word “well” in the sense of an interjection occurs again
and again in Shakespeare. In “Hamlet” (act 1, scene 1), Bernardo
asks, “Have you had a quiet guard?” Francisco replies, “Not a mouse
stirring.” Whereupon Bernardo adds, “Well, good-night.” Again in
“Midsummer Night’s Dream” (act 3, scene 1):
_Bottom._ And then indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly
he is Snug the joiner.
_Quince._ Well, it shall be so.
In Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Captain” (act 3, scene 3), we find an
excellent example in the line, “Well, I shall live to see your husbands
beat you.” No one, of course, would think of charging Tennyson with
using unidiomatic English. Yet, in “Locksley Hall,” you read:
“Well--’tis well that I should bluster.”
Surely it is superfluous to cite further examples from English authors
showing that American usage in the case of “well” as an interjection
is perfectly good English, even if the locution is censured by British
pedantry and never heard on British lips.
The trite and hard-worked “guess,” as characteristic of American speech
as the much-abused “fancy” is of British speech, furnishes another
conspicuous example of a reputable word in Elizabethan English which
has become obsolete in England, but is still preserved on this side of
the Atlantic. There is no doubt that our constant employment of this
good old Saxon word to do service on every occasion and to express
every shade of thought from mild conjecture to positive assertion is
somewhat inelegant; and this circumstance has perhaps contributed to
bring the overtaxed phrase into disrepute with our kin across the sea.
Yet there is abundant warrant in Elizabethan usage for the familiar
notation we give “guess” in our every-day speech, although it is
generally confined to its strict meaning of conjecture in that period
of the language. We find it used in the familiar sense of “think” in
several passages in Shakespeare, notably in “I. Henry VI.” (act 2,
scene 1):
Not altogether; better far, I guess,
That we do make our entrance several ways.
Likewise, in “Measure for Measure” (act 4, scene 4):
_Angelo._ And why meet him at the gates and redeliver our authorities
there?
_Escalus._ I guess not.
So, again, in the “Winter’s Tale” (act 4, scene 3):
_Camillo._ Which, I do guess, you do not purpose to him.
But this meaning of “guess” is common throughout the entire history
of English literature, for the word has always borne the sense of
think, cheek by jowl with its specific meaning of conjecture. It is so
employed by Chaucer and Gower in early times and in the last century
by Sheridan and Wordsworth, certainly good literary authority enough.
However, this meaning of the term appears to have died out in the
present-day British speech, and the word is there employed strictly in
the sense of conjecture, its lost sense being supplied by “fancy.” Now,
as between the Briton’s “fancy” and the American’s “guess,” there may
not be much choice. But certainly the employment of “guess” which our
British cousins claim to be a shibboleth of American nationality does
not indicate any misuse of our mother tongue, as they contend.
Only one more case shall be adduced in illustration, to wit, our
word “baggage,” which the other half of the Anglo-Saxon race has
discarded for “luggage.” Here again, as elsewhere in the exercise of
our prerogative, we have demonstrated our independence of the mother
country in the matter of our speech and have chosen one term while the
English people have adopted another, to designate the same thing. Both
words have a good literary pedigree extending several centuries back.
Shakespearean usage seems about equally divided, perhaps, with the
odds in favor of “baggage.” The Shakespearean coinage “bag and baggage
and scrip and scrippage,” which falls from the lips of Touchstone in
“As You Like It,” and which enjoys the familiarity of a household
word, ought to have given “baggage” a wider currency, especially in
the author’s own country. But language, like the heathen Chinee, has
ways that are dark, if not tricks that are vain, and does not develop
according to logic or our _a priori_ conceptions. Between the Briticism
“luggage” and the Americanism “baggage” it appears, therefore, to be
a drawn battle. So the British have nothing to reproach us with on
this score, since convention has adopted “baggage” on one side of the
Atlantic and “luggage” on the other.
So much for this interesting class of Americanisms which repose on
standard Elizabethan usage, but are social outcasts in the land of
their birth. There is another class of Americanisms which are not
bolstered up by a long literary pedigree, inasmuch as they originated
on American soil and were not imported from the Old World. As compared
with the class just considered, these latter are mere _parvenus_,
without any illustrious ancestral history to commend them. This class
of Americanisms is composed of phrases which have found their way into
our speech from various foreign sources. They have been introduced
into our tongue from our contact with diverse peoples from remote
parts of the globe. They constitute a small residuum of terms and
phrases, the presence of which in our vocabulary attests the fact of
our relations with different nations of the earth. For instance, in
the early history of our country, we had to do with the Indians, and
so borrowed from them certain terms especially pertaining to natural
objects. We also had relations with the French, and consequently
borrowed from them sundry phrases employed in official parlance, such
as “bureau of information,” for which British usage prefers “office”;
“exposition” for the British “exhibition,” and the like. Let these few
examples represent the class. It is apparent here that we have made a
slight departure from British usage. But it does not follow that our
speech, for this reason, is less pure or less idiomatic. Both American
usage and British usage show that the respective nations have decided
to employ Romance importations in official language, but they have
adopted different terms for the same object. This proves, in the first
place, the independence of the two great English-speaking nations even
in the matter of language, and, in the second place, the wide-reaching
influence of French as the recognized official and diplomatic language
during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
In addition to these two distinct classes of Americanisms there is a
third class composed of phrases and expressions which have not yet
attained to the dignity of universal currency throughout the entire
country. These are rather provincialisms which are peculiar to certain
localities. This class, therefore, does not command the importance
which the first two classes already considered do. In a heterogeneous
population like ours, made up of people from every nationality under
heaven, it is quite natural that in certain localities there should
exist some eccentricities of speech, some departures from the received
standard--in a word, some provincialisms. It need hardly be recalled
that parts of our vast country were settled by other nations than the
English, as, for instance, New York by the Dutch and Louisiana by the
French, to mention two specific cases bearing on the point in question.
The people of these respective states, when they were incorporated into
the union, of course, did not immediately forsake their native modes
of speech and inherited vocabulary for pure, unadulterated Saxon. When
the vast southwest territory was made a part of the United States, the
people in that quarter of the land spoke a lingo which had a decided
foreign complexion. What more natural, then, than that in the speech of
that portion of our land there should exist traces of this old foreign
element? Assuredly it would have been the height of artificiality and
an unprecedented proceeding for the French element of New Orleans, when
they became citizens of the United States, to have renounced their
native French names for such natural objects as “bayou,” “levee” and
the like, in order to adopt pure Saxon terms. Likewise, it was not to
be expected that the Spanish settlers in the western section of our
country, specifically California, should abandon such native terms as
“cañon” and “ranch” and so on, for the corresponding names of genuine
English origin. Thus it happens that there is a pronounced foreign
flavor, or at least a slight tang, in the eccentricities of speech
heard in certain localities of the United States. But these are mere
provincialisms and do not impair the quality of our standard speech,
which is English to the very core.
However, it was inevitable that the English language in America should
have received an influx of foreign words on American soil. But our
speech possesses a marvelous capacity for assimilating non-Saxon
elements from whatever source. Hence the various foreign elements,
such as Indian, Dutch, French and Spanish, to mention only the chief
importations, have all been absorbed without any appreciable alteration
in the constitution of our English speech, and only traces here and
there are seen of non-Saxon elements surviving in a word or an idiom as
an enduring monument to the influence of other tongues upon our own on
American soil. Some of these foreign loans, it is true, are confined
to certain localities, and consequently are to be viewed in the light
of solecisms, or at best provincialisms. They circulate freely in a
limited area, but are not recognized as legal tender throughout the
length and breadth of the country. Such expressions are confined
chiefly to the western portion of the United States and very rarely
find their way east. It is questionable whether they are entitled to
be termed Americanisms except in the most liberal interpretation of
that phase, because they are not everywhere current and are not readily
intelligible, not “understanded of the people.”
It seems appropriate at this juncture to say a word concerning dialects
in America. The assertion is sometimes made that there are no dialects
in America, that the railroad and printing press, the two potent and
indispensable agencies in our modern civilization, have leveled out all
eccentricities and peculiarities of speech and reduced our language to
a uniform standard throughout our entire country. This statement is, in
the main, true. Yet it requires only a little reflection to see that
the assertion is not absolutely accurate and in accord with the facts.
Certainly a brief residence in the several principal sections of the
United States would bring convincing refutation. There is the western
dialect, as implied in the comments in the preceding paragraph. There
is also the Yankee dialect of New England, the salient features of
which Lowell described very fully in his famous “Biglow Papers.” There
is no less truly the southern dialect with its definite peculiarities
of idiom and utterance. These dialects are quite sharply defined by
their respective characteristics of colloquial speech. Each dialect
has its own phrases and locutions familiar enough within its own
geographical divisions, but not readily understood, perhaps unknown,
elsewhere. For instance, the native southerner “reckons” and “don’t
guess,” whereas the Yankee “to the manner born” does not “reckon,” but
“guesses” _à tort et à travers_. As for the western dialect, it is said
that three elements enter into its constitution, _viz._, the mining,
the gambling and the cowboy element, a rich vein of billingsgate
running through each. An effort has been made by our writers of fiction
to register and record the salient features of these respective
dialects incidentally in their stories, but the shades and gradations
of speech are not easy to reflect and preserve on the printed page with
the corresponding local color. Hence the work has been but partially
done, and nowhere with complete success.
We Americans are far less trammeled by dialectal inconveniences and
perplexities, however, than are the English people. For in Great
Britain there is much less uniformity of speech than with us, and the
difference between the language of a Scotchman and that of a Devonshire
man is almost infinitely greater than the difference between any two
American dialects. But the dissimilarity of the British dialects is
historic and dates back from time immemorial. The story of Caxton, the
first English printer, is well known, how the good merchant from a
southern shire, when he inquired for eggs of a good wife in a northern
shire, could not make himself understood, his southern dialect being
mistaken for French. To be sure, the dialectal differences are not so
great to-day as they were in those remote times, largely as the result
of the printing-press Caxton set up in Westminster. But even yet the
differences between the dialects of the extreme parts of the British
Isles is so pronounced as to be a barrier to complete interchange of
thought.
It appears from the foregoing that the indictment of corrupting the
English language which certain British critics have brought in against
the American people is not a true bill, since no count has been
established. Our British critics seem loath to acknowledge any American
rights in our common language. Americans have as much right to
enrich the English vocabulary with useful words as the English people
themselves. We also have as just a claim as they to revive and preserve
an obsolescent phrase or idiom. Because a given English word is no
longer in use and esteem in England, but is recognized as standard
usage in the United States, it does not follow that it is not good
English. The number of those using the English language in America far
exceeds the population of England, and the English speech is just as
vigorous and virile in America as it is in the parent country. Indeed,
it has given indubitable proof of its vitality and vigor on American
lips by adapting itself to the infinite variety of new conditions in
this new country and by the added flexibility, strength and richness
as exhibited in its augmented vocabulary. English now is the language
of the American people as well as of the English people. It is,
therefore, no longer proper or scientific to speak of the queen’s or
of the king’s English. Such a phrase is really an anachronism in the
twentieth century, when the English-speaking subjects of King Edward
are numerically inferior to those not owing allegiance to Britain’s
sovereign, who speak the same tongue. Moreover, it is manifestly not in
keeping with the eternal fitness of things, as well as unscientific,
for our British kith and kin to stigmatize an idiom or a phrase in good
American usage as a provincialism simply because it is not current in
Great Britain. The Britons have no more right to attempt to prescribe
and limit the growth of the English tongue than we have. Nor do
they enjoy an exclusive prerogative of determining whether a given
expression, be it a new coinage or a survival from a former period,
shall live and flourish or decline and perish in the English tongue.
No sovereign, no nation can determine this, either by decree or by
statute. The most that the British can say in derogation of an alleged
Americanism is that it is current only in America and is not authorized
by British usage. But this does not make it un-English, if it bears the
American sign manual.
It is perfectly absurd for the British critics to condemn Americanisms
offhand and to attempt to read them out of the language, simply because
they are not in accord with British usage. In so doing they give proof
of their insularity and fail to exhibit a spirit of liberality and
sweet reasonableness. Indeed, they seem disposed, at all events, to
take themselves too seriously as guardians of the English language. It
is well enough for a critic to throw his influence on the side of the
preservation of the purity and propriety of speech. But it is sheer
folly to allow one’s pedantry to go to such a length as Malherbe, that
“tyrant of words and syllables,” who on his death-bed angrily rebuked
his nurse for the solecisms of her language, exclaiming in extenuation
of his act, “Sir, I will defend to my very last gasp the purity of the
French language.” It is related of him that he was so fatal a precisian
in the choice of words that he spent three years in composing an ode on
the death of a friend’s wife, and when at last the ode was completed,
his friend had married again, and the purist had only his labor for
his pains. Now your true British pedant seems to think it his bounden
duty to reject summarily every word or expression which does not bear
the pure English hall-mark, and that as for Americanisms they are
an abomination which must inevitably work the speedy corruption and
ultimate decadence of the noble English tongue. Such an one, whether
from his precisianism or his prejudice, fails utterly to recognize in
Americanisms conclusive evidence of the inherent potency, vigor and
vitality of the English language on American lips.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] See A Question of Preference in English Spelling.
[13] See Vulgarisms With A Pedigree.
WHAT IS SLANG?
To the purist slang is an unmitigated evil which makes for the gradual
corruption and decadence of our vernacular. The pedant who is a
martinet regards all slang with absolute contempt and abhors its use,
because he believes slang spells deterioration for our noble tongue.
Such an one takes his self-appointed guardianship of the language very
seriously and deems it his bounden duty as a curator of our English
speech, not only himself to spurn the use of slang, but also to inveigh
against all those who employ it habitually or occasionally. The baneful
influence of slang, he tells us, is sweeping like a mighty tidal wave
over the English language, debasing it and corrupting its very sources.
Nor is the precisionist alone in entertaining this alarming view. For
many others who are not sticklers for strict propriety and correctness
of speech share, to some extent, the same opinion, although they feel
no special concern as to the final outcome. However, it is reassuring
to reflect that the best-informed among us and those whose thorough
knowledge entitles them to speak with authority do not take so
gloomy and pessimistic a view of the future of the English language.
They inform us that the fears of the pedants and pedagogues--the
half-educated--are never destined to be realized.
“Strictly speaking,” says Professor Lounsbury, than whom there is
no higher authority in America on the history of English, “there is
no such thing as a language becoming corrupt. It is an instrument
which will be just what those who use it choose to make it. The words
that constitute it have no real significance of their own. It is
the meaning men put into them that gives them all the efficacy they
possess. Language does nothing more than reflect the character and the
characteristics of those who speak it. It mirrors their thoughts and
feelings, their passions and prejudices, their hopes and aspirations,
their aims, whether high or low. In the mouth of the bombastic it
will be inflated; in the mouth of the illiterate it will be full of
vulgarisms; in the mouth of the precise it will be formal and pedantic.
The history of language is the history of corruptions--using that
term in the sense in which it is constantly employed by those who are
stigmatizing by it the new words and phrases and constructions to which
they take exception. Every one of us is to-day employing expressions
which either outrage the rules of strict grammar, or disregard the
principles of analogy, or belong by their origin to what we now deem
the worst sort of vulgarisms. These so-called corruptions are found
everywhere in the vocabulary, and in nearly all the parts of speech.”