_Americanisms so called_ (Vol. vi., p. 554.).--The word _bottom_,
signifying a piece of low ground, whether _upon_ a stream of water or not,
is English. I recollect two places at this moment (both dry), in the county
of Surrey, to which the word is applied, viz. Smitham Bottom, to the north
of Reigate, through which the railway runs; and Boxhill Bottom, a few miles
to the westward, in the same range of chalk hills.
_Sparse_ and _sparsely_, it is said by UNEDA of Philadelphia, _are_
Americanisms. This, however, is not so. There is a Query on the word
_sparse_ in Vol. i., p. 215. by C. FORBES: and on p. 251. of the same
volume J. T. STANLEY supposes it to be an Americanism, on the authority of
the _Penny Cyclopædia_.
I have a strong conviction that I then wrote to "N. & Q." to claim the word
_sparse_ as aboriginal to the British Isles, for I find memoranda I had
made at the time on the margin of my Jamieson's _Dictionary_ on the
subject; but I do not find that what I then wrote had been printed in "N. &
Q."
In the _Supplement to Jamieson's Dictionary_ is the following: "SPARS,
SPARSE, _adj._ widely spread; as, 'sparse writing' is wide open writing,
occupying a large space." The word is in common use throughout the south of
Scotland.
I have come to be of opinion that there are few, if any, words that are
real Americanisms, but that (except where the substance or the subject is
quite modern) almost every word and expression now in use among the
Anglo-Americans may be traced to some one of the old provincial dialects of
the British Isles.