A very erroneous impression generally exists in this country as to the
manner in which the English language is spoken in the United States.
This has arisen in some degree from the circumstance that travellers
have dwelt upon and exaggerated such peculiarities of language as have
come under their observation in various parts of the Union; but also
in greater measure from the fact that in English novels and dramas in
which an American figures—no matter whether the character depicted
be represented as a man of good social position and, presumably,
fair education, or not—he is made to express himself in a dialect
happily combining the peculiarities of speech of every section of the
country from Maine to Texas. With the exception of the late Mr Anthony
Trollope’s _American Senator_, I cannot recall to mind a single work
of fiction in which this is not the case. Take, for instance, those
portions of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ the scenes of which are laid in the
United States; Richard Fairfield, in Bulwer’s _My Novel_; the Colonel
in Lever’s _One of Them_; Fullalove, in Charles Reade’s _Very Hard
Cash_; the younger Fenton in Yates’s _Black Sheep_; or the American
traveller in _Mugby Junction_—in each and every instance the result is
to convey a most erroneous idea as to the manner in which our common
tongue is ordinarily spoken in the United States.
It is the same on the stage. The dialect in which Americans are usually
made to express themselves in English dramas is as incorrect and absurd
as was the language put into the mouths of their Irish characters by
the playwrights of the early part of the eighteenth century.
As a matter of fact, the speech of educated Americans differs but
little from that of the same class in Great Britain; whilst, as regards
the great bulk of the people of the United States, there can be no
question but that they speak purer and more idiomatic English than
do the masses here. In every State of the Union the language of the
inhabitants can be understood without the slightest difficulty. This is
more than can be said of the dialects of the peasantry in various parts
of England, these being in many instances perfectly unintelligible to
a stranger. Again, the fluency of expression and command of language
possessed by Americans even in the humbler ranks of life forms a marked
contrast to the poverty of speech of the same class in this country,
where, as an eminent philologist has declared, a very considerable
proportion of the agricultural population habitually make use of a
vocabulary not exceeding three hundred words.
But to return to the subject of this paper. Some words which have
become obsolete in this country, or now convey a totally different
meaning from that primarily attaching to them, are still current in
America in the sense in which they were originally employed. _Prink_,
to ornament or adorn, which is found in Spenser and other writers of
the Elizabethan age, is at the present day a common term in the Eastern
States. One Yankee girl will say to another, who has been some time
at her toilet, ‘Oh, you have been prinking;’ or, ‘What a long while it
has taken you to prink.’ In fact the verb is used in all its moods and
tenses. _Muss_, a confused encounter or scramble, is generally supposed
to be a purely American idiom. On the contrary, it is good Shakspearean
English. In _Antony and Cleopatra_, Antony says:
‘Of late when I cry’d ho!
Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth.’
_Lamm_, to beat, to maltreat, is an American word of English parentage.
In a north-country ballad of the time of Edward VI., one line runs,
‘They lammed him and bammed him;’ and the word may also be found in
Marlowe. _Sick_ is an expression universally used in the United States
in the sense of indisposition. A man will say, ‘I am sick,’ never, ‘I
am ill.’ It scarcely need be said that the phrase was perfectly good
English two centuries and a half ago, the word ‘ill,’ with the meaning
now attaching to it, not once occurring in the translation of the Bible.
_Bug_, again, employed in America as a generic term for every species
of insect, was used in England, formerly, in the same sense. ‘A bug
hath buzzed it in mine ears,’ says Bacon in one of his letters. At
the present day, the word has in England so limited an application,
that when an edition of the works of Edgar Allan Poe was published in
London, the editor altered the title of one story, _The Golden Bug_, to
_The Golden Beetle_, in order not to give offence to ‘ears polite.’
_Fearful_, which now signifies to inspire terror or awe, has still in
the United States the meaning it bore in Shakspeare’s time, when it was
invariably used in the sense of timid or afraid. In _Romeo and Juliet_,
when Romeo, after slaying Tybalt, is lying hidden in Friar Lawrence’s
cell, the Friar says:
‘Romeo, come forth, come forth, thou fearful man;’
and again, in _The Tempest_, in that scene in which Prospero threatens
Ferdinand, Miranda exclaims:
‘O dear father,
Make not too rash a trial of him, for
He’s gentle and not fearful.’
So obsolete, however, is now the word in the sense in which it is
employed by the poet, that in most editions of Shakspeare, a footnote
is appended to it, giving the definition as ‘timorous.’ In America, the
expression, ‘He is a fearful man,’ or, ‘She is a fearful woman,’ is
frequently applied to an individual of timid disposition, the meaning
intended to be conveyed being precisely the opposite to that which in
this country would attach to the phrase.
Some common English words have in the United States completely lost
their original signification, wherefore, it would not be easy to say.
_Ugly_, for instance, means ill-natured; _smart_, clever; _clever_, of
an amiable disposition; and _lovely_—although this last locution is not
perhaps so common as the others—lovable.
I was, when resident in New York, present during a conversation in
the course of which a rather curious equivoque occurred, owing to
the peculiar sense in which the words in question are used on the
other side of the Atlantic. On the occasion referred to, an American
lady and an Englishwoman—who had only been a short time in the United
States—were speaking of an old gentleman with whom they both were
acquainted. The former was warm in his praises.
‘Mr R——,’ she declared, ‘is quite lovely.’
‘Why,’ was the surprised reply, ‘how can you think so? I consider him
decidedly ugly.’
‘Ugly!’ indignantly retorted the first speaker. ‘He is not at all ugly.
On the contrary, he is real clever.’
‘That Mr R—— is a man of talent, I admit,’ was the response; ‘but he is
certainly anything but good-looking.’
‘Well, I do not deny that he is homely, and I never said that he was
not,’ rejoined the other lady.
‘But,’ exclaimed the puzzled Englishwoman, ‘you have just asserted that
he was not ugly.’
‘No more he is!’ was the quick retort.
When the dialogue had reached this point, it being obvious not only
that the two ladies were at cross-purposes, but that they were, in
consequence, becoming a little heated, I deemed it advisable to
interpose, and explain how their mutual misapprehension had arisen.
In connection with the phrase, ‘A man of talent,’ made use of by my
countrywoman in the course of the above conversation, I may observe
that ‘talent’ or ‘talented’ is an expression seldom heard from the lips
of a native of New England. Lord Macaulay asserts that these words owe
their origin to the ‘Parable of the Talents’ in the New Testament, and
on one occasion he challenged Lady Holland to cite a single instance of
their being employed by any English writer prior to the latter part of
the seventeenth century. To the circumstance, therefore, that at the
period when the Puritans left their native land to seek new homes in
the New World, the words in question had not been incorporated into the
language, may, I conceive, be attributed the fact that to this day they
seldom have a place in the vocabulary of the inhabitants of the Eastern
States.
When a word is already in existence which is fully adequate to express
the idea it is employed to convey, it seems not a little curious that
the use of it should be superseded by another, not, indeed, coined
for the purpose, but by one divorced from its original meaning. Yet
this has been the case in various instances in the United States.
A place where goods are sold at retail is called a ‘store,’ not a
shop, the use of the latter word being exclusively confined to those
establishments in which some manufacturing or other mechanical industry
is carried on. When ‘corn’ is spoken of, maize or Indian corn is
always meant; all the other cereals being invariably designated by
their respective names, as wheat, oats, barley, &c. Railway in America
becomes ‘railroad;’ station, ‘depôt;’ line, ‘track;’ carriage, ‘car;’
whilst for tram, the phrase employed is ‘horse-car.’ A timber building
is a ‘frame-building;’ a row of houses is a ‘block’ of houses. For
poorhouse or workhouse, the expression used is ‘almshouse.’ When the
idea intended to be conveyed is that which an Englishman attaches to
the latter phrase, the word ‘asylum’ or ‘home’ is used by an American.
In fact, a list which should comprise all the words employed by our
transatlantic cousins in a different sense from ourselves would be
a tolerably long one. But the desultory examples I have given will
suffice to illustrate the fact—to which I have already adverted—that in
numerous instances, and without any apparent cause, many common English
words have acquired in the United States a totally different meaning
from that which they bear in this country.