and phrases that he had noted in recent British books and journals,
and as they were then wholly unknown to America, he branded them as
Briticisms, only to evoke a prompt protest from Mr. Andrew Lang. For
the stigmatized words and phrases Mr. Lang proffered no defense; but
he boldly denied that it was fair to call them Briticisms. True, one
or another of them had been detected in pages of this or that British
author. Yet they were not common property: they were individualisms;
they were to be charged against each separate perpetrator and not
against the whole United Kingdom. Mr. Lang maintained that when Walter
Pater used so odd a term as _evanescing_, this use “scarcely makes it a
Briticism; it was a Paterism.”
This is a plea in confession and avoidance, but its force is
indisputable. To admit it, however, gives us a right to insist that the
same justice shall be meted out to the so-called Americanisms which
Mr. Lang has more than once held up to British execration. If the use
of an ill-made word like _essayette_ or _leaderette_ or _sermonette_
by one or more British writers does not make it a Briticism until it
can be proved to have come into general use in Great Britain, then,
of course, the verbal aberrations of careless Americans, or even the
freakish dislocations of the vocabulary indulged in by some of our
more acrobatic humorists, does not warrant a British writer in calling
any chance phrase of theirs an Americanism. Mr. W. S. Gilbert once
manufactured the verb “to burgle,” and Mr. Gilbert is a British writer
of good repute; but _burgling_ is not therefore a Briticism: it is a
Gilbertism. Mr. Edison, an inventor of another sort, once affirmed that
a certain article giving an account of his kineto-phonograph had his
“entire indorsation.” According to Mr. Lang’s theory, _indorsation_,
not being in use generally in the United States, is not an Americanism:
it is an Edisonism.
The more Mr. Lang’s theory is considered, the sounder it will appear.
Individual word-coinages are not redeemable at the national treasury
either in the United Kingdom or in the United States. Before a word or
a phrase can properly be called a Briticism or an Americanism there
must be proof that it has won its way into general use on its own side
of the Atlantic. _Right away_ for “at once” is an Americanism beyond
all dispute, for it is wide-spread throughout the United States;
and so is _back of_ for “behind.” _Directly_ for “as soon as” is a
Briticism equally indisputable; and so is _different to_ for “different
from.” In each of these four cases there has been a local divergence
from the traditional usage of the English language. All four of these
divergences may be advantageous, and all four of them may even be
accepted hereafter on both sides of the Atlantic; but just now there is
no doubt that two of them are fairly to be called Americanisms and two
of them are properly to be recorded as Briticisms.
Every student of our speech knows that true Americanisms are abundant
enough; but the omission of terms casually employed here and there,
seed that fell by the wayside, springing up only to wilt away--the
omission of all individualisms of this sort simplifies the list
immensely, just as a like course of action in England cuts down the
number of Briticisms fairly to be catalogued as such. It must be
remarked, however, that the collecting of so-called Americanisms
is a pastime that has been carried on since the early years of the
nineteenth century, whereas it was only in the closing decades of that
century that attention was called to the existence of Briticisms, and
to the necessity of a careful collection of them. The bulky tomes which
pretend to be ‘Dictionaries of Americanisms’ are stuffed with words
and phrases having no right there.
These dictionaries would be very slim if they contained only true
Americanisms, that is to say, words and phrases in common use in the
United States and not in common use in the United Kingdom. Yet they
would be slimmer still if another limitation is imposed on the use
of the word. Is a term fairly to be called an Americanism if it can
be shown to have been formerly in use in England, even though it may
there have dropped out of sight in the past century or two? Now,
everybody knows that dozens of so-called Americanisms are good old
English, neglected by the British and allowed to die out over there,
but cherished and kept alive over here. Such is _guess_=“incline to
think”; such is _realise_=“to make certain or substantial”; such is
_reckon_=“consider” or “deem”; such is _a few_=“a little”; such is
_nights_=“at night”; and such are dozens of other words often foolishly
animadverted upon as indefensible Americanisms, and all of them solidly
established in honorable ancestry. An instructive collection of these
survivals can be seen in Mr. H. C. Lodge’s aptly entitled and highly
interesting essay on ‘Shakspere’s Americanisms.’
It is with an amused surprise that an American in his occasional
reading keeps coming across in the pages of British authors of one
century or another what he had supposed to be Americanisms, and even
what he had taken sometimes for mere slang. The _cert_ of the New York
street-boy, apparently a contraction of _certainly_, is it not rather
the _certes_ of the Elizabethans? And the interrogative _how?_=“what
is it?”--a usage abhorred by Dr. Holmes,--this can be discovered in
Massinger’s plays more than once (‘Duke of Milan,’ iii. 3, and ‘Believe
as You List,’ ii. 2). “I’m _pretty considerably_ glad to see you,” says
Manuel, in Colley Cibber’s ‘She Would and She Would Not.’ _To fire
out_=“expel forcibly,” is in Shakspere’s Sonnets and also in ‘Ralph
Roister Doister’--altho, perhaps, with a slightly different connotation
from that now obtaining in America. A theatrical manager nowadays likes
to have the first performance of a new play out of town so that he can
come to the metropolis with a perfected work, and he calls this _trying
it on the dog_; the same expression, almost, is to be found in Pope. In
‘Pickwick,’ Sam Weller proposes to _settle the hash_ of an opponent;
and in ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ we find _down to the ground_ used as
a superlative, and quite in our own later sense. The Southern _peart_
is in ‘Lorna Doone,’ and the Southwestern _dog-gone it_ is in the
‘Little Minister.’ In Mr. Barrie’s story also do we find _to go back on
your word_; just as in Mr. William Watson’s ‘Excursions in Criticism’
we discover _grit_=“staying power” or “doggedness.”
Very amusing indeed is the attitude of the ordinary British newspaper
reviewer toward words and phrases in this category. Not being a scholar
in English, he is unaware that scholarship is a condition precedent to
judgment; and he is swift to denounce as American innovations terms
firmly rooted in the earlier masters of the language, while he passes
the frequent Briticisms in the pages of contemporary London writers
without a hint of reproof. From a British author like Rossetti he
accepts “the _gracile_ spring,” while he rejects “_gracile_ ease” in
an American author like Mr. Howells. Behind this arrogant ignorance
is to be perceived the assumption that the English language is in
immediate peril of disease and death from American license if British
newspapers fail to do their duty. The shriller the shriek of protest
is, the slighter the protester’s competence upon the question at issue.
No outcry against the deterioration of English in America has come from
any of the British scholars who can speak with authority about the
language.
What we Americans have done is to keep alive or to revive many a good
old English term; and for this service to our common speech our British
cousins ought to be properly grateful. We must admit that words and
phrases and usages thus reinstated are not true Americanisms--however
much we might like to claim them for our very own. We have already
seen that most of the individualisms of eccentric or careless writers
are also not to be received as true Americanisms. And there is yet a
third group of so-called Americanisms not fairly entitled to the name.
These are the terms devised in the United States to meet conditions
unknown in England. Here is no divergence from the accepted usage of
the language, but a development of the common tongue to satisfy a
new necessity. The need for the new word or phrase was first felt in
America, and here the new term had to be found to supply the immediate
want. But the word itself, altho frankly of American origin, is not
to be styled an Americanism. It is a new English word, that is all--a
word to be used hereafter in the United Kingdom as in the United
States. It is an American contribution to the English language; but
it is not an Americanism--if we limit Americanism to mean a term
having currency only in North America, just as Briticism means a term
having currency only in the British Islands. The new thing exists now,
and as it came into existence in America, we stood sponsors for it;
but the name we gave it is its name once for all, to be used by the
British and the Australians and the Canadians as well as by ourselves.
_Telephone_, for example,--both the thing and the word are of American
invention,--is there any one so foolish as to call _telephone_ an
Americanism?
These American contributions to the English language are not a
few. Some of them are brand-new words, minted at the minute of
sudden demand, and well made or ill made, as chance would have it;
_phonograph_ is one of these; _dime_ is another; and _typewriter_
is a third. Some of them are old words wrenched to a new use, like
_elevator_=“storehouse for grain,” and like _ticker_=“telegraphic
printing-machine.” Some of them are taken from foreign tongues, either
translated, like _statehouse_ (from the Dutch), or unchanged, like
_prairie_ (from the French), _adobe_ (from the Spanish), and _stoop_
(from the Dutch). Some of them are borrowed from the rude tongues of
our predecessors on this continent, like _moccasin_ and _tomahawk_ and
_wigwam_. To be compared with this last group are the words adopted
into English from the native languages of India--_punka_, for example.
And I make no doubt that the Australians have taken over from the
aborigines round about them more than one word needed in a hurry as a
name for something until then nameless in our common language because
the something itself was until then unknown or unnoticed. But these
Australian contributions to English cannot be called Australianisms
any more than _telephone_ and _prairie_ and _wigwam_ can be called
Americanisms.
So far the attempt has been here made to subtract from the immense and
heterogeneous mass of so-called Americanisms three classes of terms
falsely so called: first, the mere individualisms, for which America as
a whole has a right to shirk the responsibility; second, the survivals
in the United States of words and usages that happen to have fallen
into abeyance in Great Britain; and, third, the American contributions
to the English language. As to each of these three groups the case
is clear enough; but as to a fourth group, which ought also to be
deducted, one cannot speak with quite so much confidence.
This group would include the peculiarities of speech existing
sporadically in this or that special locality and contributing what
are often called the American dialects--the Yankee dialect first of
all, then the dialect of the Appalachian mountaineers, the dialect of
the Western cow-boys, etc. Are these localisms fairly to be classed as
Americanisms? The question, so far as I know, has never been raised
before, for it has been taken for granted that if any such things as
Americanisms existed at all, they could surely be collected from the
mouth of Hosea Biglow. And yet if we pause to think, we cannot but
admit that the so-called Yankee dialect is local, that it is unknown
outside of New England, and that a majority of the inhabitants of the
United States find it almost as strange in their ears as the broad
Scotch of Burns. As for the so-called dialect of the cow-boy, it is not
a true dialect at all; it is simply carelessly colloquial English with
a heavy infusion of fugitive slang; and whatever it may be in itself,
it is local to the cow-country. The Appalachian dialect is perhaps more
like a true dialect; but it is even less wide-spread than either of the
others here picked out for consideration. No one of these three alleged
dialects is in any sense national; all three of them are narrowly
local--altho the New England speech has spread more or less into the
middle west.
Perhaps some light on this puzzle may be had by considering how they
regard a similar problem in England itself. The local dialects which
still abound throughout the British Isles are under investigation, each
by itself. No one has ever suggested the lumping of them all together
as Briticisms. Indeed, the very definition of Briticism would debar
this. What is a Briticism but a term frequently used throughout Great
Britain and not accepted in the United States? And if this definition
is acceptable, we are forced to declare that an Americanism is a term
frequently used throughout the United States and not accepted in Great
Britain. The terms of the Yankee dialect, of the Appalachian, and of
the cow-boy, are localisms; they are not frequently used throughout the
United States; they are not to be classed as Americanisms any more than
the cockney idioms, the Wessex words, and the Yorkshire phrases are to
be classed as Briticisms.
It is greatly to be regretted that Dr. Murray and Mr. Bradley and the
other editors of the comprehensive Oxford Dictionary have not been
so careful as they might be in identifying the locality of American
dialectic peculiarities. They have taken great pains to record and
circumscribe British dialectic peculiarities; but they are in the habit
of appending a vague and misleading (U. S.) to such American words and
usages as they may set down. It is to be hoped that they may hereafter
aim at a greater exactness in their attributions, since their present
practice is quite misleading, as it often suggests that a term is a
true Americanism, used freely throughout the United States, when it is
perhaps merely an individualism or at best a localism.
Of true Americanisms there are not so very many left, when we have
ousted from their usurped places these four groups of terms having
no real title to the honorable name. And true Americanisms might be
subdivided again into two groups, the one containing the American
terms for which there are equivalent Briticisms, thus indicating a
divergence of usage, and the other including only the words and phrases
which have sprung up here without correlative activity on the other
side of the Atlantic.
When the attempt is made to set up parallel columns of Briticisms
and Americanisms, each more or less equal to the other, it is with
surprise that we discover how few of these equivalencies there
are. In other words, the variations of usage between Great Britain
and the United States are infrequent. In England the railway was
preceded by the stage-coach, and in America the railroad was
preceded rather by the river steamboat; and probably this accounts
for the slight differentiation observable in the vocabulary of the
traveler. But this is not the reason why we in America make misuse
of a French word, _dépôt_, while the British prefer the Latin word
_terminus_,--restricting its application accurately to the terminal
station of a line. In England they name him a _guard_ whom we in
America name _brakeman_ or _trainman_; and it is to be noted that
when Stevenson was an Amateur Emigrant he sought to use the word of
the country and so mentions the _brakesman_--thus proving again the
difficulty of attaining exactness in local usage. The British call
that a _goods-train_ which we call a _freight-train_; and they speak
of a _crossing-plate_ when they mean what we know as a _frog_. In the
United States a _sleeping-car_ is often termed a _sleeper_, whereas
in Great Britain what they call a _sleeper_ is what we here call a
_tie_. They say a _keyless watch_ where we say a _stem-winder_. They
say _leader_ where we say _editorial_. They call that a _lift_ which
we call an _elevator_; and we call him a _farm-hand_ whom they call
an _agricultural laborer_. They have even borrowed one Americanism,
_caucus_, and made it a Briticism by changing its meaning to signify
what we are wont to describe as the _machine_ or the _organisation_.
It is to be noted also that _corn_ in England refers to _wheat_ and
in America to _maize_; and that in Great Britain _calico_ is a plain
cotton cloth and in the United States a printed cotton cloth.
This list of correlative Americanisms and Briticisms might be extended,
of course; but however sweeping our investigations may be we cannot
make it very long. Far longer is the list of American words and phrases
and usages for which there is no British equivalent--far too long,
indeed, for inclusion in this essay. All that can be done here and
now is to pick up a surface specimen or two from the outcroppings to
show the quality of the vein. For instance, the vocabulary of the
university is largely indigenous--altho we have recently borrowed
a British vulgarism, speaking now of the _varsity team_ and the
_varsity crew_. _Campus_ seems to be unknown to the British, and so
does _sophomoric_, a most useful epithet understood at once all over
the United States. Its absence from the British vocabulary is probably
due to the fact that the four-year course of the old-fashioned American
college is unknown in England, where there are _freshmen_ indeed, but
no _sophomores_.
Going out from the academic groves to the open air of the wider West,
as so many of our college graduates do every year, we meet with a host
of Americanisms vigorous with the free life of the great river and
of the grand mountains. But is _blaze_=“to mark a trail through the
woods by chipping off bits of bark”--is this a true Americanism? Is it
not rather an American contribution to the English language? Surely
every man in Africa or in Asia who wishes to retrace his path through
a virgin forest must needs _blaze_ his way as he goes. But _shack_=“a
cabin of logs driven perpendicularly into the ground”--this is a true
Americanism undoubtedly. And its compound _claim-shack_=“a shack built
to hold a claim on a preëmption”--this is another true Americanism
likely to puzzle a British reader. Even _preëmpt_ and _preëmption_ are
probably Americanisms in that they have with us a meaning somewhat
different from that they may have on the other side of the Atlantic.
Another true Americanism, which comes to us from the plains, is
_mavericks_=“the unbranded cattle at large to become the property of
the first ranch-owner whose men may chance upon them.” And _ranch_,
while it is itself a contribution to the language, has usages in which
it is an Americanism merely--as in the Californian _hen-ranch_, for
example.
There is a large freedom about the Western vernacular and a swift
directness not elsewhere observable in the English language, whether
in the United States or in the British Empire. These are most valuable
qualities, and they are likely to be of real service to English in
helping to refresh the jaded vocabulary of more scholarly communities.
The function of slang as a true feeder of language is certain to get
itself more widely recognized as time goes on; and there is no better
nursery for these seedlings of speech than the territory west of the
Mississippi and east of the Rockies. To say this is not to say that
there are not to be found east of the Mississippi many interesting
locutions still inadequately established in the language. For example,
there are three words applied to the same thing in different parts of
the East; perhaps they ought to be styled localisms, but as they would
be comprehended all over the United States, they are probably entitled
to be received as true Americanisms--if, on the other hand, they are
not in fact good old English words. A pass through the hills is often
called a _notch_ in the White Mountains, a _clove_ in the Catskills,
and a _gap_ in the Blue Ridge. Yet even as I write this I have my
doubts as to there being any narrow geographical delimitation of usage,
since I can recall a Parker Notch in the Catskills, not far from Stony
Clove and Kaaterskill Clove.
One of the best known of true Americanisms is _lumber_=“timber.” When
we speak of the _lumbering_ industry we mean not only the cutting down
of trees and their sawing up into planks, but also their marketing.
From the apparent participle _lumbering_ a verb has been made _to
lumber_--a not uncommon process in the history of the language, one
British analog being the making of the verb _to bant_ from the innocent
name of Mr. Banting. _To lumber_ is apparently now used in the sense
of _to deforest_, if we may rely on a newspaper paragraph which
informed us that a certain tract of twenty-five thousand acres in the
Adirondacks had “been lumbered, but not in such a way as to injure
it for a park.” The verb _to launder_=“to wash,” has been revived of
late in America, if indeed it has not been made anew from the noun
_laundry_; and shirt-makers in their price-lists specify whether
the shirts are to be sold _laundered_ or _unlaundered_. And to the
word _laundry_ itself has been given a further extension of meaning.
In New York, at least,--and the verbal fashions of the metropolis
spread swiftly throughout the Union,--it signifies not only the place
where personal linen is washed but the personal linen itself. An
advertisement in a college magazine informed the lone student that
“gentlemen’s _laundry_” was “mended free.”
When an American student of English printed a collection of Briticisms
in which more than one strange wild fowl of speech had been snared on
the wing in newspapers and advertisements, Mr. Andrew Lang protested
against the acceptance of phrases so gathered as representative
Briticisms; and it is only fair to admit that they represented
colloquial or industrial rather than literary usage. Yet they were
interesting in that they gave us a glimpse of the actual speech of the
common people--just such a glimpse, in fact, as we get from the Roman
inscriptions. This actual speech of the people, whether in Rome or in
London or in New York, is the real language, of which the literary
dialect is but a sublimation. Language is born in the mouth, altho it
dies young unless it is brought up by hand. Language is made sometimes
in the library, it is true, and in the parlor also, but far more often
in the workshop and on the sidewalk; and nowadays the newspaper and
the advertisement record for us the simple and unstilted phrases of the
workshop and the sidewalk.
The most of these will fade out of sight unregretted; but a few will
prove themselves possessed of sturdy vitality. Briticisms, it may be,
or Americanisms, as it happens, they will fight their way up from the
workshop to the library, from the sidewalk to the study. Born in a
single city, they will serve usefully throughout a great nation, and
perhaps in the end all over the world, wherever our language is spoken.
The ideal of style, so it has been tersely put, is the speech of the
people in the mouth of the scholar. One reason why so much of the
academic writing of educated men is arid is because it is as remote
as may be from the speech of the people. One reason why Mark Twain
and Rudyard Kipling are now the best-beloved authors of the English
language is because they have each of them a welcome ear for the speech
of the people. Mark Twain abounds in true Americanisms; on the other
hand, Rudyard Kipling is sparing of real Briticisms--having, indeed,
a certain hankering after Americanisms. Kipling’s case is not unlike
that of Æschylus, who was a native of Greece but a frequent resident
in Sicily, and in whose vocabulary occasional Sicilianisms have been
found by the keen-eyed German critics. So Plautus greedily availed
himself of the vigorous fertility he discovered in the vocabulary of
the Roman populace; and when Cicero went to the works of Plautus for
the words he needed, we had once more the speech of the people in the
mouth of the scholar.