American Language (44 page)

But before the great invasion of England by American movies, beginning in the first years of the World War, Americanisms commonly had to linger in a sort of linguistic Alsatia a long while before they were accepted, and even then they were sometimes changed in meaning. The cases of
caucus
and
buncombe
are perhaps typical. The former, as we have seen in
Chapter III
, Section 1, was borrowed from an Indian word so early as 1624, and was in general use in the American colonies before 1738, but in 1818 Sydney Smith was dismissing it as “the cant word of the Americans,” and even in 1853 Bulwer-Lytton, using it in “My Novel,” was conscious that it was a somewhat strange Americanism. It was not until 1878 that it came into general use in England, and then, in the words of the Oxford Dictionary, it was “grossly misapplied.” In the United States it had the settled meaning of a meeting of some division, large or small, of a political or legislative body for the purpose of agreeing upon a united course of action in the main assembly, but in England it was applied to what we would call the
organization
. It was used by Benjamin Disraeli to designate the faction of Birmingham Liberals otherwise known as the Six Hundred, and in this sense was used thereafter by the
Times
and other English newspapers. It retains that meaning to this day; it signifies the managing committee of a party or faction — something corresponding to our national committees, our State committees, or to the half-forgotten congressional caucuses of the 1820’s. It thus has a disparaging connotation, and the London
Saturday Review
, in 1888, denounced what it called a
caucuser
as “a machine politician.”
Caucuser
is a derivative concocted in England; it is never used in the United States, and does not appear in “Webster’s New International Dictionary” (1934). Nor does
caucusdom
, which appeared in England in 1885.
Buncombe
got into Standard English just as slowly as
caucus
, and suffered a change too, though it was of a different kind. The word has been in use in the United States since the beginning of the last century, and was spoken of as “old and common at Washington” by a writer
in
Niles’s Register
on September 27, 1827, but it did not come into general use in England until the late 1850’s, and then its spelling was changed to
bunkum
.

But when the American clipped form
bunk
arose toward the end of the World War it began to appear in England almost instantly, for it had the influence of the American movies behind it, and when the verb
to debunk
followed ten years later it got into use quite as quickly. Hundreds of other saucy Americanisms have followed it, often in successful competition with English neologisms. Thus, when the English police began to patrol the roads on motorcycles they were called, officially,
mobile police
, but in a little while an alternative name for them was
speed-cops
, borrowed from the American movies and talkies.
¹⁰
This invasion is resisted valiantly by swarms of volunteer guardians of the national linguistic chastity, and at irregular intervals they break out into violent crusades against this or that American novelty,
¹¹
but many of the more colorful ones now get into circulation very rapidly. H. W. Horwill, in his “Dictionary of Modern American Usage,”
¹²
notes a large number that have “become naturalized since the beginning of the present century
,”
e.g.
, the compounds
hot-air, bed-rock, come-back, -filling-station, high-brow, jay-walker, round-up
and
foot-wear
, the simple nouns
crook
(a criminal),
boom, kick
(a powerful effect),
publicity
(advertising) and
conservatory
(musical), the verbs
to park
(automobile),
to rattle
and
to boom
, and the verb-phrases
to put across, to blow in
(to turn up),
to get away with, to make good, to get a move on, to put over
and
to turn down
; and an even larger number that are “apparently becoming naturalized,”
e.g.
, the compounds
bargain-counter, bell-boy, schedule-time, speed-way, chafing-dish, carpet-bagger, come-down, joy-ride, hold-up, horse-sense, soap-box, frame-up dance-hall, key-man, close-up, close-call, rough-house, gold-brick, log-rolling
and
money-to-burn
, the simple nouns
rally, bromide, cub, cut
(in the sense of a reduction),
engineer
(locomotive),
fan
(enthusiast),
pep, machine
(political),
quitter, pull
(political),
pointer, mixer
and
cereal
(breakfast-food), the simple verbs
to ditch, to feature, to fire
(dismiss),
to pass
(a dividend) and
to hustle
, the verb-phrases
to bank on, to get busy, to come to stay, to crowd out, to fall down
(or
for), to try out, to pick on, to hand-pick, to iron out, to see the light, to deliver the goods, to soft-pedal, to sand-bag, to sit up and take notice, to snow under, to stay put, to side-step, to side-track, to stand for
and
to win out
, and the miscellaneous idioms
good and, on the side, up to
and
up against
. Many of these, of course, belong to slang but some of them are nevertheless making their way into relatively decorous circles. The late Dr. Paul Shorey, professor of Greek at the University of Chicago, used to amuse himself by collecting instances of the use of thumping Americanisms by English authors of dignified standing. He found
to make good
and
cold feet
in John Galsworthy,
rubber-neck
in Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (King Edward VII professor of English literature at Cambridge!),
nothing doing
in Lowes Dickinson,
proposition
“as a word of all work” in Mrs. Humphrey Ward,
to cough up
in John Masefield,
the limit
in Archibald Marshall, and
up against a tough proposition
in William J. Locke.
¹³
Such
literati
seldom if ever adorn their discourse with the current slang of their own country, save of course in depicting low or careless characters. But they are fetched by the piquancy of Americanisms, and employ them for their pungent rhetorical effect. The same consideration influences
English politicians too, and “a veteran Parliamentarian” was lately saying:

The argot of English politics has naturalized many Americanisms beside
caucus
and
buncombe. Graft
, wrote Harold Brighouse in 1929, “is acclimatized in England.”
¹⁵
So is
gerrymander
. So are
platform, carpet-bagger, wire-puller, log-rolling, on the fence, campaign,
¹⁶
to stump
, and
to electioneer.
¹⁷
In other fields there has been the same infiltration. The meaning of
bucket-shop
and
to water
, for example, is familiar to every London broker’s clerk. English trains are now
telescoped
and carry
dead-heads
, there is an Associated Society of Locomotive
Engineers
and
Firemen
, and in 1913 a rival to the Amalgamated Order Of Railway
Servants
was organized under the name of the National Union of
Railway Men
. A movement against the use of the ignominious
servant
is visible in other directions, and the American
help
threatens to be substituted; at all events,
Help Wanted
advertisements are occasionally printed in English newspapers. The American
to phone
is now in general use over there, and “Hello” has displaced “Are you there?” as the standard telephone greeting. English journalists are ceasing to call themselves
pressmen
, and have begun to use the American
newspaper men
. They begin to write
editorials
instead of
leaders
. The English theaters continue to have
dress-circles
where ours have
balconies
, but there are
balconies
in the movie-houses. Since England began to grow sugar-beets the English
beet-root
has succumbed to the American (and earlier English)
beet
, and the American
can
seems to be ousting the English
tin. Sky-scraper, strap-hanger
and
fool-proof
were naturalized long ago,
¹⁸
and I have encountered
cafeteria, kitchen-cabinet, filing-cabinet, nut-sundae, soda-fountain, icecream-soda
and
pop-corn
on shop signs in London,
chain-store
in a headline in a 100% British provincial newspaper,
¹⁹
junk
in the London
Daily Telegraph
²⁰
and
sticker
instead of the English
sticky-back
or
tab
in another great London journal,
²¹
all within the space of a few days. On December 8, 1934, Miss Julia Hogan, of 245 Lord street, Southport, was advertising in the Southport
Visiter
²²
that she was a
beautician
, and a few months later J. A. Watson was reporting in the London
Daily Telegraph
²³
that “those truly loathsome transatlantic importations,”
to help make, worth-while, nearby
and
colorful
, were “spreading like plague.” No less a lexicographical dignitary than Dr. C. T. Onions, one of the editors of the Oxford Dictionary, is authority for the news that
to make good
“no longer gives the impression of being an alien idiom” in England, that “the American applications of the word
dope
have generally commended themselves and have obtained a wide currency,” and that
yep
and
nope
“have penetrated even into the speech of the educated of the younger generation.”
²⁴
“Twenty years ago,” said S. K. Ratcliffe in 1935,
²⁵
“no one in England
started in, started out
or
checked up
; we did not
stand for
or
fall for
, as we do today.… We have learned from the American
to try out
, but not as yet
to curse out
, and when we
make out
we are still deciphering something, and not, as the American is, doing something fairly well.”
²⁶
Sometimes an Americanism that has long ceased to be a novelty in this country is suddenly taken up in England, and becomes popular almost overnight. Thus
shyster
, in use here since the 1850’s, was introduced by Robert Louis Stevenson in “The Wrecker” in 1892;
²⁷
Indian-Summer
which goes back to Colonial days, was given a start by John Galsworthy’s use of it in the title of “The
Indian Summer
of a Forsyte” (1918); and the Prince of Wales popularized the Rooseveltian
bully
by using it in a speech to Leicestershire huntsmen in 1930.
O.K
. has been known
and understood in England for at least thirty years, but it was not until 1932 that it came into general use.
²⁸
The movies and talkies are now responsible for most such introductions, whether of new Americanisms or old ones, but they get active help from the radio, the stage and even the English newspapers. In 1933 Henry Hall broadcast from London a list of the songs most popular in Great Britain since 1919, estimated on the basis of the sales of sheet music and phonograph records. Of the sixteen he mentioned, all save five were American.
²⁹
The English newspapers of wide circulation make a heavy use of Americanisms in their headlines and their more gossipy articles,
³⁰
and in the popular magazines “a large number of the stories are set in American situations, or are at least written from an American viewpoint, in semi-American language.”
³¹

It is curious, reading the fulminations of American purists of the last generation, to note how many of the Americanisms they denounced have broken down all guards across the ocean.
To placate
and
to antagonize
are examples. The Concise Oxford and Cassell distinguished between the English and American meanings of the latter: in England a man may antagonize only another man, in America he may antagonize a mere idea or things. But, as the brothers Fowler show, even the English meaning is of American origin, and no doubt a few more years will see the verb completely naturalized in Britain.
To placate
, attacked vigorously by all native grammarians down to (but excepting) White, now has the authority of the
Spectator
, and is accepted by Cassell. Other old bugaboos
that have been embraced are
to donate, reliable, gubernatorial, presidential
and
standpoint
. White labored long and valiantly to convince Americans that the adjective derived from
president
should be without the
i
before its last syllable, following the example of
incidental, regimental, monumental, governmental, oriental, experimental
and so on; but in vain, for
presidential
is now perfectly good English.
To engineer, to collide,
³²
to corner, to obligate
, and
to lynch
are in Cassell with no hint of their American origin, and so are
home-spun, out-house, cross-purposes, green-horn, blizzard, tornado, cyclone, hurricane, excursionist, wash-stand
and
wash-basin
, though
wash-hand-stand
and
wash-hand-basin
are also given.
Drug-store
is making its way in England; the firm known as Boots’ the Chemists (formerly Boots Cash Chemists) uses the term to designate its branches. But it is not yet listed by either Cassell or the Concise Oxford, though both give
druggist. Tenderfoot
is in general use, though the English commonly mistake it for an Australianism; it is used by the English Boy Scouts just as our own Boy Scouts use it.
Scalawag
has got into English with an extra
l
, making it
scallawag
or
scallywag
. J. Y. T. Greig, in “Breaking Priscian’s Head,”
³³
prints a long list of Americanisms that have become firmly lodged in English, and says that “few of us who have not taken the trouble to go into the matter are aware how many of our common expressions derive from the United States.” His list includes, besides the words mentioned above, the compounds
back-woods, chewing-gum, cold-snap, dug-out, half-breed, hot-cake, mass-meeting, beach-comber, six-shooter, bee-line, indignation-meeting
and
pow-wow
, the simple nouns
blizzard, bluff, boodle, boss, caboodle, canyon, collateral
(in the Stock Exchange sense),
combine
(noun),
crank
(eccentric person),
cuss, dago, filibuster, fix
(in a
fix), floor
(in the sense of
to have, yield
or
hold the floor), flurry, goner, gulch, hustler, mileage, misstep, mugwump, paleface, persimmon, porterhouse
(steak),
ranch, rowdy, school-marm, scrap
(fight),
shack, shanty, shyster, snag
(in a river, and figuratively),
splurge, spook, squatter
and
stampede
, the adjectives
blue, bogus, colored
(Negro),
governmental, highfalutin, low-down, non-commital, pesky, pivotal, played-out, previous
(too
previous), rattled, slick
and
whole-souled
, the verbs
to bluff, to boost, to
bullyrag, to enthuse, to eventuate, to itemize, to jump
(a claim),
to lobby, to locate, to lynch, to negative, to run
(for office),
to scoot, to splurge, to tote
and
to vamose
, the verb-phrases
to take the cake, to bury the hatchet, to cut no ice, to draw a bead on, to keep one’s eye peeled, to fizzle out, to freeze out, to go back on, to go it blind, to go one better, to go the whole hog, to go under, to get the hang of, to hold up, to keep a stiff upper lip, to monkey with, to play possum, to pull up stakes, to put it through, to raise Cain, to shin up, to size up, to spread oneself, to go on the stump
and
to trade off
, the adverb
plumb
, and the phrases
best bib and tucker, not my funeral, true inwardness, for keeps, no flies on, no two ways about it, on time, no slouch
and
under the weather
. “It is difficult now,” says Ernest Weekley,
³⁴
“to imagine how we got on so long without the word
stunt
, how we expressed the characteristics so conveniently summed up in
dope-fiend
or
high-brow
, or any other possible way of describing that mixture of the cheap pathetic and the ludicrous which is now universally labelled
sob-stuff
” “Every Englishman listening to me now,” said Alistair Cooke in a radio broadcast from London,
³⁵
“uses thirty or forty Americanisms a day.” “We seem to offer less and less resistance,” said Professor W. E. Collinson of the University of Liverpool,
³⁶
“to the new importations.”