American Language (59 page)

70
The Yankee in British Fiction,
Outlook
, Nov. 19, 1910.

71
See A British Misconception, by Stuart Robertson,
American Speech
, April, 1931, p. 314.

72
British Notes,
New Republic
, Feb. 24, 1926, p. 16.

73
American Speech According to Galsworthy, by Stuart Robertson,
American Speech
, April, 1932, p. 297.

74
If You Know What I Mean, by C. W. M.,
Independent
, March 17, 1928.

75
Cockney American,
American Speech
, April, 1932.

76
American Written Here, Dec. 19, 1919, p. 1362.

77
To this Brooke anecdote a correspondent adds: “An Englishman, confronted by the puzzling American phrase, ‘Where am I at? ’, interpreted it as a doubly barbarous form of ‘Where
is me
‘at?’ ”

78
If You Know What I Mean, by C. W. M., above cited. See also Speak the Speech,
Nation
, May 15, 1935, p. 562. The writer of the latter calls attention to the innocent way in which the brethren of
punch
mix old and new American slang. A New York gangster, he says, is made to use
I
swan
in the same sentence with
gun-moll
and
gat
. “He bets
dollars to doughnuts
and thinks that something
beats the Dutch
only a few seconds before he calls the object of his affection a
hot patootie
who refused to
middle-aisle
it with him because he is a
palooka
. He also refers to a
fried
[
boiled?
] shirt, and speaks of someone as dead
from the hoofs up
, and of a
gazissey
[
sic
] with a dial like a painted doormat.” The
Nation
writer says that when Berton Braley once protested to Sir Owen Seaman, editor of
punch
, against such manhandling of American he got the reply: “In caricature it is more essential to give what our clientele will recognize as a familiar likeness than to follow the very latest portrait from life.”

79
Autocar
(London), Feb. 4, 1922, P-
55
.

80
The First Reader, New York
World
, July 9, 1926.

81
This cook-book was reviewed in the Baltimore
Evening Sun
, April 14, by a writer who had recently returned from a long sojourn in England. “What we Americans called
endive
,” he said, “the Kentish gardener called
chicory. Chicory
was our
endive. Romaine
lettuce was
cos, string-beans
were
runner-beans, lima-beans
were
broad-beans
, and so on.” “What is here [in England], “known as a
hash
,” said Eugene Field in Sharps and Flats; New York, 1900, p. 210, “we should call a
stew
, and what we call a
hash
is here known as a
mince.
” Field printed a list of about 30 terms differing in English and American.

82
News of the World
, Sept. 10, 1932.

83
We Translate a Letter From London, April 17, 1932.

84
When Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick was brought out in England,
c
. 1885, rnany changes were made in the text in order to get rid of Americanisms and American spellings. “In Ch. XVI alone there are 106 variations.” See Some Americanisms in Moby Dick, by William S. Ament,
American Speech
, June, 1932, and Bowdler and the Whale, by the same,
American Literature
. March, 1932.

85
Anglicizing Americanisms, Feb., 1926, and Anglicizings, Jan., 1927.

86
Claude de Crespigny, an Englishman resident in the United States, objected to some of Mr. Pember-ton’s Anglicizations in Peculiar Anglicizing,
American Speech
, July, 1926, and was answered by Mr. Pemberton in Anglicizing Americanisms,
American Speech
, Jan., 1927.

87
See Another Language, by Anna R. Baker,
Writer’s Digest
, Sept., 1934. Miss Baker describes the revision of a story called Try to Forget Me, by Sewell Peaslee Wright, first published in the
Woman’s Home Companion
for Feb., 1934. In the English reprint
to go over big
was changed
to be successful, sure
to
of course, sure-fire
to
popular, to boss around
to
to boss about, grip
to
control, all set
to
ready
, and so on. Altogether, Miss Baker notes 74 changes, including a few in spelling.

88
Addressing American advertisers in
Anglo-American Trade
(London), Jan., 1928, Paul E. Derrick, vice-president of the American Chamber of Commerce in London, said: “I strongly advise Americans who aim to cultivate the British market to have their American advertising translated into idiomatic English by trained English advertising writers. I know, from my long and wide experience, that the distributors and consumers in both Britain and America are distracted from concentration upon the message by every unfamiliar word and expression they encounter.… It is time that both Britons and Americans came to know, and to accept the fact, that they do not speak in the same idiom.”

89
The United Kingdom: an Industrial, Commercial and Financial Handbook (Trade Promotion Series No. 94). My quotations are from Ch. XXVI: Selling American Merchandise in the United Kingdom. I am indebted for the reference to Mr. R. M. Stephenson, chief of the European Section, Division of Regional Information, Department of Commerce.

90
Sometimes with sad results. In 1923 D. L. Blumenfeld wrote to the
Cinema
(London, June 5): “The other day I saw an American film in which one of the characters was made to say, in a rough-house scene, “ ’Ere you — ’op it!” — which is tantamount to making an Englishman in similar circumstances say “G’wan, you big stiff — beat it!”

91
For example, American Without Tears, by Hamilton Eames, London
Times
, May 6, 1931. Mr. Eames undertook to define 118 terms, ranging from
alky-cooking
to
yen
.

92
It was reprinted in
American Speech
, May, 1926, p. 462, and again in the same, Dec, 1927, p. 167.

93
The Lewis glossary was made by Montgomery Belgion, an Englishman who once lived in New York. Despite his American experience, he made a number of errors. Thus he defined
to buck
as to cheat,
bum
as a rotter,
flipflop
as rot,
high-
binder
as an extravagant person, and
roustabout
as a revolutionary. The glossaries printed in the English newspapers are usually full of howlers. Even the otherwise accurate Hamilton Eames, whose contribution to the London
Times
has just been cited, defined
panhandler
as a swindler. It means, of course, a street beggar.

94
The Dumb Ox,
Life and Letters
, April, 1934, p. 42.

95
Eric Partridge, in his introduction to Songs and Slang of the British Soldier, 1914–1918; London, 1930, p. 6, says that it appeared in 1915, and (p. 48) that its tune was borrowed from the French music-halls.

96
I have had access to it through the courtesy of Mr. Wilson. Unfortunately, it remains unpublished.

97
Wowser
is of Australian origin, and was in use in Australia at least as early as 1908, but it did not come into use in England until it was introduced by the Australian troops in 1915. Its etymology is uncertain. I am told by Mr. J. A. B. Foster, of Hobart, Tasmania, that it was invented by one John Norton, who defined it as “a fellow who is too niggardly of joy to allow the other fellow any time to do anything but pray.” Mr. Roger C. Hackett, of Cristobal, C. Z., says he has heard that it represents the initials of a slogan employed by a reform organization in Australia (or New Zealand),
c
. 1900, viz.: “We only want social evils righted.” I tried to introduce it in the United States after the World War, but without success. It was used by Dr. William Morton Wheeler in the
Scientific Monthly
, Feb., 1920, p. 116.

98
Whether this form is English or American I don’t know, but certainly it is much oftener encountered in the United States than in England. It is sometimes pronounced as spelled,
i.e., shoppy
. In 1934, in the town of Rabat, Morocco, I heard it so pronounced by a native guiding Americans through the bazaars. Sometimes it is combined with the archaic
ye
, as in “Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.” In such cases
ye
is often pronounced as spelled, though it is simply an abbreviation for
the
.

99
See p. 58 of The United States at War, a pamphlet issued by the Library of Congress, 1917. The compiler of this pamphlet was a savant bearing the fine old British name of Herman H. B. Meyer.

100
He is addressed as
Governor
, and is commonly referred to as
Hon
.

101
This was announced in an Associated Press dispatch from Washington, Feb. 7, 1926.

102
Dialect Notes
, Vol. I, Pt. IX, p. 432.

103
Freedom of the Press (editorial), Savannah
News
, Jan. 15, 1928.

104
American Private Schools, by Porter E. Sargent; Boston, 1920. Mr. Sargent says that the young boys at St. Paul’s sleep in “alcoves in the dormitories similar to the cubicles of many of the English public-schools.” It is curious to note that Dr. Coit, for all his Anglomania, was born at Harrisburg, Pa., began life as the manager of a tube works at Cleveland, and retired to Munich on resigning the rectorate of St. Paul’s.

105
Words and Their Uses; New York, p. 198.

106
But the meaning of the word now differs somewhat in the two countries. In America it connotes disgusting as well as mere unpleasant. Dean W. R. Inge called attention to this difference in The English Language, London
Evening Standard
, Nov. 24, 1921.

107
American English,
North American Review
, April.

108
Noah Webster denounced this last so long ago as 1789, in his Dissertations on the English Language, II.

109
English Dialect and American Ears, June, 1922, p. 53.

110
On April 1, 1926 the New York
Times
printed a warning by Assistant District Attorney Michael A. Ford that practitioners of the following non-Euclidian healing schemes were calling themselves
doctor
in New York: ærotherapy, astral-healing, autothermy, bio-dynamo-chromatic-therapy, chro-mo-therapy, diet-therapy, electro-homeopathy, electro-napro-therapy, geo-therapy, irido-therapy, mech-ano-therapy, neuro-therapy, napra-pathy, photo-therapy, physic-therapy, quartz-therapy, sanitratorism, spondylotherapy, spectro-chrome-therapy, spectra-therapy, tropho-therapy, theomonism, telatherapy, vitopathy, zodiac-therapy, zonet-therapy and Zoroastrianism.

111
In the appendix to the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases, London, 1916, p. iv, I find the following: “
Mr
. C. J. Symonds, F.R.C.S., M.D.;
Mr
. F. J. McCann, F.R.C.S., M.D.;
Mr
. A. F. Evans, F.R.C.S.”
Mr
. Symonds is consulting surgeon to Guy’s Hospital,
Mr
. McCann is an eminent London gynecologist, and
Mr
. Evans is a general surgeon in large practice. All would be called
Doctor
in the United States.

112
The Skilful
Leech, S.P.E. Tracts
, No. IV, 1920, p. 33.

113
Speaking of This and That, Chicago
School Journal
, Sept., 1925, p. 1.

114
See
Professor
or
Professional
, by Mamie Meredith,
American Speech
, Feb., 1934, p. 71, and
Professor
Again, by C. D. P.,
American Speech
, June, 1929, p. 422.

115
See The Title
Professor
, by N. R. L.,
American Speech
, Oct., 1927, p. 27, and
Professor
Again, by Charles L. Hanson,
American Speech
, Feb., 1928, p. 256.

116
Canon law among the Baptists, who are numerous in the South, permits any congregation to confer the degree. It is often given to a pastor as a solatium when he is dismissed from his post. In both England and America every Catholic and Church of England bishop is made a
D.D
. on his elevation.

117
But in Scotland any clergyman over fifty, never caught red-handed in simony or adultery, is likely to be a
D.D.

118
In late years the creation of colonels and generals by State Governors has diminished, but it continues in Kentucky, where Governor Ruby Laffoon (gloriously he, despite his given-name) made thousands between 1931 and 1935. Col. Patrick H. Callahan of Louisville who owes his title to a former Governor, argues that military rank is conducive, at least in Kentucky, to easy social intercourse. “
Colonel
,” he says, “is not much more than a nickname, like
Tom, Dick
or
Harry
, and is used and appreciated mostly on that account.”

119
“In Nebraska,” according to Dr. Louise Pound,
American Speech
, April, 1935, p. 158, “auctioneers customarily take to themselves the title of
Colonel
.” They do so also in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and parts of the South. See “Auctioneer
Colonels
Again,” by Dr. Pound,
American Speech
, Oct., 1935.

120
The use of
former
in place of
ex-
is an Americanism, and Horwill says that it is unknown in England.

121
For these references I am indebted to Words Indicating Social Status in America in the Eighteenth Century, by Allen Walker Read,
American Speech
, Oct., 1934.