The Portland daily press., 1880-05-01
The English Language in America


At the very outset it can be said that one
prominent characteristic of the speech of the
mother country, taken as whole, has never
perpetuated itself with us. This is the divis-
ion into broadly-marked dialects. These, in
deed, are beginning to pass away in Great
Britain with the general spread of education,
which inevitably carries with it the language
of literature. Still, theyexist; and the differ
ences between the popular speech even of ad-
joining districts are sometimes conspicuous.
In this country, on the other hand, there are.
properly speaking, no dialects. The peculiar
tiles which distinguish either the pronuncia-
ton or the vocabulary of the dwellers in any
part of the United States are neither so univer-
sal within the limits assigned, nor so strongly
marked in their own nature as to warrant the
application to them of that term,-at least in
the sense in which we employ it when describ-
ing the corresponding variations from the liter
ary language found in England. What we
call the Yankee dialect, for instance, is never
the characteristic tongue of any one man, or of
any one district 1t is nothing more than
laborious collection of the peculiarties which
are to be found in various parts Of New Eng
land; all of which are not to be met with in
the speech of any one community, but some of
which can be found in the speech of every one.
Certain it is that many and perhaps most of
the colloquial expressions which both here and
abroad go under the name of Americanisms
are found also in the colloquial speech of the
drov incial districts of England. From there
they were brought here. There is little origi-
nality, so far as we are concerned, in those odd
words and phrases which we hear on every
side, those peculiar pronunciations, those lin
guistic changes of every kind, which amuse il
they do not edify. Objects aud practices, Pc
culiar to this country, are OF course IN be ex-
cluded from any such statement. 1t must be
admitted, moreover, that the special difficulty
already mentioned, attends the investigation
of this branch of the subject. 1t is only with
in the last six years that a society has been or
ganized in England for the express purpose Of
collecting and preserving the peculiar words,
phrases and pronunciations still existing in its
provincial dialects; and not until that work
has been fully completed shall we he in posi-
tion hero to compare the colioquial language
of the two countries, and separate in our own
speech what is original from what is imported.
At present all assertions must be based upon
the scattered labors of independent observers,
possessing, it is to be added, in nearly every
case, very imperfect qualifications for the task.
Still, even with these defective sources of in
formation, the results obtained are somewhat
striking. Let us take, for illustration, a soli-
tary voume-the glossary of words and phrases
used in the County of Suffolk, compiled by
Edwin Moore and published in London in 1928.
In this one small work, confined to the COLO
quial speech of single shire, and embodying
that incompletely, will be found much that we
have been disposed to consider as peculiarly
our own. rapid glance over its pages will
reveal such pronunciations as cute for
''acute," chaw for Chew drownded for
drowned hoss for "horse,' gal for "girl,"
natur for mature taters for ''potatoes;" such
phrases as to flop in chair, to trim ones
jacket, to haul over the Goals, TO ride like
blazes, gift of the CAB, in horn, in iiffy, o
tip-top fellow, before you could say Jack Rob
inson. that's whopper; such oaths and excla-
nations as by gum by gosh, darnation, dang
it, lawk-a-daisy; such words as bobbery for
disturbance" gawky for awkward" glum
for gloomy" gumpton for sense hullaba-
loo for 'camor," obstropolous for ''obstreper-
ous.'' sappy for "sily,' scaly for shabby"
and dspree with its wide varieties of meaning;
such contributions to culinary speech as flap
jacks, apple fritters, and, indeed, saace, as APP
piled to garden vegetables generally; the
same felicitous description of states of mind
conveyed by such expressions as to be in a tam,
trum to be in pucler; such terms OF abuse as
dunderhead ninnyhammer, nncompoop, and
a whole tribe OF vigorous common words de-
noting personal chastisement such as baste
larrup. lather lick, welt, wallop and whack;
and, in addition to all these, that peculiar
qualifying phrase, heard often with us, of
kinder ii. e., kind of in the sense OF ''some-
what as HE is kinder cold.' The list of
expressions common to the coloquial speech
of the two countries, which is contained in this
one work, has by no means been exhausted;
but enough has been quoted to make it clear
that we are not so original as many of us are
inclined to think.-J. +. Lounsbury in Inter
national Review.