The Arkansaw traveler., 1882-11-19
Americanisms Defended.
 New York Sun.I


 New York Sun.I
 Mr.E. A. Freeman. the weil-knowr historian, has supplemented his observa. tions of our political institutions by some comments on American peculiarities o speech. published in the first number ol thu new Longman's haga=ine. Thai many of the words used in this country to which objection has been taken in En- gland are not solecisms, but genuine archaisms- surivals. and not inventions is fact. the proofs of which have often been set forth in these columns. It is pleasant however. to see the same con- clusion reached by an English scholar. who speaks with perhaps as much au- thority on the history of English words as any man now living.
 Mir Freeman begins with asserting ,he paradox that, in the matter of language, as well as in some of their social institu- tiOHs, both Scotland ard the first settled parts of the United States are more tenaciously and truly English than En- gland itself. People talk of Ameri- canisms and Scotiicisms as if such peculia,;ics of speech were cerrup- tions. or. d; ali events. changes introduced by Americans and Scotsmen into the existing English tongue. But the current opinion is not shared by men like Mir. Freeman, who know not only how people talk to-day. but how they talked ,hree hundred years ago. They see that the grea, mass of the alterations from present English usage which are eschewed or ridiculcd as Americanisins or Se ottioisms, consists O: perfectly good English words which happen 10 have gone out of use in England, but swhich have lived on in the United States and Scotland. Some striking illustrations arc adduced by MT. Freeman, as. for instance. .bairn." which most persons would con. slider Scottish word, not knowing that King Alfred used il when he talked about his children. Again. the use of =. fall m the sense of = autumn Is repnted an Amerioanism. but MT. Freeman points ou, that the word had the same meaning n England up 10 very recent times. h. deed he doubts whether II has gone out of Use even nom. for he can distinctly re- member. he tells u, hearing he phrase spring and ftll' m his own childhood Mir. Freeman further notes ih tt our some mha, overworle ed ad, crb oi assent. oer- talnls. which has latcl, been made the obJce. of a good deal ef deri>ion ia Ion don newspapers Is very natural form of granting a request. though m England II Is reser, ed foi occasions of some iitiie importance.
 As for guess. which .s often de- nounccd as a rank Yankeeism Nr Free man. as might have been expected from an Anglo-Saxon scholar. declares It ''a perfectly good form. and he pronounces Il reckon a, good English as English can be. He acknowledges ;h.. ,ie might begin to kick T, Il calculate bu, he is quite right in bc!Ievins the phrase ;o be seldom used in tht> country. Ter We do no not remember to hase l.eara Il twice in lifetime. There < rea<en 70 believe that the employment ef Il calculate" in the sense of Il guess is confined 10 a narrow region comprising the north western angle oi New Hampshire and the northeastern corner oi ermont Even the word endorse. in its wide American use. seems to Mir. Freeman legitimate application of commercial term by way of metaphor to non-com- mercial subjects. As for the phrase balance of the day" that. of course. is indefensible: but Mir. Freeman IS justified in assuning that educated persons in the United States do not use it. The words block and lot" applied by Us to sub divisions of the ground in city or town. seem to the historian entirely proper. although they do not possess the same meanings in England. He observed that American towns are built in blocks in d -iH-whieh- -elde1-English towns. at least. are not. As to our term lot that points undoubtedl, to the cir eumstances under which in earlier colo nial times land was distributed among settlers by allotment So with the phrase real estate" as applied to laads and houses: the use is perfectly ineligible 10 any Englishman who has ever looked in- to Blackstone. W: may say here iha, the fact noticed by Mir. Freeman that purely legal phrases se, more frequently into common usage III the | nited States than m England, k applicable by the re- mArkable political and social influence which lawyers have exercised in this country since the revolutionary war
 Even m those cases where Amer- icam,Ius dn no; represent surViv.,is oi old
 
 gard them rather as legitimate variations. or happy adjustments to circumstances than Is improprieties. Thus. in this county >ve use the word " store to sig nifty place where things are sold. in con,radisiinction from shop" by which VIC mean place where things are made or done. In England. until very lately. the word shop was exclusively used to designate both places. But Mir. Free man has no doubt that perfectly good reason for the difference of usage could be found in some circumstance of early colonial life. Unquestionably. in the tirs, New England settlements. the only shop known would really De store" tha, is. ! place in which articles brought from England would be stored up for dis,rihu- ton. barter. or sale. So. too. our specific application of the term '' corn which in England covers various kipds of grain. to Indian com or maize IS n,Sliigible enough