The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-03-15

An English Editor Appreciates Its Compre
heusiyeness.
London Standard.

GROWTH OF AMERICANESE.
An English Editor Appreciates Its Compre-
hensiveness.
London Standard.
is there to be universal language of the
futurei And if there is. which will it bel
English, according to the view lately ex,
pressed by the venerable DIR. Doillnger, ana
mends itself to every patriotic Anglo-Saxon
breast. But that Is only answering the
question by halves. Assuming that, In the
struggle for existence, the tongue of our
have still to ask in what form it will con-
tinue to exist. But of that language there
are many varieties already. There is, the
English. written in books, and which
Of still sbs to nsws ss found There n s0Is
the English spoken in Picadilly and Pail
Mall, and that which is to be heard, very
distinctly, in Drury lane and in White
chapel. There is the English of the Wilt
shire, laborers and the, English of the
an interpreter before they become mutually
ineligible. There is the English Of the
thinkers camp and the thieves, kitchen, SO
that none but the initiated can understand
it, and the old Tristan English of some of the
east-coast fishing villages, which could be
more easily learnt by Dutchman or
German than by middle-class Londoner
vs.
ing dialect, called by some people Ameri-
can and by some Americanese, and which,
whatsoever it be styled, is tongue very
well worth studying, since it is not at all
pidgin English of the Pacific the honor of
being the world language" of the future.
What strikes one most about American
csc" is its cOpiOusness. its expansivenesS,
thing into its comprehensive embrace
slang colloquialisms, casual jokes and catch
words, even well-chOsen profanity. A hap
Ply phrase in novel, play, or public
speech is promptly caught up and added
race by which it is used, the language'is
trimming over with vitality. 1t is no ste
reotyped literary form, which may not be
touched or tempered with without the
tiers. On the contrary. the American
invents words and phrases as he goes
along. Like the Athenians, he. is always
hungering after ''some new thing" and
when he gets it he calls it by some new
the latter, he is not very fastidious. 1t
may be trivial, it may be vulgar, it is some
times coarse; it is often painfully lneuphO-
NOUS; but it has this redeeming quality,
that it is almost certain to be expressive.
We all know the meaning of getting the
bulge" on another person, or taking rise"
out of him; nor are we unfamiliar with the
significance Of "bnlldozes "and ',mugwnmp,"
"boss," aid of 'masher," of dude" and of
"boom," we do not speak: they have.
caught on" and are to be met with in these
islands almost as frequently as in the cOun-
In fact, we are ali learning the American
language fast, and we renOt puzzled when
we are told that somebody has IAN AK to
grind" or that somebody else has Explained
that lit is not his funeral" Our politicians
run the machine" or are said to be sit
ting on the fence" our men of business
plank their bottom dollars" or fly
around" when there is a big thing" in
prospect, or there is remote chance of
striking OIL" and even our young men of
pleasure vary the, pleasing vernacular
which they have adopted from the music
hall and betting. ring with a selection
from the rather less insane can't of the
begun to talk of people being "brainy,"
or "cranks" or things being bully"
nor has it become the custom to invite a
person to drink by requesting him to NOM
mate his poison" or to talk of Jerking
chin music" when we mean speaking; but,
probably, at our present rate of progress.
we shall acclimatize these gems of express
sion also before long. They are not ele-
giant. these current Amerlcanlsms which
are so popular ON both sides of the Allan
re; but they generally have a meaning,
and, as rule, it is a meaning which it is
impossible to misunderstand. A language
that is coming and minting these new
is, in one sense in the full vigor of life. In
fact, our English by going across the At
lantic, has developed a fresh growth. 1t
has got back to the stage when spelling,
vocabulary and grammar are all more or
less unsettled, when imagination and in
vention run riot, and anybody who has
genius that way can graft his own improve
ments upOn the main stem.
A good deal of what we regard as Yankee
vulgarism is good. honest Anglo-Saxon that
was current i'll conversation and books for
centuries before the MayflOwer sighted
Plymouth Rock. The perpetual Il guess"
of the New Highlander is a case in point.
Full twenty years he was of age. guess"
Squire" of the Canterbury Pilgrimage.
Hosea Biglow would hardly have used the
phrase differently. Similarly, such words
even e., s.sanirm." which strike us as specially
racy of the States. are used to this day in
the common speech of the common people
in northern and eastern England. An
American will use sick" OF '.mad' just as
our forefathers would have done in places
where we should employ Flip and angry"
We owe our cousins a certain amount of
gratitude forreclothing with conversational
respectability many of the highly conven-
out, and been replaced by much less direct
and much less expressive substitutes.
Whether we need to be so much obliged to
them for the odds and ends which they
nave picked up every where anu put intO
current circulation, is more questionable
For the American is the most larcenous of
linguists. He has sheen at a feast of Ian
guages and stolen the scraps" The slang
of the Chicago or San Francisco loafer has
levied contributions on half the AIRY an, and
two or three of the non-Aryan tongues. All
the elements that go to make up the cosmO-
politan population of the Union have con-
tributed something to the medley. There is
little French. good deal of dutch" a
fair quantity of Spanish. q sprinkling of
something more than preceptible dash of
the tongue of the red man. 1t is, altogeth-
er. strange amalgam, this American lam
guage-not unlike the equally remarkable
American people is to be evolved. But, at
present, both the people and the language
are in the process ofmaking, and it is pretty
certain that they will exhibit more remark
able developments still before the manu-