The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-11-07

that work say that they have admitted 10
its pages many "Americanisms, partly
because they are in common use anu
partly because it is found on investigation
that they are legacies from old English
dialects The word ''guess, Tor instance,
which used to stamp the Yankee, is OF
pure English origin, having been in gen.
eral use in parts of England before Snake
speare.
There is no doubt that the. English
spoken in England and the English spoken
in this country are drifting apart. We
speak of railroad when we wish to de-
scribe what the English call railway: we
speak of cable-cars and horse-cars to des-
ignate that which Englishmen call trans;
the coat which gentlemen wear at morn
ing receptions is called a frockcoat in
England and a Prince Albert here; we
wear hat which we call Derby and
Englishmen call blllycOck; the article
which the English call boots we call shoes,
and what they call shoes we call ties;
Englshmen patrouiZe shops. we deal at
stores; shop with us is workshop,
which in England is called factory; we
send a prescription to be filed at a drug
gsi's, they at chemists; We invite
friend to take a drink, they take dram;
and, above all. we call the Englishman's
country Great Britain, while he is content
TO call it Britain, and we call our own the
United States, while he, like the Califor-
MAN Of the early days, calls it simply the
States. These differences in the meaning
and application of words seem likely to
multiply rather than to diminish. Each
people adheres to its own form Of speech,
aud every year some new colloquial phrase
is added to each language and does not
cross the ocean.
The new words which are generated by
the march of science and discOvery-such
as telegram, hypnOtism and septic-gener-
ally become common to both branches OF
the English tongue; but tie words which
begin life as slang and are finally incor-
porated into the vocabulary, resist trans
portatiOn. There Is no prospect that the
English will adopt our latest slang
phrase-"He is peach"-any more than
we have naturaliZed the chatter of the
English cOstermonger. These words and
sentences are the effervescence of national
idiosyncrasies. and lose their significance
in foreign lands. Nothing is more anus
ing than to listen to an Englishman's
dtlbupt ~ udoteL lhc COlD LuOu amSil-
canism, whats the matter with jim?
Or, he's ali right" But there are num-
bers of fairly we'll educated Americans
who do not understand what is meant by
jingoism.
Tennyson described the evolution of a
language when he said that in two or
three centuries the English language
would have changed 50 materially that
his poems would be unintelligibe without
a glossary. Each year new habits and
uses and fan cies beget new words, which
are at first slang and denounced by purists
as vulgarisms. but which creep into the
language because they express mean
ing which the public grasp; and in the
course of generations and centuries these
new words superSede so large a proper
ton of the four or five thousand words In
common use that they recast the language.
This process is going on Independently in
the two Englsh-speaking countries; II
must end in the creation of two distincr
dialects. When that comes about new
names will have to be found for them. II
we cOncede the name English 10 the Ian
guage which is spoken in England, we
shall be compelled to speak of our own
language as United States" or at least
American" 1t sounds oddly enough
to-day TO hear of an American who "can-
not write three lines of grammatical
English" when In fact he does not pro-
pose to write English at all, but merely the
vern acular of his own country.