Evening star., 1925-06-22

sertation embodying the results of
his study. The quotations which he
has made will constitute part Of the
raw material that will eventually be
at the disposal of the compilers Of the
Dictionary of America n English. Part
or our scheme, l may mention, IL that
other American universities should get
work done on similar lines and send
the raw material to Chicago
Some Surprises Expected
'It probably will be surprising, DIR.
Craigie continued, how many words
and expressions are found in the
works of early American writer's that
are not current now. or that are not
now used in the same sense. To
give you an illustration of this, two
or three centuries ago our rayol
society received a bequest of q large
number of books from a private indi-
vidual. The donor authorized the
society to dispose Of these books ac-
cording to their wish. and some little
time ago 1t was decided to sell them.
But this, 1t was found. could not be
done, it being pointed out to the SOC
iety that the phrase dispose Of at
the time when the bequest was made.
was employed in the sense of utilize
only"
At this point d. Craigie was asked
If he already had made any interest
ing discoveries in connection with
American" words.
1T is too early yet TO make dis
coveries," he replied, but / think 1t
will be found that 'Americanisms' do
not become prominent in the Ameri-
can language until after 1900. / mean
in the written language. behind which
Of course, was the spoken tongue. The
fathers of the republic, Franklin
Hamilton, Jefferson and the Adamses
used very few local expressions, or
the contrary they adhered rigidly to
the English literary tradition.
"In this. however, they are by nc
means exceptional. AS matter OF
fact. local peculiarities do not get
much into literature anywhere before
1900. This applies to the languages
of the eighteenth century nearly al
over Europe. That writer's after this
time began using local terms was
probably due to several things. One
was the romantic period, which drew
attention to folk lore: another the
study of languages about that time.
This new tendency had a curious
result Take an ordinary French oil
Spanish book OF the eighteenth cen
a book of 1900, because the vocabulary
is SO much more conventional. II
contains fewer idioms and out-of-the
way words
Americanisms Stunned.
Because our earliest native writers
thus wrote only the English of Eng
land, and avoided the use of Amert
1f
thority for early American usage OF
words as distinguished from English
usage must be, DR.. Craigie points out
the books and articles written by Brit
ish and other foreign travellers ir
North America. For the travellers
after the usual fashion of persons ir
quest Of novelty, took pains to recor6
peculiarities of speech of the country
they were visiting. And as the mum
Der of book-writing travellers in tha'
first period of our history. when we de
clined to utilize our native tongue al
written language for ourselves, i.
surprisingly large. one of the conse
quences is a considerable enlargement
Of the ground to be covered by the as
sistants in dictionary making, who viii
have to read through the books ant
other publications which comprise tht
record of the American language.
Will Take Many Years.
Presumably the making Of the die
tionary of American English will oC
cupy many years" DR.. Craigie wen
on. But in the nature of things i
will not be a labor comparable will
that which faced the makers of the
Oxford Dictionary. We can stud!
English words back to about 700 AID.
whereas the record Of American word:
begins in 1922, when the first sermon
was printed in America. Also the
literary output Of America during the
first succeeding century was compare
lively small.
"Our study undoubtedly will revea
interesting correspondence. as well a.
differences in the use Of English IL
America. For example, when reading
one of the works of Increase Mather
published in 1888, recently. I noticed
that he used the word 'scragged' t,
signify rugged mentioning tha
something was too 'scragged' to go in
to an aperture. Reference to the Ok
ford Dictionary revealed that this wor,
'scragged' was used in the same sens
in England in Milton's time.
Cause of Changes.
"The differences in the use of Eng
lish words in America, on the othe
hand, probably were due to new cir
cumstances in new country and. IL
MOVING. PACKING l. STORAGE.