The American Language
/air-line/, /campus/, /chore/, /scoot/, /stogie/ and /hoodoo/ are in
England. A /subaltern/ is a commissioned officer in the army, under
the rank of [Pg106] captain. A /civil servant/ is a public servant in
the national civil service; if he is of high rank, he is usually
called a /permanent official/. /Porridge/, /moor/, /scullery/,
/draper/, /treacle/ and /tram/, though unfamiliar, still need no
explanation. /Mufti/ means ordinary male clothing; an army officer out
of uniform is said to be in /mufti/. To this officer a sack-suit or
business-suit is a /lounge-suit/. He carries his clothes, not in a
/trunk/ or /grip/ or /suit-case/, but in a /box/. He does not /miss/ a
train; he /loses/ it. He does not ask for a /round-trip/ ticket, but
for a /return/ ticket. If he proposes to go to the theatre he does not
/reserve/ or /engage/ seats; he /books/ them, and not at the
/box-office/, but at the /booking-office/. If he sits downstairs, it
is not in the /orchestra/, but in the /stalls/. If he likes
vaudeville, he goes to a /music-hall/, where the /head-liners/ are
/top-liners/. If he has to stand in line, he does it, not in a /line/,
but in a /queue/.
In England a corporation is a /public company/ or /limited liability
company/. The term /corporation/, over there, is applied to the mayor,
aldermen and sheriffs of a city, as in /the London corporation/. An
Englishman writes /Ltd./ after the name of an incorporated bank or
trading company as we write /Inc./ He calls its president its
/chairman/ or /managing director/. Its stockholders are its
/shareholders/, and hold /shares/ instead of /stock/ in it. Its bonds
are /debentures/. The place wherein such companies are floated and
looted--the Wall Street of England--is called the /City/, with a
capital /C/. Bankers, stock-jobbers, promoters, directors and other
such leaders of its business are called /City/ men. The financial
editor of a newspaper is its /City/ editor. Government bonds are
/consols/, or /stocks/, or the /funds/.[5] To have /money in the
stocks/ is to own such bonds. Promissory notes are /bills/. An
Englishman hasn't a /bank-account/, but a /banking-account/. He draws
/cheques/ (not /checks/), not on his /bank/, but on his /bankers/.[6]
In England there is a rigid distinction between a /broker/ and a
/stock-broker/. A /broker/ means, not a dealer in [Pg107] securities,
as in our /Wall Street broker/, but a dealer in second-hand furniture.
/To have the brokers/[7] /in the house/ means to be bankrupt, with
one's very household goods in the hands of one's creditors.
/Tariff reform/, in England, does not mean a movement toward free
trade, but one toward protection. The word /Government/, meaning what
we call the administration, is always capitalized and plural, /e. g./,
"The Government /are/ considering the advisability, etc." /Vestry/,
/committee/, /council/, /ministry/ and even /company/ are also plural,
though sometimes not capitalized. A member of Parliament does not
/run/ for office; he /stands/.[8] He does not make a /campaign/, but a
/canvass/. He does not represent a /district/, but a /division/ or
/constituency/. He never makes a /stumping trip/, but always a
/speaking tour/. When he looks after his fences he calls it /nursing
the constituency/. At a political meeting (they are often rough in
England) the /bouncers/ are called /stewards/; the suffragettes used
to delight in stabbing them with hatpins. A member of Parliament is
not afflicted by the numerous bugaboos that menace an American
congressman. He knows nothing of /lame ducks/, /pork barrels/,
/gag-rule/, /junkets/, /gerrymanders/, /omnibus bills/, /snakes/,
/niggers in the woodpile/, /Salt river/, /crow/, /bosses/, /ward
heelers/, /men higher up/, /silk-stockings/, /repeaters/, /ballot-box
stuffers/ and /straight/ and /split tickets/ (he always calls them
/ballots/ or /voting papers/). He has never heard of /direct
primaries/, the /recall/ or the /initiative and referendum/. A
/roll-call/ in Parliament is a /division/. A member speaking is said
to be /up/ or /on his legs/. When the house adjourns it is said to
/rise/. A member referring to another in the course of a debate does
not say "the gentleman from Manchester," but "the /honorable/
gentleman" (written /hon. gentleman/) or, if he happens to be a privy
councillor, "the /right honorable/ gentleman," or, if he is a member
for one of the universities, "the /honorable and learned/ gentleman."
If the speaker chooses to be intimate or facetious, he may say "my
honorable /friend/." [Pg108]
In the United States a /pressman/ is a man who runs a printing press;
in England he is a newspaper reporter, or, as the English usually say,
a /journalist/.[9] This journalist works, not at /space/ rates, but at
/lineage/ rates. A printing press is a /machine/. An editorial in a
newspaper is a /leading article/ or /leader/. An editorial paragraph
is a /leaderette/. A newspaper clipping is a /cutting/. A proof-reader
is a /corrector of the press/. A pass to the theatre is an /order/.
The room-clerk of a hotel is the /secretary/. A real-estate agent or
dealer is an /estate-agent/. The English keep up most of the old
distinctions between physicians and surgeons, barristers and
solicitors. A surgeon is often plain /Mr./, and not /Dr./ Neither he
nor a doctor has an /office/, but always a /surgery/ or /consulting
room/. A barrister is greatly superior to a solicitor. He alone can
address the higher courts and the parliamentary committees; a
solicitor must keep to office work and the courts of first instance. A
man with a grievance goes first to his solicitor, who then /instructs/
or /briefs/ a barrister for him. If that barrister, in the course of
the trial, wants certain evidence removed from the record, he moves
that it be /struck out/, not /stricken out/, as an American lawyer
would say. Only barristers may become judges. An English barrister,
like his American brother, takes a /retainer/ when he is engaged. But
the rest of his fee does not wait upon the termination of the case: he
expects and receives a /refresher/ from time to time. A barrister is
never admitted to the bar, but is always /called/. If he becomes a
/King's Counsel/, or /K. C./ (a purely honorary appointment), he is
said to have /taken silk/.
The common objects and phenomena of nature are often differently named
in English and American. As we saw in a previous chapter, such
Americanisms as /creek/ and /run/, for small streams, are practically
unknown in England, and the English /moor/ and /downs/ early
disappeared from American. The Englishman knows the meaning of /sound/
(/e. g./, Long Island /Sound/), but he [Pg109] nearly always uses
/channel/ in place of it. In the same way the American knows the
meaning of the English /bog/, but rejects the English distinction
between it and /swamp/, and almost always uses /swamp/, or /marsh/
(often elided to /ma'sh/). The Englishman seldom, if ever, describes a
severe storm as a /hurricane/, a /cyclone/, a /tornado/ or a
/blizzard/. He never uses /cold-snap/, /cloudburst/ or /under the
weather/. He does not say that the temperature is /29 degrees/
(Fahrenheit) or that the thermometer or the mercury is at 29 degrees,
but that there are /three degrees of frost/. He calls ice water
/iced-water/. He knows nothing of /blue-grass/ country or of
/pennyr'yal/. What we call the /mining regions/ he knows as the /black
country/. He never, of course, uses /down-East/ or /up-State/. Many of
our names for common fauna and flora are unknown to him save as strange
Americanisms, /e. g./, /terrapin/, /moose/, /persimmon/, /gumbo/,
/egg-plant/, /alfalfa/, /sweet-corn/, /sweet-potato/ and /yam/. Until
lately he called the /grapefruit/ a /shaddock/. He still calls the
/beet/ a /beet-root/ and the /rutabaga/ a /mangel-wurzel/. He is
familiar with many fish that we seldom see, /e. g./, the /turbot/. He
also knows the /hare/, which is seldom heard of in America. But he
knows nothing of /devilled-crabs/, /crab-cocktails/, /clam-chowder/ or
/oyster-stews/, and he never goes to /oyster-suppers/, /clam-bakes/ or
/burgoo-picnics/. He doesn't buy /peanuts/ when he goes to the circus.
He calls them /monkey-nuts/, and to eat them publicly is /infra dig/.
The common American use of /peanut/ as an adjective of disparagement,
as in /peanut politics/, is incomprehensible to him.
In England a /hack/ is not a public coach, but a horse let out at
hire, or one of similar quality. A life insurance policy is usually
not an insurance policy at all, but an /assurance/ policy. What we
call the normal income tax is the /ordinary/ tax; what we call the
surtax is the /supertax/.[10] An Englishman never lives /on/ a street,
but always /in/ it. He never lives in a /block/ of houses, but in a
/row/; it is never in a /section/ of the city, but always in a
/district/. Going home by train he always takes the /down-train/, no
matter whether he be proceeding southward to Wimbleton, [Pg110]
westward to Shepherd's Bush, northward to Tottenham or eastward to
Noak's Hill. A train headed toward London is always an /up-train/, and
the track it runs on is the /up-line/. /Eastbound/ and /westbound/
tracks and trains are unknown in England. When an Englishman boards a
bus it is not at a /street-corner/, but at a /crossing/, though he is
familiar with such forms as Hyde Park /Corner/. The place he is bound
for is not three /squares/ or /blocks/ away, but three /turnings/.
/Square/, in England, always means a small park. A backyard is a
/garden/. A subway is always a /tube/, or the /underground/, or the
/Metro/. But an underground passage for pedestrians is a /subway/.
English streets have no /sidewalks/; they always call them /pavements/
or /footways/. An automobile is always a /motor-car/ or /motor/.
/Auto/ is almost unknown, and with it the verb /to auto/. So is
/machine/. So is /joy-ride/.
An Englishman always calls russet, yellow or tan shoes /brown/ shoes
(or, if they cover the ankle, /boots/). He calls a pocketbook a
/purse/, and gives the name of /pocketbook/ to what we call a
/memorandum-book/. His walking-stick is always a /stick/, never a
/cane/. By /cord/ he means something strong, almost what we call
/twine/; a thin cord he always calls a /string/; his /twine/ is the
lightest sort of /string/. When he applies the adjective /homely/ to a
woman he means that she is simple and home-loving, not necessarily
that she is plain. He uses /dessert/, not to indicate the whole last
course at dinner, but to designate the fruit only; the rest is /ices/
or /sweets/. He uses /vest/, not in place of /waistcoat/, but in place
of /undershirt/. Similarly, he applies /pants/, not to his trousers,
but to his drawers. An Englishman who inhabits bachelor quarters is
said to live in /chambers/; if he has a flat he calls it a /flat/, and
not an /apartment/;[11] /flat-houses/ are often /mansions/. The
janitor or superintendent thereof is a /care-taker/. The scoundrels
who snoop around in search of divorce evidence are not /private
detectives/, but /private enquiry agents/. [Pg111]
The Englishman is naturally unfamiliar with baseball, and in
consequence his language is bare of the countless phrases and
metaphors that it has supplied to American. Many of these phrases and
metaphors are in daily use among us, for example, /fan/, /rooter/,
/bleachers/, /batting-average/, /double-header/, /pennant-winner/,
/gate-money/, /busher/, /minor-leaguer/, /glass-arm/, /to strike out/,
/to foul/, /to be shut out/, /to coach/, /to play ball/, /on the
bench/, /on to his curves/ and /three strikes and out/. The national
game of draw-poker has also greatly enriched American with terms that
are either quite unknown to the Englishman, or known to him only as
somewhat dubious Americanisms, among them /cold-deck/, /kitty/,