The American Language
[37] /Female/, of course, was epidemic in England too, but White says
that it was "not a Briticism," and so early as 1839 the Legislature of
Maryland expunged it from the title of a bill "to protect the
reputation of unmarried /females/," substituting /women/, on the
ground that /female/ "was an Americanism in that application."
[38] The French /pissoir/, for instance, is still regarded as indecent
in America, and is seldom used in England, but it has gone into most
of the Continental languages. It is curious to note, however, that
these languages also have their pruderies. Most of them, for example,
use /W. C./, an abbreviation of the English /water-closet/, as a
euphemism. The whole subject of national pruderies, in both act and
speech, remains to be investigated.
[39] Even the /Springfield Republican/, the last stronghold of Puritan
/Kultur/, printed the word on Oct. 11, 1917, in a review of New
Adventures, by Michael Monahan.
[40] /Pep/, July, 1918, p. 8.
[41] Perhaps the Quaker influence is to blame. At all events,
Philadelphia is the most pecksniffian of American cities, and thus
probably leads the world. Early in 1918, when a patriotic
moving-picture entitled "To Hell with the Kaiser" was sent on tour
under government patronage, the word /hell/ was carefully toned down,
on the Philadelphia billboards, to /h----/.
[42] /Cf./ R. M. Bache: Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech; Phila.,
1869, p. 34 /et seq./
[43] April 14, 1914.
[Pg131]
V
Tendencies in American
§ 1
/International Exchanges/--More than once, during the preceding
chapters, we encountered Americanisms that had gone over into English,
and English locutions that had begun to get a foothold in the United
States. Such exchanges are made very frequently and often very
quickly, and though the guardians of English still attack every new
Americanism vigorously, even when, as in the case of /scientist/, it
is obviously sound and useful, they are often routed by public
pressure, and have to submit in the end with the best grace possible.
For example, consider /caucus/. It originated in Boston at some
indeterminate time before 1750, and remained so peculiarly American
for more than a century following that most of the English visitors
before the Civil War remarked its use. But, according to J. Redding
Ware,[1] it began to creep into English political slang about 1870,
and in the 80's it was lifted to good usage by the late Joseph
Chamberlain. Ware, writing in the first years of the present century,
said that the word had become "very important" in England, but was
"not admitted into dictionaries." But in the Concise Oxford
Dictionary, dated 1914, it is given as a sound English word, though
its American origin is noted. The English, however, use it in a sense
that has become archaic in America, thus preserving an abandoned
American meaning in the same way that many abandoned British meanings
have been preserved on this side. In the United States the word means,
and has meant for years, a meeting of some division, [Pg132] large or
small, of a political or legislative body for the purpose of agreeing
upon a united course of action in the main assembly. In England it
means the managing committee of a party or fraction--something
corresponding to our national committee, or state central committee,
or steering committee, or to the half-forgotten congressional caucuses
of the 20's. It has a disparaging significance over there, almost
equal to that of our words /organization/ and /machine/. Moreover, it
has given birth to two derivatives of like quality, both unknown in
America--/caucusdom/, meaning machine control, and /caucuser/, meaning
a machine politician.[2]
A good many other such Americanisms have got into good usage in
England, and new ones are being exported constantly. Farmer describes
the process of their introduction, and assimilation. American books,
newspapers and magazines, especially the last, circulate in England in
large number, and some of their characteristic locutions pass into
colloquial speech. Then they get into print, and begin to take on
respectability. "The phrase, 'as the Americans say,'" he continues,
"might in some cases be ordered from the type foundry as a logotype,
so frequently does it do introduction duty."[3] Ware shows another
means of ingress: the argot of sailors. Many of the Americanisms he
notes as having become naturalized in England, /e. g./, /boodle/,
/boost/ and /walk-out/, are credited to Liverpool as a sort of
half-way station. Travel brings in still more: England swarms with
Americans, and Englishmen themselves, visiting America, bring home new
and racy phrases. Bishop Coxe says[4] that [Pg133] Dickens, in his
"American Notes," gave English currency to /reliable/, /influential/,
/talented/ and /lengthy/. Bristed, writing in 1855, said that
/talented/ was already firmly fixed in the English vocabulary by that
time. All four words are in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, and only
/lengthy/ is noted as "originally an Americanism." Finally, there is
the influence of the moving pictures. Hundreds of American films are
shown in England every week, and the American words and phrases
appearing in their titles, sub-titles and other explanatory legends
thus become familiar to the English. "The patron of the picture
palace," says W. G. Faulkner, in an article in the /London Daily
Mail/, "learns to think of his railway station as a /depot/; he has
alternatives to one of our newest words, /hooligan/, in /hoodlum/ and
/tough/; he watches a /dive/, which is a thieves' kitchen or a room in
which bad characters meet, and whether the villain talks of /dough/ or
/sugar/ he knows it is money to which he is referring. The musical
ring of the word /tramp/ gives way to the stodgy /hobo/ or
/dead-beat/. It may be that the plot reveals an attempt to deceive
some simple-minded person. If it does, the innocent one is spoken of
as a /sucker/, a /come-on/, a /boob/, or a /lobster/ if he is stupid
into the bargain."
Mr. Faulkner goes on to say that a great many other Americanisms are
constantly employed by Englishmen "who have not been affected by the
avalanche ... which has come upon us through the picture palace."
"Thus today," he says, "we hear people speak of the /fall/ of the
year, a /stunt/ they have in hand, their desire to /boost/ a
particular business, a /peach/ when they mean a pretty girl, a
/scab/--a common term among strikers,--the /glad-eye/, /junk/ when
they mean worthless material, their efforts /to make good/, the
/elevator/ in the hotel or office, the /boss/ or manager, the /crook/
or swindler; and they will tell you that they have the /goods/--that
is, they possess the requisite qualities for a given position." The
venerable Frederic Harrison, writing in the /Fortnightly Review/ in
the Spring of 1918, denounced this tendency with a vigor recalling the
classical anathemas of Dean Alford and Sydney Smith.[5] "Stale
American phrases, ..." [Pg134] he said, "are infecting even our
higher journalism and our parliamentary and platform oratory.... A
statesman is now /out/ for victory; he is /up against/ pacificism....
He has a /card up his sleeve/, by which the enemy are at last to be
/euchred/. Then a fierce fight in which hundreds of noble fellows are
mangled or drowned is a /scrap/.... To criticise a politician is to
call for his /scalp/.... The other fellow is beaten to a /frazzle/."
And so on. "Bolshevism," concluded Harrison sadly, "is ruining
language as well as society."
But though there are still many such alarms by constables of the
national speech, the majority of Englishmen continue to make
borrowings from the tempting and ever-widening American vocabulary.
What is more, some of these loan-words take root, and are presently
accepted as sound English, even by the most watchful. The two Fowlers,
in "The King's English," separate Americanisms from other current
vulgarisms, but many of the latter on their list are actually American
in origin, though they do not seem to know it--for example, /to
demean/ and /to transpire/. More remarkable still, the Cambridge
History of English Literature lists /backwoodsman/, /know-nothing/ and
/yellow-back/ as English compounds, apparently in forgetfulness of
their American origin, and adds /skunk/, /squaw/ and /toboggan/ as
direct importations from the Indian tongues, without noting that they
came through American, and remained definite Americanisms for a long
while.[6] It even adds /musquash/, a popular name for the /Fiber
zibethicus/, borrowed from the Algonquin /muskwessu/ but long since
degenerated to /musk-rat/ in America. /Musquash/ has been in disuse in
this country, indeed, since the middle of the last century, save as a
stray localism, but the English have preserved it, and it appears in
the Oxford Dictionary.[7]
A few weeks in London or a month's study of the London [Pg135]
newspapers will show a great many other American pollutions of the
well of English. The argot of politics is full of them. Many beside
/caucus/ were introduced by Joseph Chamberlain, a politician skilled
in American campaign methods and with an American wife to prompt him.
He gave the English their first taste of /to belittle/, one of the
inventions of Thomas Jefferson. /Graft/ and /to graft/ crossed the
ocean in their nonage. /To bluff/ has been well understood in England
for 30 years. It is in Cassell's and the Oxford Dictionaries, and has
been used by no less a magnifico than Sir Almroth Wright.[8] /To
stump/, in the form of /stump-oratory/, is in Carlyle's "Latter-Day
Pamphlets," /circa/ 1850, and /caucus/ appears in his "Frederick the
Great;"[9] though, as we have seen on the authority of Ware, it did
not come into general use in England until ten years later. /Buncombe/
(usually spelled /bunkum/) is in all the later English dictionaries.
In the London stock market and among English railroad men various
characteristic Americanisms have got a foothold. The meaning of
/bucket-shop/ and /to water/, for example, is familiar to every London
broker's clerk. English trains are now /telescoped/ and carry
/dead-heads/, and in 1913 a rival to the Amalgamated Order of Railway
/Servants/ was organized under the name of the National Union of
/Railway Men/. The beginnings of a movement against the use of
/servant/ are visible in other directions, and the American /help/
threatens to be substituted; at all events, /Help Wanted/
advertisements are now occasionally encountered in English newspapers.
But it is American verbs that seem to find the way into English least
difficult, particularly those compounded with prepositions and
adverbs, such as /to pan out/ and /to swear off/. Most of them, true
enough, [Pg136] are still used as conscious Americanisms, but used
they are, and with increasing frequency. The highly typical American
verb /to loaf/ is now naturalized, and Ware says that /The Loaferies/
is one of the common nicknames of the Whitechapel workhouse.
It is curious, reading the fulminations of American purists of the
last generation, to note how many of the Americanisms they denounced
have not only got into perfectly good usage at home but even broken
down all guards across the ocean. /To placate/ and /to antagonize/ are
examples. The Oxford Dictionary distinguishes between the English and
American meanings of the latter: in England a man may antagonize only
another man, in America he may antagonize a mere idea or thing. But,
as the brothers Fowler show, even the English meaning is of American
origin, and no doubt a few more years will see the verb completely
naturalized in Britain. /To placate/, attacked vigorously by all
native grammarians down to (but excepting) White, now has the
authority of the /Spectator/, and is accepted by Cassell. /To donate/