The American Language
extensive use of /slick/ for /sleek/. Again, there is the substitution
of the flat /a/ for the broad /a/ in /sauce/. England has gone back to
the broad /a/, but in America the flat /a/ persists, and many
Americans who use /sassy/ every day would scarcely recognize /saucy/
if they heard it. Yet again, there is /quoit/. Originally, the English
pronounced it /quate/, but now they pronounce the diphthong as in
/doily/. In the United States the /quate/ pronunciation remains.
Finally, there is /deaf/. Its proper pronunciation, in the England
that the colonists left, was /deef/, but it now rhymes with /Jeff/.
That new pronunciation has been adopted by polite American, despite
the protests of Noah Webster, but in the common speech the word is
still always /deef/.
However, a good many of the vowels of the early days have [Pg237]
succumbed to pedagogy. The American proletarian may still use /skeer/
for /scare/, but in most of the other words of that class he now uses
the vowel approved by correct English usage. Thus he seldom permits
himself such old forms as /dreen/ for /drain/, /keer/ for /care/,
/skeerce/ for /scarce/ or even /cheer/ for /chair/. The Irish
influence supported them for a while, but now they are fast going out.
So, too, are /kivver/ for /cover/, /crap/ for /crop/, and /chist/ for
/chest/. But /kittle/ for /kettle/ still shows a certain vitality,
/rench/ is still used in place of /rinse/, and /squinch/ in place of
/squint/, and a flat /a/ continues to displace various /e/-sounds in
such words as /rare/ for /rear/ (/e. g./, as a horse) and /wrassle/
for /wrestle/. Contrariwise, /e/ displaces /a/ in /catch/ and
/radish/, which are commonly pronounced /ketch/ and /reddish/. This
/e/-sound was once accepted in standard English; when it got into
spoken American it was perfectly sound; one still hears it from the
most pedantic lips in /any/.[82] There are also certain other ancients
that show equally unbroken vitality among us, for example, /stomp/ for
/stamp/,[83] /snoot/ for /snout/, /guardeen/ for /guardian/, and
/champeen/ for /champion/.
But all these vowels, whether approved or disapproved, have been under
the pressure, for the past century, of a movement toward a general
vowel neutralization, and in the long run it promises to dispose of
many of them. The same movement also affects standard English, as
appears by Robert Bridges' "Tract on the Present State of English
Pronunciation," but I believe that it is stronger in America, and will
go farther, at least with the common speech, if only because of our
unparalleled immigration. Standard English has 19 separate vowel
sounds. No other living tongue of Europe, save Portuguese, has so
many; most of the others have a good many less; Modern Greek has but
five. The immigrant, facing all these vowels, finds some of them quite
impossible; the Russian Jew, as we have seen, cannot manage /ur/. As a
result, he tends to employ a neutralized [Pg238] vowel in all the
situations which present difficulties, and this neutralized vowel,
supported by the slip-shod speech-habits of the native proletariat,
makes steady progress. It appears in many of the forms that we have
been examining--in the final /a/ of /would'a/, vaguely before the /n/
in /this'n/ and /off'n/, in place of the original /d/ in /use' to/,
and in the common pronunciation of such words as /been/, /come/ and
/have/, particularly when they are sacrificed to sentence exigencies,
as in "I /b'n/ thinking," "/c'm 'ere/," and "he would /'ve/ saw you."
Here we are upon a wearing down process that shows many other
symptoms. One finds, not only vowels disorganized, but also
consonants. Some are displaced by other consonants, measurably more
facile; others are dropped altogether. /D/ becomes /t/, as in /holt/,
or is dropped, as in /tole/, /han'kerchief/, /bran-new/ and /fine/
(for /find/). In /ast/ (for /ask/) /t/ replaces /k/: when the same
word is used in place of /asked/, as often happens, /e. g./, in "I
/ast/ him his name," it shoulders out /ked/. It is itself lopped off
in /bankrup/, /quan'ity/, /crep/, /slep/, /wep/, /kep/, /gris'-mill/
and /les/ (=/let's/ = /let us/), and is replaced by /d/ in
/kindergarden/ and /pardner/. /L/ disappears, as in /a'ready/ and
/gent'man/. /S/ becomes /tsh/, as in /pincers/. The same /tsh/
replaces /c/, as in /pitcher/ for /picture/, and /t/, as in
/amachoor/. /G/ disappears from the ends of words, and sometimes, too,
in the middle, as in /stren'th/ and /reco'nize/. /R/, though it is
better preserved in American than in English, is also under pressure,
as appears by /bust/, /stuck on/ (for /struck on/), /cuss/ (for
/curse/), /yestiddy/, /sa's'parella/, /pa'tridge/, /ca'tridge/, /they
is/ (for /there is/) and /Sadd'y/ (for /Saturday/). An excrescent /t/
survives in a number of words, /e. g./, /onc't/, /twic't/, /clos't/,
/wisht/ (for /wish/) and /chanc't/; it is an heirloom from the English
of two centuries ago. So is the final /h/ in /heighth/. An excrescent
/b/, as in /chimbley/ and /fambly/, seems to be native. Whole
syllables are dropped out of words, paralleling the English butchery
of /extraordinary/; for example, in /bound'ry/, /hist'ry/, /lib'ry/
and /prob'ly/. /Ordinary/, like /extraordinary/, is commonly
enunciated clearly, but it has bred a degenerated form, /onry/ or
/onery/, differentiated in meaning. Consonants are misplaced by
metathesis, as in /prespiration/, /hunderd/, [Pg239] /brethern/,
/childern/, /interduce/, /apern/, /calvary/, /govrenment/, /modren/
and /wosterd/ (for /worsted/). /Ow/ is changed to /er/, as in
/feller/, /swaller/, /yeller/, /beller/, /umbreller/ and /holler/;
/ice/ is changed to /ers/ in /jaunders/. Words are given new
syllables, as in /ellum/, /mischievious/ and /municipial/.
In the complete sentence, assimilation makes this disorganization much
more obvious. Mearns, in a brief article[84] gives many examples of
the extent to which it is carried. He hears "wah zee say?" for "what
does he say?" "ware zee?" for "where is he?" "ast 'er in" for "ask her
in," "itt'm owd" for "hit them out," "sry" for "that is right," and
"c'meer" for "come here." He believes that /t/ is gradually succumbing
to /d/, and cites "ass bedder" (for "that's better"), "wen juh ged
din?" (for "when did you get in?"), and "siddup" (for "sit up"). One
hears countless other such decayed forms on the street every day.
/Have to/ is almost invariably made /hafta/, with the neutral vowel
where I have put the second /a/. /Let's/, already noticed, is /le'
's/. The neutral vowel replaces the /oo/ of /good/ in /g'by/. "What
did you say" reduces itself to "wuz ay?" /Maybe/ is /mebby/, /perhaps/
is /p'raps/, /so long/ is /s'long/, /excuse me/ is /skus me/; the
common salutation, "How are you?" is so dismembered that it finally
emerges as a word almost indistinguishable from /high/. Here there is
room for inquiry, and that inquiry deserves the best effort of
American phonologists, for the language is undergoing rapid changes
under their very eyes, or, perhaps more accurately, under their very
ears, and a study of those changes should yield a great deal of
interesting matter. How did the word /stint/, on American lips, first
convert itself into /stent/ and then into /stunt/? By what process was
/baulk/ changed into /buck/? Both /stunt/ and /buck/ are among the
commonest words in the everyday American vocabulary, and yet no one,
so far, has investigated them scientifically.
A by-way that is yet to be so much as entered is that of naturalized
loan-words in the common speech. A very characteristic word of that
sort is /sashay/. Its relationship to the French /chassé/ seems to be
plain, and yet it has acquired meanings in [Pg240] American that
differ very widely from the meaning of /chassé/. How widely it is
dispersed may be seen by the fact that it is reported in popular use,
as a verb signifying to prance or to walk consciously, in Southeastern
Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern Arkansas, Eastern Alabama and Western
Indiana, and, with slightly different meaning, on Cape Cod. The
travels of /café/ in America would repay investigation; particularly
its variations in pronunciation. I believe that it is fast becoming
/kaif/. /Plaza/, /boulevard/, /vaudeville/, /menu/ and /rathskeller/
have entered into the common speech of the land, and are pronounced as
American words. Such words, when they come in verbally, by actual
contact with immigrants, commonly retain some measure of their correct
native pronunciation. /Spiel/, /kosher/, /ganof/ and /matzoh/ are
examples; their vowels remain un-American. But words that come in
visually, say through street-signs and the newspapers, are immediately
overhauled and have thoroughly Americanized vowels and consonants
thereafter. School-teachers have been trying to establish various
pseudo-French pronunciations of /vase/ for fifty years past, but it
still rhymes with /face/ in the vulgate. /Vaudeville/ is /vawd-vill/;
/boulevard/ has a hard /d/ at the end; /plaza/ has two flat /a/'s; the
first syllable of /menu/ rhymes with /bee/; the first of /rathskeller/
with /cats/; /fiancée/ is /fy-ancé-y/; /née/ rhymes with /see/;
/décolleté/ is /de-coll-ty/; /hofbräu/ is /huffbrow/; the German /w/
has lost its /v/-sound and becomes an American /w/. I have, in my day,
heard /proteege/ for /protégé/, /habichoo/ for /habitué/, /connisoor/
for /connisseur/, /shirtso/ for /scherzo/, /premeer/ for /première/,
/eetood/ for /étude/ and /prelood/ for /prelude/. /Divorcée/ is
/divorcey/, and has all the rakishness of the adjectives in /-y/. The
first syllable of /mayonnaise/ rhymes with /hay/. /Crème de menthe/ is
/cream de mint/. /Schweizer/ is /swite-ser/. /Rochefort/ is
/roke-fort/. I have heard /début/ with the last syllable rhyming with
/nut/. I have heard /minoot/ for /minuet/. I have heard /tchef doover/
for /chef d'œuvre/. And who doesn't remember
As I walked along the /Boys Boo-long/
With an independent air
and [Pg241]
Say /aw re-vore/,
But not good-by!
Charles James Fox, it is said, called the red wine of France /Bordox/
to the end of his days. He had an American heart; his great speeches
for the revolting colonies were more than mere oratory.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Sweet, perhaps the abbot of the order, makes almost indecent haste
to sin. See the second paragraph on the very first page of vol. i of
his New English Grammar.
[2] /Yale Review/, April, 1918, p. 548.
[3] /Yale Review/, /op. cit./, p. 560.
[4] The Difficulties Created by Grammarians Are to be Ignored, by W.
H. Wilcox, /Atlantic Educational Journal/, Nov., 1912, p. 8. The title
of this article is quoted from ministerial instructions of 1909 to the
teachers of French /lyceés/.
[5] /Op cit./ p. 7. Mr. Wilcox is an instructor in the Maryland State
Normal School.
[6] See especially chapters ix and x of Words and Their Uses and
chapters xvii, xviii and xix of Every-Day English; also the preface to
the latter, p. xi /et seq./ The study of other languages has been made
difficult by the same attempt to force the characters of Greek and
Latin grammar upon them. One finds a protest against the process, for
example, in E. H. Palmer's Grammar of Hindustani, Persian and Arabic;
London, 1906. In all ages, indeed, grammarians appear to have been
fatuous. The learned will remember Aristophanes' ridicule of them in
The Clouds, 660-690.
[7] The case is well summarized in Simpler English Grammar, by
Patterson Wardlaw, /Bull. of the University of S. Carolina/, No. 38,
pt. iii, July, 1914.
[8] Cincinnati, 1868; rev. ed., 1878.
[9] New York, 1903; rev. ed., 1915.
[10] Even Sweet, though he bases his New English Grammar upon the
spoken language and thus sets the purists at defiance, quickly
succumbs to the labelling mania. Thus his classification of tenses