The American Language
Press, Oxford: 23rd ed.; London, 1914. I am informed by Mr. Humphrey
Davy, of the /London Times/, that, with one or two minor exceptions,
the /Times/ observes the rules laid down in this book.
[17] Cassell's English Dictionary, ed. by John Williams, 37th
thousand: London, 1908. This work is based upon the larger
Encyclopaedic Dictionary, also edited by Williams.
[18] /Caliber/ is now the official spelling of the United States Army.
/Cf./ Description and Rules for the Management of the U. S. Rifle,
/Caliber/ .30 Model of 1903; Washington, 1915. But /calibre/ is still
official in England as appears by the Field Service Pocket-Book used
in the European war (London, 1914, p. viii.)
[19] Even worse inconsistencies are often encountered. Thus /enquiry/
appears on p. 3 of the Dardanelles Commission's First Report; London,
1917; but /inquiring/ is on p. 1.
[20] Mere stupid copying may perhaps be added. An example of it
appears on a map printed with a pamphlet entitled Conquest and Kultur,
compiled by two college professors and issued by the Creel press
bureau (Washington, 1918). On this map, borrowed from an English
periodical called /New Europe/ without correction, /annex/ is spelled
/annexe/. In the same way English spellings often appear in paragraphs
reprinted from the English newspapers. As compensation in the case of
/annexe/ I find /annex/ on pages 11 and 23 of A Report on the
Treatment by the Enemy of British Prisoners of War Behind the Firing
Lines in France and Belgium; Miscellaneous No. 7 (1918). When used as
a verb the English always spell the word /annex/. /Annexe/ is only the
noun form.
[21] /Vide/ Matthews: Americanisms and Briticisms, pp. 33-34.
[22] Handbook of Style in Use at the Riverside Press, Cambridge,
Mass.; Boston, 1913.
[23] Notes for the Guidance of Authors; New York, 1918.
[24] Preparation of Manuscript, Proof Reading, and Office Style at J.
S. Cushing Company's; Norwood, Mass., n. d.
[25] Style Book, a Compilation of Rules Governing Executive,
Congressional and Departmental Printing, Including the /Congressional
Record/, ed. of Feb., 1917; Washington, 1917. A copy of this style
book is in the proof-room of nearly every American daily newspaper and
its rules are generally observed.
[26] Accounts of earlier proposals of reform in English spelling are
to be found in Sayce's Introduction to the Science of Language, vol.
i, p. 330 /et seq./, and White's Everyday English, p. 152 /et seq./
The best general treatment of the subject is in Lounsbury's English
Spelling and Spelling Reform; New York, 1909.
[27] Its second list was published on January 28, 1908, its third on
January 25, 1909, and its fourth on March 24, 1913, and since then
there have been several others. But most of its literature is devoted
to the 12 words and to certain reformed spellings of Webster, already
in general use.
[28] The /Literary Digest/ is perhaps the most important. Its usage is
shown by the Funk & Wagnalls Company Style Card; New York, 1914.
[29] /Tyre/ was still in use in America in the 70's. It will be found
on p. 150 of Mark Twain's Roughing It; Hartford, 1872.
[30] /Vide/ the /Congressional Record/ for March 26, 1918, p. 4374. It
is curious to note that the French themselves are having difficulties
with this and the cognate words. The final /e/ has been dropped from
/biplan/, /monoplan/ and /hydroplan/, but they seem to be unable to
dispense with it in /aéroplane/.
[31] For example, in Teepee Neighbors, by Grace Coolidge; Boston,
1917, p. 220; Duty and Other Irish Comedies, by Seumas O'Brien; New
York, 1916, p. 52; Salt, by Charles G. Norris; New York, 1918, p. 135,
and The Ideal Guest, by Wyndham Lewis, /Little Review/, May, 1918, p.
3. O'Brien is an Irishman and Lewis an Englishman, but the printer in
each case was American. I find /allright/, as one word but with two
/ll's/, in Diplomatic Correspondence With Belligerent Governments,
etc., European War, No. 4; Washington, 1918, p. 214.
[32] /Vide/ How to Lengthen Our Ears, by Viscount Harberton; London,
1917, p. 28.
[33] Krapp: Modern English, p. 181.
[34] Why Not Speak Your Own Language? in /Delineator/, Nov., 1917, p.
12.
[35] I once noted an extreme form of this naturalization in a leading
Southern newspaper, the /Baltimore Sun/. In an announcement of the
death of an American artist it reported that he had studied at the
/Bozart/ in Paris. In New York I have also encountered /chaufer/.
[36] Now and then, of course, a contrary tendency asserts itself. For
example, the plural of /medium/, in the sense of advertising medium,
is sometimes made /media/ by advertising men. /Vide/ the /Editor and
Publisher/, May 11, 1918.
[37] /Irish World/, June 26, 1918.
[38] /Vide/ The Declaration of Independence, by Herbert Friedenwald,
New York, 1904, p. 262 /et seq./
[39] Now and then the English flirt with the American usage. Hart
says, for example, that "originally the cover of the large Oxford
Dictionary had '/a/ historical.'" But "/an/ historical" now appears
there.
[Pg268]
VIII
Proper Names in America
§ 1
/Surnames/--A glance at any American city directory is sufficient to
show that, despite the continued political and cultural preponderance of
the original English strain, the American people have quite ceased to be
authentically English in race, or even authentically British. The blood
in their arteries is inordinately various and inextricably mixed, but
yet not mixed enough to run a clear stream. A touch of foreignness still
lingers about millions of them, even in the country of their birth. They
show their alien origin in their speech, in their domestic customs, in
their habits of mind, and in their very names. Just as the Scotch and
the Welsh have invaded England, elbowing out the actual English to make
room for themselves, so the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the
Scandinavians and the Jews of Eastern Europe, and in some areas, the
French, the Slavs and the hybrid-Spaniards have elbowed out the
descendants of the first colonists. It is not exaggerating, indeed, to
say that wherever the old stock comes into direct and unrestrained
conflict with one of these new stocks, it tends to succumb, or, at all
events, to give up the battle. The Irish, in the big cities of the East,
attained to a truly impressive political power long before the first
native-born generation of them had grown up.[1] The Germans, following
the limestone belt of the Alleghany foothills, pre-empted the best lands
East of the mountains before the new [Pg269] republic was born.[2] And
so, in our own time, we have seen the Swedes and Norwegians shouldering
the native from the wheat lands of the Northwest, and the Italians
driving the decadent New Englanders from their farms, and the Jews
gobbling New York, and the Slavs getting a firm foothold in the mining
regions, and the French Canadians penetrating New Hampshire and Vermont,
and the Japanese and Portuguese menacing Hawaii, and the awakened
negroes gradually ousting the whites from the farms of the South.[3] The
birth-rate among all these foreign stocks is enormously greater than
among the older stock, and though the death-rate is also high, the net
increase remains relatively formidable. Even without the aid of
immigration it is probable that they would continue to rise in numbers
faster than the original English and so-called Scotch-Irish.[4]
Turn to the letter /z/ in the New York telephone directory and you
will find a truly astonishing array of foreign names, some of them in
process of anglicization, but many of them still arrestingly
outlandish. The only Anglo-Saxon surname beginning with /z/ is
/Zacharias/,[5] and even that was originally borrowed from the Greek.
To this the Norman invasion seems to have added only /Zouchy/. But in
Manhattan and the Bronx, even among the necessarily limited class of
telephone subscribers, there are nearly 1500 persons whose names begin
with the letter, and among them one finds fully 150 different
surnames. The German /Zimmermann/, with either one /n/ or two, is
naturally the most numerous single name, and following close upon it
are its derivatives, /Zimmer/ and /Zimmern/. With them are many more
German names: /Zahn/, /Zechendorf/, /Zeffert/, /Zeitler/, /Zeller/,
/Zellner/, /Zeltmacher/, /Zepp/, /Ziegfeld/, /Zabel/, /Zucker/,
/Zuckermann/, /Ziegler/, /Zillman/, /Zinser/ and so on. They are all
represented heavily, but they indicate neither the earliest nor the
most formidable accretion, for underlying them are many Dutch [Pg270]
names, /e. g./, /Zeeman/ and /Zuurmond/, and over them are a large
number of Slavic, Italian and Jewish names. Among the first I note
/Zabludosky/, /Zabriskie/, /Zachczynski/, /Zapinkow/, /Zaretsky/,
/Zechnowitz/, /Zenzalsky/ and /Zywachevsky/; among the second,
/Zaccardi/, /Zaccarini/, /Zaccaro/, /Zapparano/, /Zanelli/,
/Zicarelli/ and /Zucca/; among the third, /Zukor/, /Zipkin/ and
/Ziskind/. There are, too, various Spanish names: /Zelaya/, /Zingaro/,
etc. And Greek: /Zapeion/, /Zervakos/ and /Zouvelekis/. And Armenian:
/Zaloom/, /Zaron/ and /Zatmajian/. And Hungarian: /Zadek/, /Zagor/ and
/Zichy/. And Swedish: /Zetterholm/ and /Zetterlund/. And a number that
defy placing: /Zrike/, /Zvan/, /Zwipf/, /Zula/, /Zur/ and /Zeve/.
Any other American telephone directory will show the same
extraordinary multiplication of exotic patronymics. I choose, at
random, that of Pittsburgh, and confine myself to the saloon-keepers
and clergymen. Among the former I find a great many German names:
/Artz/, /Bartels/, /Blum/, /Gaertner/, /Dittmer/, /Hahn/, /Pfeil/,
/Schuman/, /Schlegel/, /von Hedemann/, /Weiss/ and so on. And Slavic
names: /Blaszkiewicz/, /Bukosky/, /Puwalowski/, /Krzykolski/,
/Tuladziecke/ and /Stratkiewicz/. And Greek and Italian names:
/Markopoulos/, /Martinelli/, /Foglia/, /Gigliotti/ and /Karabinos/.
And names beyond my determination: /Tyburski/, /Volongiatica/,
/Herisko/ and /Hajduk/. Very few Anglo-Saxon names are on the list;
the continental foreigner seems to be driving out the native, and even
the Irishman, from the saloon business. Among the clerics, naturally
enough, there are more men of English surname, but even here I find
such strange names as /Auroroff/, /Ashinsky/, /Bourajanis/, /Duic/,
/Cillo/, /Mazure/, /Przvblski/, /Pniak/, /Bazilevich/, /Smelsz/ and
/Vrhunec/. But Pittsburgh and New York, it may be argued, are scarcely
American; unrestricted immigration has swamped them; the newcomers
crowd into the cities. Well, examine the roster of the national House
of Representatives, which surely represents the whole country. On it I
find /Bacharach/, /Dupré/, /Esch/, /Estopinal/, /Focht/, /Heintz/,
/Kahn/, /Kiess/, /Kreider/, /La Guardia/, /Kraus/, /Lazaro/,
/Lehbach/, /Romjue/, /Siegel/ and /Zihlman/, not to mention the
insular delegates, /Kalanianole/, [Pg271] /de Veyra/, /Davila/ and
/Yangko/, and enough Irishmen to organize a parliament at Dublin.
In the New York city directory the fourth most common name is now
/Murphy/, an Irish name, and the fifth most common is /Meyer/, which
is German and chiefly Jewish. The /Meyers/ are the /Smiths/ of
Austria, and of most of Germany. They outnumber all other clans. After
them come the /Schultzes/ and /Krauses/, just as the /Joneses/ and
/Williamses/ follow the /Smiths/ in Great Britain. /Schultze/ and
/Kraus/ do not seem to be very common names in New York, but
/Schmidt/, /Muller/, /Schneider/ and /Klein/ appear among the fifty
commonest.[6] /Cohen/ and /Levy/ rank eighth and ninth, and are both
ahead of /Jones/, which is second in England, and /Williams/, which is
third. /Taylor/, a highly typical British name, ranking fourth in
England and Wales, is twenty-third in New York. Ahead of it, beside