The American Language (1923)

by Henry Louis Mencken

For other versions of this work, see The American Language.

The American Language

An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States

by
H. L. Mencken

Third Edition
Revised and Enlarged

New York
Alfred A Knopf
MCMXXIII

Copyright, 1919, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Copyright, 1921, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Copyright, 1923, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

 

Revised Edition Published December, 1921
Third Edition (Again Revised), February, 1923

 

Set and electrotyped by J. J. Little & Ives Co., New York.
Printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y., on Warren's No. 66 paper
Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

	Preface to Third Edition			vii–ix
I.	Introductory			1
	1.	The Diverging Streams of English		1
	2.	The Academic Attitude		5
	3.	The View of Writing Men		13
	4.	Foreign Observers		26
	5.	The General Character of American English		29
	6.	The Materials of the Inquiry		40
II.	The Beginnings of American			47
	1.	The First Differentiation		47
	2.	Sources of Early Americanisms		53
	3.	New Words of English Material		57
	4.	Changed Meanings		64
	5.	Archaic English Words		67
	6.	Colonial Pronunciation		72
III.	The Period of Growth			77
	1.	Character of the New Nation		77
	2.	The Language in the Making		89
	3.	The Expanding Vocabulary		94
	4.	Loan Words and Non-English Influences		103
	5.	Pronunciation before the Civil War		113
IV.	American and English Today			116
	1.	The Two Vocabularies		116
	2.	Differences in Usage		120
	3.	Honorifics		138
	4.	Euphemisms		145
	5.	Expletives and Forbidden Words		150
V.	International Exchanges			159
	1.	Americanisms in England		159
	2.	Briticisms in the United States		170
VI.	Tendencies in American			179
	1.	General Characters		179
	2.	Lost Distinctions		184
	3.	Processes of Word-Formation		180
	4.	Foreign Influences Today		204
VII.	The Standard American Pronunciation			213
	1.	General Characters		213
	2.	The Vowels		231
VIII.	American Spelling			228
	1.	The Two Orthographies		228
	2.	The Influence of Webster		235
	3.	The Advance of American Spelling		243
	4.	British Spelling in the United States		246
	5.	Simplified Spelling		250
	6.	The Treatment of Loan-Words		255
	7.	Minor Differences		260
IX.	The Common Speech			262
	1.	Grammarians and Their Ways		262
	2.	Spoken American as It Is		269
	3.	The Verb		278
	4.	The Pronoun		298
	5.	The Adverb		312
	6.	The Noun		315
	7.	The Adjective		316
	8.	The Double Negative		318
	9.	Other Syntactical Peculiarities		320
	10.	Vulgar Pronunciation		321
X.	Proper Names in America			329
	1.	Surnames		329
	2.	Given Names		347
	3.	Geographical Names		352
	4.	Street Names		366
XI.	American Slang			369
	1.	Its Origin and Nature		369
	2.	War Slang		378
XII.	The Future of the Language			382
	1.	English as a World Language		382
	2.	English or American?		392
Appendices
I.	Specimens of the American Vulgate			398
	1.	The Declaration of Independence in American		398
	2.	Lincoln's Gettysburg Address		402
	3.	Baseball-American		404
	4.	Vers Américain		405
II.	Non-English Dialects in America			407
	1.	German		407
	2.	French		410
	3.	Spanish		413
	4.	Yiddish		416
	5.	Italian		419
	6.	Dano-Norwegian		422
	7.	Swedish		424
	8.	Dutch		426
	9.	Icelandic		430
	10.	Greek		431
	11.	The Slavic Languages		432
III.	Proverb and Platitude			433
Bibliography
	1.	General		436
	2.	Dictionaries of Americanisms		441
	3.	The Process of Language Growth		442
	4.	Loan-Words		444
	5.	Pronunciation		445
	6.	Regional Variation		447
		a.	General Discussions	447
		b.	New England	447
		c.	The Middle States	448
		d.	The South	449
		e.	The Middle West	450
		f.	The Far West	451
		g.	The Colonies	451
		h.	Negro-English	451
	7.	Spelling		451
	8.	Geographical Names		453
	9.	Surnames and Given Names		456
	10.	Non-English Languages in America		457
		a.	German	457
		b.	French	458
		c.	Dano-Norwegian	460
		d.	Dutch	460
		e.	Swedish	460
		f.	Spanish	460
		g.	Icelandic	461
		h.	Italian	461
		i.	Yiddish	462
		j.	Portuguese	462
		k.	General	462
	11.	Other Colonial Dialects of English		462
		a.	Australian	462
		b.	Beach-la-Mar	462
		c.	South African	463
		d.	Canadian	463
		e.	East Indian	463
		f.	Pidgin-English	463
	12.	Slang		463
	13.	Euphemisms, Nicknames, and Forbidden Words		465
	14.	Rudimentary Speech		466
	15.	The Future of the Language		466
	16.	Bibliographies of American English		467
List of Words and Phrases				469
General Index				485