American Language

by H. L. Mencken

  143 Ontario Speech, by Evelyn R. Ahrend, American Speech, April, 1934. The first treatise on Canadian English was written by A. S. Geikie and appeared in the Canadian Journal so long ago as 1857. There have been few additions to the literature since. Those appearing down to the end of 1922 are listed in Kennedy’s Bibliography, above cited, p. 404. Among the later ones, all fragmentary, are Newfoundland Dialect Items, by George Allen England, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Pt. VIII, 1925; Montreal English, by Helen C. Munroe, American Speech, Oct., 1929; A Note on Canadian English, by W. S. W. McLay, the same, April, 1930 (a correction of errors by Miss Munroe); Terms From the Labrador Coast, by Mary S. Evans, the same, Oct., 1930; More Labrador Survivals, by W. D. Strong, the same, April, 1931.

  144 Parliament Goes Hollywood, April 7, 1934.

  145 Bermudian English, American Speech, Feb., 1933.

  146 See Beach-la-Mar, by William Churchill; Washington, 1911.

  147 There is a good account of it in Pidgin English in Hawaii, by William C. Smith, American Speech, Feb., 1933.

  148 The English Dialect of Hawaii, by John E. Reinecke and Aiko Tokimasa, American Speech, Feb., 1934, p. 50.

  149 For what follows I am chiefly indebted to the paper by Mr. Reinecke and Miss Tokimasa, just cited. It appeared in American Speech in two parts, Feb. and April, 1934. The two authors, who are husband and wife, are teachers in Hawaii. Mr. Reinecke, who is an American, went there in 1926. Miss Tokimasa, who is a Japanese, was educated at the Honolulu Normal School. I am also indebted to the Rev. Henry P. Judd, associate secretary of the Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, who kindly answered a number of questions; to Mr. Frederick B. Withington, who gave me access to his paper, The Hawaiian Language: Its Modern History as a Means of Communication; and to Mr. N. B. Beck, assistant professor of English in the University of Hawaii.

  150 Reinecke and Tokimasa, above cited, Art. II, p. 130.

  151 During the first years of the American occupation a great many American teachers went to the islands, but by 1925 they had been reduced in number to 305 in a corps of 25,530. The survivors taught only in the high-schools. In the primary grades virtually all the teachers of English were natives. See Bamboo English, by George G. Struble, American Speech, April, 1929, pp. 277–78.

  152 I am indebted here and below to Struble, just cited, to The English Language in the Philippines, by Emma Sarepta Yule, American Speech, Nov., 1925, and to A Little Brown Language, by Jerome B. Barry, the same, Oct., 1927.

  153 Struble, above cited, p. 284.

  154 This is borrowed from What Americans Talk in the Philippines, by Maurice P. Dunlap, Review of Reviews, Aug., 1913.

  155 But here komusta may be borrowed from the Spanish como está (how are you?).

  156 Unfortunately, I have mislaid my memorandum of the date and the author’s name.

  157 That is, American; through, in this sense, is seldom used by the English.

  158 I am indebted here to A Philologist’s Paradise, by Thomas R. Reid, Jr., Opportunity, Jan., 1926.

  159 For a specimen of the dialect see Negro Dialect of the Virgin Islands, by Henry S. Whitehead, American Speech, Feb., 1932.

  160 See Surinam Negro-English, by John Dyneley Prince, American Speech, Oct., 1934, and Colonial Survivals in Bush-Negro Speech, by A. G. Barnett, the same, Aug., 1932. The dialects spoken in Australia, India and South Africa lie outside the bounds of the present inquiry, but some reference to the literature may be useful. All of it down to the end of 1922 is listed in Kennedy’s Bibliography, above cited, pp. 404–5. The following, too late for Kennedy or overlooked by him, are also of interest: South African English Pronunciation, by David Hopwood; Cape Town, 1928; The Pronunciation of English in South Africa, by W. E. C. Clarke; Johannesburg, 1913; Cockney English and Kitchen Dutch, by C. M. Drennan; Johannesburg, 1920; Some Notes on Indian English, by R. C. Goffin, S.P.E. Tracts, No. XLI, 1934; The Australian Accent, Triad (Sydney, N. S. W.), Nov. 10, 1920; How English is Spoken Here, by B. Sc., Sydney Evening News, May 5, 1925; Words, Words, Words, by Guy Innes, Melbourne Herald, Nov. 11, 1933. Vulgar Australian-English shows the Cockney whine, and is altogether a dreadful dialect. The vocabulary is heavy with loans from American, but there are also some picturesque native inventions, e.g., wowser (a kill-joy), bullsh (a false report), to go hostile (to become angry), and woop-woop (a country district). There is a brief glossary of it in Slang Today and Yesterday, by Eric Partridge, 2nd ed.; London, 1935. The Australian dialect is uniform throughout the country. In New Zealand a form of Southern English free from Cockney vowels is spoken.

  VIII

  AMERICAN SPELLING

  I. THE INFLUENCE OF NOAH WEBSTER

  At the time of the first English settlements in America the rules of English orthography were beautifully vague, and so we find the early documents full of spellings that seem quite fantastic today. Aetaernall, for eternal, is in the Acts of the Massachusetts General Court for 1646, adjoin is spelled adioyne in the Dedham Records for 1637, February is Ffebrewarie in the Portsmouth, R. I. Records for 1639–97, and general is jinerll in the Hartford Town Votes for 1635–1716.1 There had been attempts in England since the middle of the Sixteenth Century to put the spelling of the language upon a more or less rational basis,2 but their effects were only slowly realized. It was not, indeed, until about 1630, nearly a quarter of a century after the landing at Jamestown, that English printers began to differentiate clearly between u and v, i and j. The two pairs were still confused in the First Folio of Shakespeare, printed in 1623, and Sir John Cheke, one of the first English spelling reformers, was quite content to write mijn for mine and vnmixt for unmixed. The redundant final e, usually a relic of a long-lost inflection, was much oftener encountered then than now, and a glance through almost any Seventeenth Century American public document will show toune for town, halfe for half, smale for small, and ye are for year.

  There were no dictionaries in those days — or, at all events, none of any generally admitted authority — but as printing increased, a movement toward uniformity in spelling, if not toward rationality, began to show itself. By the beginning of the Eighteenth Century all the principal English authors were spelling pretty much alike, and by 1711, when the first number of the Spectator appeared, they were spelling substantially as we spell now. But it was not until the publication of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary, in 1755, that the English had a real guide to orthography, of universal acceptance. Johnson, in the presence of conflicting usages, always took the conservative side. He preferred what he called “Saxon” spellings for what he conceived to be old English words, and thus ordained that music, critic and even prosaic should have a final k, though all three were actually borrowings from the Latin through the French. He decided for the -our ending in words of the honor class, and it remains in vogue in England to this day. When there was doubt, he proceeded with “a scholar’s reverence for antiquity,” and gave his imprimatur to many spellings based upon false etymologies and pointless analogies. Naturally enough, he fell into a number of contradictions, and it was easy for Lindley Murray to point them out, e.g., such pairs as deceit and receipt, moveable and immovable, sliness and slyly, deign and disdain. Even among the -our words he permitted exterior to slip in alongside interiour, and posterior alongside anteriour. He also undertook occasional reforms that failed to make their way, e.g., the reduction of final -ll to -l, leading to such forms as downhil, catcal, unrol and forestal. But on the whole, his professed respect for “the genius of the language” showed a very keen feeling for it, and his decisions ratified what had become customary usage far oftener than they sought to change it. His influence was tremendous, both in England and in America.

  There is no evidence that his mandates were ever challenged on this side of the water until the Revolution. In 1768, to be sure, the ever busy and iconoclastic Benjamin Franklin had published “A Scheme for a New Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling,” and induced a Philadelphia type-founder to cut the six new characters that it demand
ed, but this project was too extravagant to be adopted anywhere, or to have any appreciable influence.3 It was Noah Webster who finally achieved a divorce between English precept and example and American practice. In his “Grammatical Institute of the English Language,” published in Hartford in 1783, he was content to follow and even to praise Johnson’s spellings, e.g., in the -our words, but soon thereafter he was launched upon his grandiose plan to establish an independent “Federal” language in the new Republic, and in 1786 he approached Franklin and Timothy Pickering4 with a project for reducing its orthography “to perfect regularity, with as few new characters and alterations of the old ones as possible.” Franklin was receptive, and Webster seems to have submitted his ideas to the other “distinguished characters” of the time, including Washington and Jefferson. During the succeeding three years he carried on his campaign with his usual pertinacity, but it does not appear that he made many converts. In 1789 he published his “Dissertations on the English Language,” and in an appendix thereto he printed his proposals in some detail. They were as follows:

  1. The omission of all superfluous or silent letters; as a in bread. Thus bread, head, give, breast, built, meant, realm, friend would be spelt bred, hed, giv, brest, bilt, ment, relm, frend. Would this alteration produce any inconvenience, any embarrassment or expense? By no means. On the other hand, it would lessen the trouble of writing, and much more, of learning the language; it would reduce the true pronunciation to a certainty; and while it would assist foreigners and our own children in acquiring the language, it would render the pronunciation uniform, in different parts of the country, and almost prevent the possibility of changes.

  2. A substitution of a character that has a certain definite sound for one that is more vague and indeterminate. Thus by putting ee instead of ea or ie, the words mean, near, speak, grieve, zeal would become meen, neer, speek, greev, zeel. This alteration could not occasion a moment’s trouble; at the same time it would prevent a doubt respecting the pronunciation; whereas the ea and ie, having different sounds, may give a learner much difficulty. Thus greef should be substituted for grief; kee for key; beleev for believe; laf for laugh; dawter for daughter; plow for plough; tuf for tough; proov for prove; blud for blood; and draft for draught. In this manner ch in Greek derivatives should be changed into k; for the English ch has a soft sound, as in cherish, but k always a hard sound. Therefore character, chorus, cholic, architecture, should be written karacter, korus, kolic, arkitecture; and were they thus written, no person could mistake their true pronunciation. Thus ch in French derivatives should be changed into sh; machine, chaise, chevalier should be written masheen, shaze, shevaleer; and pique, tour, oblique should be written peek, toor, obleek.

  3. A trifling alteration in a character, or the addition of a point, would distinguish different sounds, without the substitution of a new character. Thus a very small stroke across th would distinguish its two sounds. A point over a vowel, in this manner: à, or ò, or ī, might answer all the purposes of different letters. And for the diphthong ow, let the two letters be united by a small stroke, or both engraven on the same piece of metal, with the left hand line of the w united to the o.

  These changes, said Webster, “with a few other inconsiderable alterations, would answer every purpose, and render the orthography sufficiently correct and regular.” They would “diminish the number of letters about one sixteenth or eighteenth,” they would tend to “render the pronunciation of the language as uniform as the spelling in books,” and they would “facilitate the learning of the language.” The greatest argument, however, was the patriotic one:

  A capital advantage of this reform in these States would be that it would make a difference between the English orthography and the American. This will startle those who have not attended to the subject; but I am confident that such an event is an object of vast political consequence.

  The alteration, however small, would encourage the publication of books in our own country. It would render it, in some measure, necessary that all books should be printed in America. The English would never copy our orthography for their own use; and consequently the same impressions of books would not answer for both countries. The inhabitants of the present generation would read the English impressions; but posterity, being taught a different spelling, would prefer the American orthography.

  Besides this, a national language is a band of national union. Every engine should be employed to render the people of this country national; to call their attachments home to their own country; and to inspire them with the pride of national character. However they may boast of Independence, and the freedom of their government, yet their opinions are not sufficiently independent; an astonishing respect for the arts and literature of their parent country, and a blind imitation of its manners, are still prevalent among the Americans. Thus an habitual respect for another country, deserved indeed and once laudable, turns their attention from their own interests, and prevents their respecting themselves.

  But, as Dr. George Philip Krapp points out in “The English Language in America,”5 Webster was “above all a practical, not a theoretical reformer,” and in consequence he was slow himself to adopt the reforms he advocated. When in 1783, he republished the first part of his “Grammatical Institute” as the first edition of his famous “American Spelling Book,” he used the orthodox English spelling of the time, and not only gave the -our words their English ending, but even commended it. And so late as 1806, in the preface to his first Dictionary, he tried somewhat disingenuously to disassociate himself from Franklin’s scheme to reform the alphabet. Indeed, in all the editions of the Spelling Book printed before 1806 he avoided noticeable novelties in spelling, though after 1798 he noted, in his preface, his conviction that “common sense and convenience” would soon or late substitute public, favor, nabor, bed, proov, flem, hiz, giv, det, ruf and wel for publick, favour, neighbour, head, prove, phlegm, his, give, debt, rough and well. But in his Dictionary of 1806, despite his coolness to Franklin’s alphabet, he used Franklin’s saying that “those people spell best who do not know how to spell” — i.e., who spell phonetically — as a springboard for a wholesale assault upon the authority of Johnson. He made an almost complete sweep of whole classes of silent letters — the u in the -our words, the final e in determine and requisite, the silent a in thread, feather and steady, the silent b in thumb, the s in island, the o in leopard, and the redundant consonants in traveler, wagon, jeweler, etc. (Eng. traveller, waggon, jeweller). He lopped the final k from frolick, physick and their analogues, and transposed the e and the r in many words ending in re, such as theatre, lustre, centre and calibre. More, he changed the c in all words of the defence class to s. Yet more, he changed ph to f in words of the phantom class, ou to 00 in words of the group class, ow to ou in crowd, porpoise to porpess, acre to aker, sew to soe, woe to wo, soot to sut, gaol to jail and plough to plow. Finally, he antedated the simplified spellers by inventing a long list of boldly phonetic spellings, ranging from tung for tongue to wimmen for women, and from hainous for heinous to cag for keg.

  Some of these new spellings, of course, were not actually Webster’s inventions. For example, the change from -our to -or in words of the honor class was a mere echo of an earlier English uncertainty. In the first three folios of Shakespeare, 1623, 1632 and 1663–6, honor and honour were used indiscriminately and in almost equal proportions; English spelling, as we have seen, was then still fluid, and the -our-form was not used consistently until the Fourth Folio of 1685. Moreover, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is authority for the statement that the -or-form was “a fashionable impropriety” in England in 1791. But the great authority of Johnson stood against it, and Webster was surely not one to imitate fashionable improprieties. He deleted the u for purely etymological reasons, going back to the Latin honor, favor and odor without taking account of the intermediate French honneur, faveur and odeur. And where no etymological reasons presented themselves, he made his changes by analogy an
d for the sake of uniformity, or for euphony or simplicity, or because it pleased him, one guesses, to stir up the academic animals. Webster, in fact, delighted in controversy, and was anything but free from the national yearning to make a sensation.

  Many of his innovations, of course, failed to take root, and in the course of time he abandoned some of them himself. Among them were the dropping of the silent letter in such words as head, give, built and realm, making them hed, giv, bilt and relm; the substitution of doubled vowels for apparent diphthongs in such words as mean, zeal and near, making them meen, zeel and neer; and the substitution of sh for ch in such French loan-words as machine and chevalier, making them masheen and shevaleer. He had once declared for stile in place of style, and for many other such changes, but now quietly abandoned them. The successive editions of his Dictionary show still further concessions. Croud, fether, groop, gil-lotin, iland, insted, leperd, soe, sut, steddy, thret, thred, thum and wimmen appear only in the 1806 edition. In his “American Dictionary of the English Language” (1828), the father of all the Websters of today, he went back to crowd, feather, group, island, instead, leopard, sew, soot, steady, thread, threat, thumb and women, and changed gillotin to guillotin, and in addition, he restored the final e in determine, discipline, requisite, imagine, etc. In 1838, revising the “American Dictionary,” he abandoned a good many spellings that had appeared even in his 1828 edition, e.g., maiz for maize, suveran6 for sovereign and guillotin for guillotine, but he stuck manfully to a number that were quite as revolutionary — e.g., aker for acre, cag for keg, grotesk for grotesque, hainous for heinous, porpess for porpoise and tung for tongue — and they did not begin to disappear until the edition of 1854, issued by other hands and eleven years after his death. Three of his favorites, chimist for chemist, neger for negro and zeber for zebra, are incidentally interesting as showing changes in American pronunciation. He abandoned zeber in 1828, but remained faithful to chimist and neger to the last.