H. L. Mencken

Name: The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry
Author: H. L. Mencken

The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

Summary

“The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry”, published in 1919, is a work by H. L. Mencken. It explores elements such as Americanisms, the United States and phrases.

Quotes from The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (H. L. Mencken)

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ An Americanism may be defined as a word or phrase, old or new, employed by general or respectable usage in America in a way not sanctioned by the best standards of the English language. As a matter of fact, however, the term has come to possess a wider meaning, and it is now applied not only to words and phrases which can be so described, but also to the new and legitimately born words adapted to the general needs and usages, to the survivals of an older form of English than that now current in the mother country, and to the racy, pungent vernacular of Western life. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ Forms of speech now obsolete or provincial in England, which survive in the United States, such as allow, bureau, fall, gotten, guess, likely, professor, shoat. Words and phrases of distinctly American origin, such as belittle, lengthy, lightning-rod, to darken one’s doors, to bark up the wrong tree, to come out at the little end of the horn, blind tiger, cold snap, gay Quaker, gone coon, long sauce, pay dirt, small potatoes, some pumpkins. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ Words and phrases stated by the previous compiler himself to be of foreign [i.e., chiefly of English] origin, like Farmers hand-me-downs. Names of things exclusively American, but known abroad under the same name, such as moccasin. Names of things invented in the United States, like drawing-room car. Words used in this country in a sense hardly distinguishable from that they bear in England, like force for a gang of laborers. Nonce words, like Mark Twains cavalieress. Perfectly regular and self-explanatory compounds, like office-holder, planing-machine, ink-slinger and fly-time. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ The German element. The French. The Spanish. The Dutch. The negro. The Chinese. Names of American things, embracing: Natural products. Manufactured articles. Perverted English words. Obsolete English words still in good use in America. English words, American by inflection and modification. Odd and ignorant popular phrases, proverbs, vulgarisms, and colloquialisms, cant and slang. Individualisms. Doubtful and miscellaneous. Clapin, in 1902, [4] reduced these categories to four:
Genuine English words, obsolete or provincial in England, and universally used in the United States. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ The American vocabulary, of course, must be given first attention, for in it the earliest American divergences are embalmed and it tends to grow richer and freer year after year, but attention will also be paid to materials and ways of speech that are less obvious, and in particular to certain tendencies of the grammar of spoken American, hitherto not investigated. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ They leave out of account some of the most salient characters of a living language. Only Bartlett and Farmer establish a separate category of Americanisms produced by umlaut, by shading of consonants and by other phonological changes, though even Thornton, of course, is obliged to take notice of such forms as bust and bile, and even Tucker lists buster. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ Words and phrases of purely American derivation, embracing words originating in: Indian and aboriginal life. Pioneer and frontier life. The church. Politics. Trades of all kinds. Travel, afloat and ashore. ”

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Source: Wikisource

H. L. Mencken, The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (1919)

“ Phila., 1859.↑ John S. Farmer: Americanisms Old and New... London, 1889.↑ Sylva Clapin: A New Dictionary of Americanisms, Being a Glossary of Words Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States and the Dominion of Canada; New York, 1902.↑ Gilbert M. Tucker: American English ”

H. L. Mencken

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Quotes from The American Language — The Materials of the Inquiry (H. L. Mencken)

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