America To-day, Observations and Reflections

. Not all the serious causes of dissension between England and America have begotten half the bad blood that has been engendered by trumpery questions of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciatio

ist that excellent old word "to berate," and a word so useful and so eminently consonant with the spirit of the language as "to belittle;" but, whether wise or unwise, his protest was at least civil. Other writers, both in books and periodicals, have been apt to take their tone from the Dean rather than from the Archbishop. It may even be said that the instinct of the majority of Englishmen, which finds heedless expression in the newspapers and common talk, is to regard Americanisms as necessarily vulgar, and (conversely) vulgarisms as probably American. If challenged and brought to boo

t learned from England are foolish thoughts; what words they have not learned from England, unseemly w

erity upon criticisms in which any approach to such inso

(1895) implying, if he does not absolutely assert (p. 173), that a "boldness of innovation" in matters linguistic, amounting to "absolute licentiousness," is more characteristic of England than of America. The suggestion leaves my British withers entirely unwrung, for I approve of bold innovation in language, trusting to the impermanence of the unfit to counteract the effects of licentiousness. If I could believe that we British were the bolder innovators, I should admit it without blenching; but observation and probabil

writers are corrupting the language; and, in

m, is the proper word. But if Mr. Tucker will look into the matter, he will find it extremely probable that thi

easants bargain

for oxen, sh

VI., V

rther. The simple fact is that Mr. Tucker has not happened to note the intransitive sense of "to fling" and "to whip," which has been current in the best authors for centuries. He is very severe on the English habit of "inserting utterly superfluous words," instancing from Lord Beaconsfield, "He was by way of intimating that he was engaged on a great work," and, from a magazine, "She was by way of painting the shrimp girl." Now, this is not an elegant expression, and for my part I should be at some pains to avoid it; but it has a perfectly distinct meaning, and is not a mere redundancy. If Mr. Tucker supposes that "She was by way of painting the shrimp girl" means exactly the same as "She was painting the shrimp girl," he misses one of the fine shades of the English language. Similarly, his remark on the "peculiar misuse of the affix ever, as in s

use; for instance, adze, affectation, agape, to age, air (appearance), appellant, apple-pie order, baker's dozen, bamboozle, bay window, between whiles, bicker, blanch, to brain, burly, catcall, clodhopper, clutch, coddle, copious, cosy, counterfeit money, crazy (dilapidated), crone, crook, croon, cross-grained, cross-patch, cross purposes, cuddle, to cuff (to strike), cleft, din, earnest money, egg on, greenhorn, jack-of-all-trades, loophole, settled, ornate, to quail, ragamuffin, riff-raff, rigmarole, scant, seedy, out of

ple," says Mr. Tucker, "... differs from what all admit to be standard correctness in a much smaller degree[R] than we have every reason to believe to be the case in England, our enemies themselves being judges." Now I protest I am not Mr. Tucker's enemy, and I know of no reason why he should be mine. I cannot share the withering contempt with which he regards the extension of the term "traffic" from barter to movement to and fro, as in a street or on a railway; but if he prefers another word (he does not suggest one, by the way) for the traffic on Broadway or

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r class of errors at all comparable in importance to those of the Cockney speech of London?" The answer is p

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affic of our stage." He was a hardened offender, was Shakespeare, against Mr. Tucker's