America To-day, Observations and Reflections

o Englishmen. We ourselves laugh at a "haw-haw" intonation in English; why, then, should we forbid Americans to do so? If "an accent like

t read the works of the sagacious Mr. Dooley, I thought it a curiously far-fetched idea on the part of that philosopher to talk of Admiral Dewey as his "Cousin George," and assert that "Dewey" and "Dooley" were practically the same name. I had not then noticed that the American pronunciation of "Dewey" is "Dooey," and that the liquid "yoo" is very seldom heard in America. In the course of the five minutes I spent in the Supreme Court at Washington, I heard the Chief Justice of the United States make this one remark: "That, sir, is not constitootional." To our ears this "oo" has an old-fashioned ring, like that of the "ee" in "obleeged;" but to ca

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ould not at all surprise me to learn that Milton said "dooey;" but neither would it lead me to alt

tenant," but were called to order by an outburst of protest. Though, for my own part, I say "leftenant," I heartily sympathise with the protesters. "Leftenant,"

gnised pronunciation of "theatre" would be "theayter." It is argued that there is a general tendency among educated Englishmen to throw the accent as far back as possible; that, for instance, the educated speaker says "in-teresting," the uneducated, "interest-ing." True; but until this tendency can be proved to possess some inherent advantage, there is not a shadow of reason why Americans should be reproached or ridiculed for obeying their own tendency rather than ours. The English tendency is a matter of comparatively recent fashion. "Con-template," said Samuel Rogers, "is bad enough, but bal-cony makes me sick." Both forms have maintained themselves up to the present; but will they for long? I think one may already trace a reaction against the universal throwing backward of the accent. I myself say "per-emptory" and "ex-emplary;" but it would take very little encouragement to make me say "peremp-tory" and "exemp-lary," which seem to me much

clear advantage in having a special word for this special idea. If American writers tried to make "most" supplant "almost" in the literary language, we should have a right to remonstrate; the two forms would fight it out, and the fittest would survive. But as a matter of fact I am not aware that any one has attempted to introduce "most," in this sense, into literature. It is pe

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terance is clearly indispensable. But in everyday speech a certain amount of colloquialism is inevitable. Let him who

" and of "nope" for "no." No doubt we have in England the coster's "yuss;" but one hears even educated Americans now and then usi

" and that the form (with its correlative "days ") runs through old Norse, old Saxon, old English, and middle English: for instance, "dages endi nahtes" (Hêliand), "d?ges and nihtes" (Beówulf), "d?ies and nihtes" (Layamon), all meaning "by day and by night." In all, or almost all, words ending in "ward," the genitive inflection, according to modern English practice, can either be retained or dropped at will. It is a mere pedantry to declar

ere;" Mr. Ade's Artie, a Chicago clerk, says, "I got a boost in my pay," meaning "I have got:" the locution is very common indeed. It is no more defensible than "swelp me" for "so help me." It arises from sheer laziness, unwillingness to face the infinitesimal difficulty of pronouncing, "d" and "b" together. As a colloqu

guide to us; and that within the same language the conventions are always changing. You may easily nonplus even a good grammarian by asking him suddenly, "What preposition should you use in such-and-such a context?" just as you may puzzle a man by asking him to spell a word which, if he wrote it without thinking about it, would present no difficulty to him. Some very good American writers always say, "at the Nor

point, while others seem to me captious and pedantic. For instance, a woman is not to "marry" a man; she is "married to" him; "the clergyman or magistrate marries both." The grammatical suitor, then, when the awful moment arrives, must not say to the blushi

trangest of psychological phenomena. The baselessness of the reasonings used to bolster up the British clinging to superfluous letters is very ably shown in Professor Matthews' Americanisms and Briticisms. Let me only put in a plea for

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he American cannot." This is a misapprehension on Mr. Walkley's part. The American a can be spoken with or without emphasis, just as the speaker pleases. It is