America To-day, Observations and Reflections

cent visit to the United States. I call them Americanisms without inquiring into their history. Some of them may be of English origin;

ut New York. I often heard it there, and never anywhere else. A very distinguished officer, who served as a volunteer in Cuba, was asked to state his impressions of war. "War," he said, "is a terrible thing. You can't exag

get this play well talked about and paragraphed in advance," an American manager puts the whole thing much more briefly and forcibly in the phrase, "We don't want this piece to come in on rubbers." Metaphor apart, many Americans have a gift of fantastic extravagance of phrase which often produces an irresistible effect. A gentleman in high political o

s and doings of more or less educated people, there are apt to be, on an average, about half a dozen words and phrases at which the English reader stumbles for a moment. Mr. Howells, a master of English, may be taken as a faithful reporter of the colloquial speech of Boston and New York. In one of his comediettas, he makes Willis Campbell say, "Let me turn out my sister's cup" (pour her a cup of tea). Mrs. Roberts, in another of these delightful little pieces, says, "I'll smash off a not

rs, uses a still less elegant synonym for "scrap"-he talks of a "connubial spat." In the same book I note the phrases "He teetered back and forth on his toes," "He was a stocky young man," "One of his brief noonings," "That's right, Claudia-score the profession." "Score," as used in America, does not mean "score off," but rather, I take it, "attack and leave your mark upon." It is very common in this sense. For instance, I not

of the laws of slang that when a phrase strikes the popular fancy, it is pressed into service on every possible or impossible occasion. Another favourite expression is "That cuts no ice with me."[X] I was unable to ascertain either its origin or its precise significance.

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marily a load, secondarily a "l

e being a brave young man for tumping de mug what insulted his daughter," "Mug," the Bowery term for "fellow" or "man," in Chicago finds its equivalent in "guy." Mr. Ade's Artie is a Chicago clerk, and his dialect is of the most delectable. In comparison with him, Mr. Dooley is a well of English undefiled. Here again we find traces of the influence of polyglot immigration. "Kopecks" for "money" evidently comes from the Russian Jew; "girlerino," as a term of endearment, from the "Dago" of the sunny south; and "spiel," meaning practically anything you please, from the Fatherland. When Artie goes to a wedding, he records that "there was a long spiel by the high guy in the pulpit." After

million! I tell you you're a two spot, and if you come into the same part o' the town with me I'll change your face. There's only one way to get back at you people.... If he don't

acteristic. Many educated Americans take great delight, and even pride, in keeping abreast of the daily developments of slang and patter; but this study does not in the least impair their sense for, or their command of, good English. The idea that the English language is degenerating in America is an absolutely groundless illusion. Take them all round, the newspapers of the leading Ame

esultory discussion very neatly to a point. He admitted that we habitually use "Americanism" as a term of reproach; "but," he asked, "who is reproached? Not the American (who may do as he pleases) but the

cle. And, for my part, I think the principle a false one. I think the English language has been entrusted to the care of all of us, English no less than Americans, Americans no less than English; and if I find an Ameri

age the free infiltration of graphic and racy Americanisms into our vernacular, and of vigorous and useful Americanisms (even if not absolutely necessary) into our literary language. Where is the harm in duplicating terms, if only the duplicates be in themselves good terms? For instance, take the word "fall." Mr. Brander Matthews writes: "An American with a sense of the poetic cannot but prefer to the imported word 'autumn' the native and more logical word 'fall,' which the

tumn, big with

de to the Fall, would have produced quite

ts and mellow

f never saying "fall" seems to me just as mistaken as the American literary patriotism (if such there be) that makes a merit of never saying "autumn." By insisting on such localisms (for the exclusive preference for either term is nothing more) we might, in process of

am far from suggesting that the one should drive out the other. It is precisely the advantage of our linguistic position that it so enormously enlarges the stock of semi-synonyms

on a previous occasion; when his opponent (see the Academy, March 30, 1895) opened a volume of Hawthorne and a volume of Emerson, and in five minutes found in Hawthorne "He had named his two children, one for Her Majesty and one for Prince Albert," and in Emerson "Nature tells every secret once. Yes; but in man she tells it all the time." The latter phrase is one which Mr. Lang explicitly puts under his ban. He is an ing

e of what we mean. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was a stern opponent of such neologisms." I turn to the Oxford Dictionary, and the one quotation I find under "belong" in this sense, is:-"'You belong with the last set, and got accidentally shuffled with the others.'-O.W. Holmes, 'Elsie Venner.'" But this, Mr.

I believe (and Mr. Lang would probably admit with a shrug) that the forces of the future are on my side. May I recall to him that charming anecdote of Thackeray and Viscount Monck, when they were rival candidates for the representation of Oxford in Parliament? They met in the street one day, and exchanged a few words. On parting, Thackeray shook hands with his opponent and said, "Good-bye; and may the best man win

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Cockney policeman, speaking of a stree

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d the names on the tyres."-Artie. A writer in the New York Sun says: "I first heard the term 'rubbernecks' in Arizona, about four years ago, applie

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iety notes, but that cuts

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my acquaintance, to the effect that there were not enough cultured people in Chicago to fill a grip-car. I asked him if he

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