The American language : an inquiry into the development of English in the United States
The classic work on the evolution of American English from British English, American Pronunciation, spelling, proper names, and slang
Print Book, English, 1936
4th ed., cor., enl., and rewritten View all formats and editions
A.A. Knopf, New York, 1936
Author's presentation inscriptions (Provenance) 20th century
xi, 769 pages, xxix, [1] pages ; 25 cm
322214
I. The two streams of English. The earliest alarms
The English attack
American "barbarisms"
The English attitude today
The position of the learned
The views of writing men
The political front
Foreign observers
II. The materials of the inquiry. The hallmarks of American
What is an Americanism?
III. The beginnings of American. The first loan-words
New words of English material
Changed meanings
Archaic English words
IV. The period of growth. A new nation in the making
The expanding vocabulary
Loan-words and non-English influences
V. The language today. After the Civil War
The making of new nouns
Verbs
Other parts of speech
Foreign influences today
VI. American and English. The infiltration of English by Americanisms
Surviving differences
English difficulties with American
Briticisms in the United States
Honorifics
Euphemisms
Forbidden words
Expletives
VII. The pronunciation of American. Its general characters
The vowels
The consonants
Dialects
VIII. American spelling. The influence of Noah Webster
The advance of American spelling
The simplified spelling movement
The treatment of loan-words
Punctuation, capitalization, and abbreviation
IX. The common speech. Outlines of its grammar
The verb
The pronoun
The noun
The adjective
The adverb
The double negative
Other syntactical peculiarities
X. Proper names in America. Surnames
Given-names
Place-names
Other proper names
XI. American slang. The nature of slang
Cant and argot
XII. The future of the language. The spread of English
English or American?
Appendix : Non-English dialects in America : Germanic
Latin
Slavic
Finno-Ugrian
Celtic
Semitic
Greek
Asiatic
Miscellaneous