American Language Supplement 1
Page 93
4 The DAE traces clipping in this sense to 1838 and marks it an Americanism.
5 Durrant, the Romeike of England, calls his business Durrant’s Press Cuttings.
6 New York Times Magazine, quoted in Writer’s Monthly, Oct., 1927, p. 337: “Garments flap in the breeze … attached to the line with a peg instead of a pin.”
7 Or kerosene. Kerosene is traced by the DAE to 1855 and coal-oil to 1858, and both are marked Americanisms. See paraffin.
8 “I have received a clipping from an American paper,” wrote G. K. Chesterton in 1934, “stating on the authority of Professor Howard Wilson that America’s greatest contributions to civilization are plumbers, dentists and the collar-button.… My ignorance may horrify the world — but what is a collar-button?” I take this from Prams, Trams and Collar-Buttons, by Frank Sullivan, New York American, May 26, 1934. It is hard to believe that Chesterton wrote clipping: the English term is cutting; but I let it go. The DAE marks collar-button an Americanism, and traces it to 1886. It must be older.
9 Commencement was in use in the English universities in the Fourteenth Century, and was apparently borrowed from the French. At Oxford, two centuries later, act was substituted but Oxford has returned to it. When it began to be used in the United States to designate the closing orgies of lesser schools I do not know. The NED’s first example of speech-day is from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, 1848. It is used only in the so-called public-schools, corresponding to the American prep schools.
1 The DAE traces commutation ticket to 1849 and marks it an Americanism.
2 London Times Literary Supplement, Aug. 19, 1939: “The commuters of America … are brothers and sisters under the skin to our own suburban season-ticket holders.” Commuter is traced by the DAE to 1863, and to commute to 1865.
3 As She Is Spoke in the United States, by J. H. M., Glasgow Evening Citizen, Aug. 29, 1936: “There will be no guard on the train, but an official with exactly the same duties whom you call conductor.” The English use bus-conductor and tram-conductor. Conductor was used in America, in the sense of a man in charge of a stage-coach, so early as 1790.
4 Advertisement in the London Morning Post, July 24, 1936, under a picture showing a small girl eating a banana and a boy holding an ice-cream cone: “A banana for the lady, a cornet for the gent.” In Baltimore I have encountered a sign reading ice-cream cohens.
5 Confidence game is traced by the DAE to 1867 and marked an Americanism.
6 The authority here is Horwill. He says also that a cook-stove is a cooking-stove in England.
7 New York Times Magazine, quoted in Writer’s Monthly, Oct., 1927, p. 335: “A street does not have corners in England, but turnings; neither does it have a head or foot. English thoroughfares possess tops and bottoms.”
8 Anglo-American Equations, by William Feather, American Speech, Dec., 1940, p. 444. The DAE traces cornstarch to 1857. Before then it seems to have been called cornflour in the United States also.
9 Corporation law is company law in England. The English, of course, know the meaning of corporation in the American sense, but they tend to restrict the word to municipal corporations. See Horwill, p. 85. See president and Inc.
10 Councilman is old in English, but it is seldom used. The DAE traces the American councilmanic to 1861.
11 Taxicabs and Tips, by E. R. Thackwell, London Observer, May 24, 1936: “The prohibition or the crawling taxi is long overdue.”
12 In England, says Horwill, “crystal is used in this sense by watchmakers only.” I Discover America, by Kenneth Adam, London Star, Nov. 30, 1937: “I broke my watch-glass yesterday. The jeweller to whom I took it could not make head or tail of what I wanted until I held out the watch dumbly. ‘Ah,’ he nodded. ‘You want a new crystal.’ ”
1 Custom-made is an Americanism, traced by the DAE to 1855.
2 In this sense the DAE traces cut to 1862 and marks it an Americanism.
3 London Mirror, Sept. 19, 1935: “I’d like to build a sun-trap house, designed to catch each ray of golden sunlight.”
4 E. O. Cutler in the New York Times, Feb. 14, 1937: “I suggest the use of Summer time instead of the more cumbersome daylight-saving time. Summer time seems to be in general use in Europe and South America.” I am indebted here to Mr. Edgar Gahan, of Westmount, Quebec.
5 In this sense the DAE traces deck to 1853. Cold deck followed in the 60s.
6 An assault upon a baker’s roundsman was reported in the London Morning Post, Nov. 25, 1935.
7 Americans Bound Coronationwards Should Read This Alphabet, London Daily Express, April 28, 1937: “In England it is a horserace, not a hat. If you want to bet call it the Darby; if you want headgear call it a bowler.” In Australia it is a boxer.
8 In England, says Horwill, dessert means only “uncooked fruit, nuts, etc.” In America it includes “pies, puddings, etc.”
9 Mr. Maurice Walshe of London; private communication, Feb. 22, 1937: “A road detour is, according to the Automobile Association, a loopway.” The commoner English term used to be road diversion, but Mr. P. E. Cleator tells me that detour is coming in.
10 The DAE traces dime-novel to 1865. It is now obsolete, save historically, as penny-dreadful is in England.
11 The DAE traces dining-car to 1839 and diner to 1890, and marks both Americanisms.
12 U. S. and British Staff Officers Overcome Language Difficulties, by Milton Bracker, New York Times, July 1, 1943. The NED traces pannikin to 1823. It marks dipper “chiefly U. S.” The DAE traces dipper to 1783 in American use and marks it an Americanism.
13 Washer was given as the English name for a dishpan in a chapter entitled Selling American Goods in Great Britain, in a handbook, The United Kingdom, issued by the Department of Commerce in 1930. I am indebted here to Mr. R. M. Stephenson, chief of the European section of the division of regional information.
1 Advertisement in the Countryman, Oct., 1937, p. 41: “Write for samples and prices, and the name of the nearest stockist.” Advertisement in the London News Observer, June 18, 1936: “Post this coupon for … the name of the nearest stockist.”
2 District, in this sense, is traced by the DAE to 1712 and marked an Americanism.
3 Though every criminal offense is prosecuted in England in the name of the crown, the actual prosecution was left, until 1879, to persons aggrieved. Under the Prosecution of Offenses Act of that year, followed by others in 1884 and 1908, something like the American system was set up, but even today the director of public prosecutions and his staff do not intervene invariably.
4 Topics of the Times, New York Times, Sept. 29, 1943: “With us a dock is what the British call a wharf. With them a dock is the body of water enclosed within wharves, the thing we call a basin. They say East India Docks and we say Erie Basin. If an American on furlough in London were to tell his English buddy in fun to go and jump off the dock the English soldier would reply, ‘But, I say, a chap can’t jump off a hole in the water, you know.’ ” See also What is a Dock? P. L. A. Monthly, Nov., 1943, p. 306.
5 In England the domestic postal rates ore inland also.
6 American and English, by Claude de Crespigny, American Speech, June, 1926, p. 491: “Downtown districts in England are called the City because the metropolitan areas take their cue from London.”
7 Now commonly called shorts. Long drawers for men are obsolescent.
8 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed., 1929, Vol. VII, p. 641: “Dredging … deals with the process of removing materials lying under water.… The machines employed by engineers to that end are termed dredgers (dredges in America).”
9 Druggist is old in English, but is seldom used today.
10 Pharmacy is known in England, but is seldom used. Drug-store is traced by the DAE to 1819 and marked an Americanism.
11 The DAE traces dry goods-store to 1789 and marks it an Americanism.
12 Says Mr. A. D. Jacobs of Manchester: “We use dumb-waiter to mean a small table on wheels for transporting food from one room to another
.”
13 London Daily Telegraph, Sept. 4, 1937: “At the Weymouth inquest yesterday on a newly-born unidentified male child found on Monday on a municipal refuse tip it was revealed that death was caused by a blow on the head.”
14 The DAE traces editorial to 1830. It was denounced by Richard Grant White in Words and Their Uses, 1870, but has survived.
1 So denominated, with pictures of electric heaters, in various English newspaper advertisements.
2 The DAE marks elevator an Americanism and traces it to 1787, but it was not used to indicate a machine for lifting human beings until the 50s. Elevator-boy is first recorded in 1882, elevator-shaft in 1885, and elevator-man in 1890. The English lift also dates from the 50s. It is one of the few Briticisms that are more pungent and succinct than the corresponding Americanisms. Elevator in the American sense of a building for storing grain is traced by the DAE to 1858.
3 But the union of the English engine-drivers is called the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen.
4 Says Mr. A. D. Jacobs of Manchester: “Eraser is also used, but to English ears sounds more pedantic and official than the other term, which is commonly abbreviated to rubber.”
5 U. S. and British Staff Officers Overcome Language Difficulties, by Milton Bracker, New York Times, July 1, 1943. The DAE traces excelsior to 1869 and marks it an Americanism.
6 The first express company unearthed by the DAE was Harnden’s, which began to operate between New York and Boston March 4, 1839. Expressage, express agent, express business, express car, express charges, express company, expressman, express office, express wagon and to express are all Americanisms, but express train seems to have been used in England a few years before it appeared in the United States. London Times Literary Supplement, May 31, 1934: “The express, or, as we should say, carrier or parcels delivery companies.”
7 London Daily Telegraph, May 11, 1936: “She was lying on her bed, and had apparently been strangled with a piece of electric flex.” London Morning Post, Dec. 4, 1936: “The [telephone] subscriber wanted 8 feet of flex for his hand telephone.” The English call an outlet a point.
8 But the English use faculty to designate a department in a university, e.g., faculty of medicine.
9 Americans Bound Coronationwards Should Read This Alphabet, London Daily Express, April 28, 1937: “Fall. Say Autumn. There’s poetry in your word, but Keats … knew his London climate when he wrote about the season of mists and yellow frightfulness.”
10 Americanisms and Briticisms, by Brander Matthews; New York, 1892, p. 19.
11 The English-Speaking Peoples, by Alistair Cooke, London Evening Standard, Dec. 1, 1936: “They ask to have the fender (the mudguard) and the windshield (the windscreen) wiped.” Seaman says that wing is usually used.
1 The English-Speaking Peoples, by Alistair Cooke, London Evening Standard, Dec. 1, 1936: “Their filling-station is now ousting our petrol-pump.”
2 The DAE’s first example of fire-bug is from a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1872. Fire-raising, in English use, is traced by the NED to 1685, but its first example of fire-raiser is dated 1891.
3 Rather curiously, fire brigade was used in the official programme of the Oriole Pageant in Baltimore, Oct. 10, 11 and 12, 1881. It is never heard in the town today. The DAE traces fire department to 1825.
4 “The first floor of an American building,” says Horwill, “is what would be called the ground floor in England, and the numbering of the higher floors follows according to the same reckoning,” e.g., the American second floor is the English first floor, or storey — always given the e.
5 Or, rather, sixpenny-store. Headline in London Telegraph and Post, March 19, 1938: “Duchess of Kent at Sixpenny Store.” It was at Slough and she bought “a pair of quoits, a kite and a toy windmill.” Bazaar is now obsolescent, and Woolworth’s is often heard.
6 The King’s English, by Wayne Allen, Quartermaster Review (Washington), March-April, 1943, p. 57: “You are all familiar, I am sure, with the British expression torch as compared with the American flashlight.” I am indebted here to Dr. George W. Corner.
7 Advertisement in the London Sunday Times, March 8, 1936: “A distinguished Modern Office Building. Carpet-Area, 11,000 Square Feet.”
8 Floorwalker is now virtually extinct in America. He is either an aisle-manager or a section-manager. The DAE traces the term to 1876.
9 Wooden Houses, by N. Newnham Davis, London Times, July 1, 1935: “The chief disadvantage of wooden (called frame in U. S. A.) houses has always been the difficulty of maintaining an equable temperature.”
10 Or goods-van. The English also use goods-train for freight-train, goods-station for freight-station or -depot, and goods-yard for freight-yard, but of late they have shown some tendency to adopt freight. American Journey, by J. A. Russell, Scottish Educational Journal, Nov. 9, 1934: “We should be prepared for freight-car for goods-van.”
11 The DAE traces fruit-dealer to 1874.
12 The DAE traces fruit-store to 1872.
13 London Sunday Express, Nov. 13, 1938: “Alvis are working full out to supply the demand.”
1 See ash-can.
2 Where the Pavements Become Sidewalks, by Alex Faulkner, London Telegraph and Post, May 8, 1939: “The dustman (garbage man) going about his work with an opulent-looking five-cent cigar in his mouth, the milk-carts on rubber-tyred wheels, and the armoured-car guards standing outside the banks with drawn pistols all make their distinctive contribution to the New York scene.”
3 Or simply suspender. Garter, of course, is an old word in English, and the Knights of the Garter go back to April 23, 1349. The term was not used to indicate an article of men’s wear until the 1880s. Before that time American men held up their socks with strings attached to the lower ends of their long drawers. Short drawers were brought in by the bicycle craze. See suspenders.
4 American Journey, by J. A. Russell, Scottish Educational Journal, Nov. 9, 1934: “Gas for petrol we are — or should be—prepared for.”
5 This French phrase, meaning remaining at the postoffice, is traced by the NED, in English use, to 1768.
6 The English-Speaking Peoples, by Alistair Cooke, London Evening Standard, Dec. 1, 1936: “[The Americans] talk with the [English] mechanic about the generator, which he calls a dynamo, and admire the shape of the hood, which he knows only as a bonnet.”
7 Advertisement in the London Telegraph and Post, Feb. 22, 1938, with a picture of ginger-snaps: “Romary’s ginger-nuts just melt!” Ginger-snap is not unknown in England, but the NED’s first English example is dated 1868. The DAE traces it in American use to 1805.
8 As She Is Spoke in the United States, by J. H. M., Glasgow Evening Citizen, Aug. 29, 1936: “Even if he is a Christian he may not know that he has a Christian name; you ask him what his given-name is.”
9 New York Times Magazine, quoted in Writer’s Monthly, Oct., 1927, p. 335: “Mineral-waggons take the place of coal gondolas.”
10 The DAE traces grab-bag to 1855 and marks it an Americanism.
11 The DAE traces grade in this sense to 1808 and marks it an Americanism.
12 In American Speech, Oct., 1942, p. 208, Dwight L. Bolinger traces grade in this sense to 1835.
13 Level crossing has been in use in England since 1841. The DAE traces grade crossing to 1890, but it must be much older.
1 Sometimes alumnus is used. America Revisited, by Cyril Alington, London Sunday Times, Feb. 14, 1937: “They [Americans] have leisure to speak of alumni when we speak of boys.”
2 Grocery is traced by the DAE to 1791, and marked an Americanism.
3 I am indebted here to the late Sir E. Denison Ross. Hall, in England, ordinarily means a large apartment, e.g., music-hall or the hall of a castle. It is also used in special senses at the universities. Servants’ hall likewise shows a special British use. But hall-bedroom, hallroom, hall-boy and hallway are all Americanisms.
4 Learn English Before You Go, by Frank Loxley Griffin, Atlantic Monthly, J
une, 1932, p. 75: “In the ironmongery department one can purchase what Americans ignorantly call hardware.” Hardware is not an Americanism, but hardware-store is, and the DAE traces it to 1789.
5 The Spoken Word That May Occasionally Baffle, by Joyce M. Horner, Yorkshire Evening Post (Leeds) Sept. 1, 1933: “The [American] hash is near to being shepherd’s pie.” Hash is mentioned in Pepys’ Diary, Jan. 13, 1662/63, but it seems to be but little used in England. The DAE traces hash-house to 1875, hashery to 1872, hash-slinger to 1868, and to settle one’s hash to 1809; all are Americanisms.
6 Fell In Love With Prison, News of the World (London), June 7, 1936: “I have lorry-jumped my way from Manchester to London.” Partridge says that the British soldiers began to use lorry-hop in 1915.
7 Dos and Don’ts For Doughboys, by H. W. Seaman, Manchester Sunday Chronicle, March 22, 1942: “Hockey is here called ice-hockey. The game the British call hockey is played on the ground with a ball.”
8 Hog, says Horwill, “is rarely used in England nowadays except figuratively, e.g., road-hog.” Partridge says that road-hog is an Americanism, adopted by the English c. 1898.
9 The DAE traces hog-grower to 1869.
10 London Daily Sketch, July 14, 1938: “A woman shopkeeper at Knock-holt was threatened by two men, armed with what appeared to be a revolver, in her shop yesterday and robbed of about £5 in cash. The raiders also visited her cottage nearby and took about £2.”
1 See generator.
2 On May 14, 1936 the London Daily Telegraph printed a picture of a hook-and-ladder in action, captioned “A Fire-Escape Used by Painters.” The DAE traces hook-and-ladder company to 1821 and hook-and-ladder truck to 1882, and marks them both Americanisms.
3 A Bristol correspondent of an unidentified English newspaper, c. 1936: “English girls who have thoughts of getting married collect things to that end in what they call their bottom drawer. A Canadian girl who married my nephew always spoke of her hope chest.”