American Language Supplement 1

by H. L. Mencken

  4 London News-Chronicle, Oct. 31, 1936: “The Ministry of Transport has failed to convince the local authorities that … electric hooters should be silenced day and night.” Advertisement in the Cape Times (Cape Town), June 18, 1938: “Nash Sedans have Twin Hooters.”

  5 U. S. and British Staff Officers Overcome Language Difficulties, by Milton Bracker, New York Times, July 1, 1943. On July 5 the Times printed a letter from David Allan Ross of Budd Lake, N. J., saying “I have never heard a hot-water bottle or bag called anything but that in England. Stomach-warmer, at least in army circles, would be a euphemism for bellyband.” But Col. Wayne Allen, U.S.A., listed stomach-warmer as the English equivalent of hot-water bag in the Quartermaster Review (Washington), March-April, 1943, p. 58. So did the Stars and Stripes, June 15, 1943.

  6 London Daily Telegraph, Nov. 1, 1935: “Housebreaker’s Fate. After over 50 years as a house-demolisher Henry Elbury was killed yesterday.” London Times, April 5, 1936: “The School of Oriental Studies, in Finsbury Circus, is now in the hands of the housebreakers.” In the United States a housebreaker is a burglar.

  7 Huckster is not an Americanism, but it is used much oftener in the United States than in England.

  8 “An Englishman,” says Horwill, “hunts foxes, stags, otter(s) and even hares. When he pursues grouse or partridge he does not go hunting but shooting.” In the United States gunning is often used. See Notes on “The American Language,” by Stuart Robertson, American Speech, Oct., 1937, p. 187.

  9 Please Speak English, by Dale Warren, Seven Seas, Spring, 1939, p. 26: “[In England] ice-cream is always an ice.”

  10 The King’s English, by Wayne Allen, Quartermaster Review (Washington), March-April, 1943, p. 58: “A tag, identification, is an identity disk.”

  11 i.e., limited, from limited liability company. See corporation.

  1 Aids to the Talkies, by D. W. B(rogan), Oxford Magazine, Oct. 17, 1935: “The difference in attitude involved in the American for inquiry-office being bureau of information is left to the reader to appraise.”

  2 The plural is used in the United States when more than one inning is spoken of.

  3 News of the World (London), July 31, 1938: “Hire-purchase agreement means an agreement under which the goods become the property of the hirer upon the payment of all the agreed instalments. Credit-sale agreement means an agreement for the sale of goods under which the purchase-price is payable by five or more instalments.” Mr. P. E. Cleator tells me that instalment plan is now often used in England.

  4 D. Cameron-Forrester, author of A Dictionary of Life Assurance, explained in John o’ London’s Weekly, Sept. 3, 1937, that assurance is used because the insured, if he keeps up his payments, is assured of benefits soon or late, whereas the holder of, say, a fire insurance policy may pay for years and never have a fire.

  5 See domestic mails. The DAE traces internal revenue to 1796.

  6 Sometimes doorkeeper. The Trial of Professor John White Webster, by George Dilnot; London, 1928, p. 5: “This was the college caretaker, or, in American terminology, the janitor.”

  7 The DAE traces jimmy to 1854. It does not list to jimmy.

  8 See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed.: New York, 1929, Vol. XIII, p. 659.

  9 The DAE traces landslide to 1838 and marks it an Americanism.

  10 London Daily Telegraph, Feb. 1, 1936: “Major Courtauld claims damages for alleged breach of agreement relating to a let to him for five years.” Lease, of course, is used in England, and the NED traces it to 1292, but let seems to be common in advertisements and law reports.

  11 London Leader, March 27, 1943: “Other Yankee words that come to mind are legal holiday for bank holiday, and union suits for combinations.”

  12 A Guide to British Educational Terms, by Herbert B. Grimsditch, Wilson Bulletin (New York), May, 1936, p. 578: “Men of both the ancient universities wear blue shirts for athletics, Oxford dark and Cambridge light. To be a blue is to be chosen to represent one’s university in a team. Football, cricket, rowing and other consecrated sports carry full blues; while less popular games, like hockey and lacrosse, give only half-blues.”

  13 In England a life-guard is a member of the Household Cavalry. In the United States, a life-saver is a member of the former Life-saving Service of the Coast Guard, now the Beach Patrol Division. Life-guard in the American sense is traced by the DAE to 1896, life-saver to 1887, and life-saving station to 1858.

  1 London Times Literary Supplement, Nov. 16, 1935: “By life-preservers are clearly meant what we call life-belts.” See blackjack.

  2 Limited is traced by the DAE, in American use, to 1879. The first English example is dated 1883. See express.

  3 “A row of persons waiting their turn,” says Horwill, “is in England a queue. In America it is a line.” Queue seems to have been introduced by Carlyle in his French Revolution, 1837. To queue up is traced by the NED Supplement to 1927.

  4 Living-room is not exclusively American and sitting-room is certainly not exclusively English.

  5 The first recorded English example of long-distance is from American usage.

  6 In England lumber usually means discarded objects, as in lumber-room.

  7 Horwill says that lunch, in England, always means a midday meal; in America it may designate a light repast at any time. A lunch-counter is a snack-bar to the English.

  8 The English call a sewing-machine operator a machinist. Want-ad in London News-Chronicle May 4, 1936: “Machinists required for ladies’ gowns.”

  9 Americans Bound Coronationwards Should Read This Alphabet, London Daily Express, April 28, 1937: “Ask at your hotel for your post or your letters, and you’ll get your mail safely.” A Truck By Any Other Name, by Robert Lynd, London News-Chronicle, May 22, 1943: “The English traveler in America gets all the happier sensation of being a traveller when in a hotel he has to ask for his mail instead of his letters.” Horwill says that the English use mail very little, though mail-train, mail-bag and mail-van occur.

  10 Learn English Before You Go, by Frank Loxley Griffin, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1932, p. 775: “There are no mail-boxes from which mail is collected. The lack of them is not a serious inconvenience since there are a number of letter-boxes, which are cleared frequently.” A letter-box is attached to a wall; a pillar-box is on a stand. The NED traces pillar-box to 1858 and letter-box to 1849. Mail-box is not an Americanism, but to mail, mailability, mailable, mail-carrier, mail-day, mail-matter, mail-order, mail-pouch, mail-

  1 The DAE traces railway-postoffice to 1874, and mail-car to 1855.

  2 Marriage lines is confined to the vulgar. On higher levels marriage certificate is used.

  3 Heard and Overheard, P.M. (New York), Nov. 24, 1943: “[In England] an emcee is a compère.” New York Studies, London Daily Telegraph, May 12, 1936: “Naunton Wayne is the witty compère this week, and he has some clever acts to introduce.”

  4 Horwill says that maybe has “almost become an archaism and a dialect word” in England.

  5 “In the United States,” says the DAE, “molasses has entirely supplanted treacle.” Molasses is not an Americanism: the NED traces it in English use to 1582. But it is now supplanted by treacle, first recorded in 1694. The DAE traces molasses in American use to 1666, molasses-candy to 1809, molasses-cake to 1836, molasses-jug to 1839, and molasses-barrel to 1846. All the latter are Americanisms. Molasses is still used in England to designate a heavy, crude syrup, mainly used in cattle feeds.

  6 London Daily Mail, June 17, 1936: “Life is complicated enough without any help from outside in the way of throwing spanners into the works.

  7 As She Is Spoke in the United States, by J. H. M., Glasgow Evening Citizen, Aug. 29, 1936: “You may take the trolley, also called the street-car or surface-car, but never the tram. In any case the driver is the motorma.”

  8 These terms, of course, are for the house, not the film. The film, in both countries, is the pictures; in the United States it may also be the movies or film (or fillum), and in Eng
land the flicker or flick. All the terms for pictures are usually heard in the plural. In 1927 the London Mercury dropped the Cinema title on its film article and substituted Movies, and since then various other English publications have followed suit.

  9 London Morning Post, Aug. 25, 1936: “Take, for instance, the question of moving house. Every woman in her heart rejoices in the event, as in a festival. It stirs her to the depths of her being, as if it were a translation to another and a better world.”

  10 The DAE traces mucilage in this sense to 1859 and makes it an Americanism.

  11 Please Speak English, by Dale Warren, Seven Seas, Spring, 1939, p. 26: “I presume that in some of the smarter places they know what a napkin is, but many’s the apple-cheeked lass who responds more readily if you let it be known that a serviette is what you desire.” The NED defines napkin as “a square piece of linen, used at meals to wipe the fingers and lips,… a serviette,” and traces it in English use to c. 1489. It traces serviette to 1420. There are Englishmen who deny indignantly that serviette is ever used by respectable people in their country. Vandalism?, John a’ London’s Weekly, March 18, 1938: “To plant palm trees and pampas grass on the Devon hills is like calling a table napkin in an Englishman’s dining-room a serviette.”

  1 Tie, in fact, is in common use in America. Black tie, on an invitation, means that dinner-coats (or tuxedos) are to be worn.

  2 A railway-station newsstand, in England, is a bookstall. The DAE traces newsstand to 1871 and marks it an Americanism.

  3 The DAE traces notions to 1796 and marks it an Americanism. At the start it included anything sold by a peddler, e.g., clocks and wooden ware, but it began to be restricted to its present meaning after the Civil War. The English-Speaking Peoples, by Alistair Cooke, London Evening Standard, Dec. 1, 1936: “He asks for the notion counter and a bright girl assistant, who has heard that it is the American name for haberdashery, directs him there.”

  4 Horwill says that oarlock is “seldom heard” in England.

  5 The DAE does not list breakfast-food, but it traces cereal to 1900.

  6 Learn English Before You Go, by Frank Loxley Griffin, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1932, p. 775: “A tenant is not the occupant, but the occupier of the building, and he does not rent his quarters — he hires them, or they are let to him.”

  7 London Daily Telegraph, July 11, 1936: “Mr. G. W. Simpson, a dentist, was attacked in his surgery in the Broadway, Southall, last night.” The Mr. before the name and the the before Broadway will be noted.

  8 T. L. Nichols: Forty Years of American Life; London, 1864, Vol. I, p. 344: “In the office, as the American lawyer’s chambers are called.” I take this from the DAE.

  9 Please Speak English, by Dale Warren, Seven Seas, Spring, 1939, p. 26: “In England you invariably … live in a street.” A Guide to British Educational Terms, by Herbert B. Grimsditch, Wilson Bulletin (New York), May, 1936, p. 576: “On the street pulls the Englishman up a little queerly, for he thinks of a street (not a road) as a canyon, and says in, only using on the street for daughters of joy.”

  10 The authority here is Horwill.

  11 The DAE traces orchestra, in this sense, to 1856 and marks it an Americanism.

  1 In the United States by-law designates only the rules and regulations of private associations.

  2 British Names Headache to Supply Men, Stars and Stripes, June 15, 1943: “The British list … an overcoat as a greatcoat.” But overcoat is also used in England.

  3 Package is by no means exclusively American, and parcel is often used in the United States, as in parcels-post.

  4 New York Speaking, by T. Kerr Ritchie, Northern Daily Telegraph (Blackburn) May 20, 1939: “[In America] the larder is a pantry.” Pantry is not an Americanism.

  5 Letter from a Canadian in the Manchester Guardian, reprinted in the Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 5, 1937: “What those quaint folk in Britain call paraffin the United States Americans call kerosene and we Canadians call coal-oil. What we call paraffin you poetically acclaim as white wax.” See coal-oil.

  6 An unidentified London paper: “Many of the large houses were pulled down and the sites converted into car-parks.”

  7 Both terms are now obsolescent: Pullman is already in wide use in England, and chair-car in the United States. The DAE traces parlor-car to 1868 and marks it an Americanism. Chair-car, also so marked, is traced to 1895. Pullman-car goes back to 1870. In the United States Pullman usually signifies a sleeper. The NED traces saloon-carriage to 1855.

  8 Horwill says that in England parole “is used in relation to prisoners of war only.”

  9 Officially, police constable, usually abbreviated by the English newspapers to P.C. The DAE marks patrolman an Americanism. Patrol-wagon is another.

  10 But see the Seaman list at the end of the last chapter. Peanut is traced by the DAE to 1807. It was preceded by ground-nut, 1622, and ground-pea, 1769. Goober apparently did not come in until the 40s of the last century. The NED traces monkey-nut to 1880 in England; apparently the English were not familiar with Arachis hypogaea before that time. The DAE traces peanut-politics to 1887, but peanut was used as an adjective of disparagement so early as 1836. Peanut-candy is traced to 1856, peanut-stand to 1866, peanut-gallery to 1897, and peanut-brittle and -butter to 1903.

  11 I have never heard pebbly beach.

  12 Penitentiary is used in England to designate a reformatory. It began to be used for a prison in the United States early in the Nineteenth Century. The DAE traces penitentiary-offense to 1855.

  13 New York Speaking, by T. Kerr Ritchie, Northern Daily Telegraph (Blackburn), May 20, 1939: “[In America] nibs are pen points.”

  1 Do You Speak American?, by John Blunt, London Daily Mail, Aug. 17, 1932: “A full stop is a period.”

  2 In 1935, when Rudyard Kipling’s The Light That Failed was being done as a movie in Hollywood, the author made a number of changes in the script, seeking to substitute English locutions for Americanisms. Associated Press dispatch from Hollywood, July 31: “Where Torpenhow says: ‘He had some very important personal business,’ Kipling’s question is, ‘What does this word personal mean?’ He substitutes private.” So, in English usage, before letter, etc.

  3 As She Is Spoke in the United States, by J. H. M., Glasgow Evening Citizen, Aug. 29, 1936: “What’s that in that window? Gramophones? No, phonographs, or victrolas.

  4 Dos and Don’ts for Doughboys, by H. W. Seaman, Manchester Sunday Chronicle, March 22, 1942: “What you call an apple pie we should have to call an apple tart with a lid on it.”

  5 Hong Kong Sunday Herald, Aug. 7, 1938: “Just as the ball crashed past the pins for a broken leg [the thrower-up] side-stepped with the easy grace of a matador.” The DAE does not list pin-boy.

  6 Horwill says that pitcher is “nowadays an archaic or poetical word in England.”

  7 See sirloin.

  8 Postpaid is not an Americanism, but it is used much oftener in the United States than in England.

  9 Poolroom, in the United States, also means a room in which bets on horse-races, etc., are taken.

  10 Dos and Don’ts For Doughboys, by H. W. Seaman, Manchester Sunday Chronicle, March 22, 1942: “If you want French-fried [potatoes] you must ask for chips. If you want chips you must ask for crisps.”

  11 The DAE traces pot-pie in American use to 1824. Mr. James E. Walker, before cited, tells me that it is in use in the North of England.

  12 The DAE traces preferred stock to 1850 and marks it an Americanism.

  13 Do You Speak American?, by John Blunt, London Daily Mail, Aug. 17, 1932: “The chairman of a company is its president.” The American chairman of the board is a different functionary. The DAE traces president, in this sense, to 1781, and marks it an Americanism.

  14 H. W. Horwill in the London Times Literary Supplement, April 16, 1938, p. 264: “Your … reviewer of an American work on landslides notes, among errors that demand correction in a future edition, the author’s use of prying in the sense of prising. I am
afraid it is unlikely that this correction will ever be made, for this use of the word was not due to a slip of the pen but was intentional. It is an Americanism. One of the definitions of pry given in the New Webster is ‘to raise or move, or pull (apart) or attempt to do so, with a pry or lever; to prize’ … In his ‘Three Centuries of Harvard,’ Professor S. E. Morison writes: ‘Two years later he was found to be lodging with various undergraduates, and was only pried loose from the college by the faculty’s forbidding the students to feed or lodge him.’ ”

  1 Formerly board-school. A public-school, in England, is an establishment for the sons of the rich, usually endowed. It corresponds to the more fashionable sort of American prep-school. The DAE traces prep-school to 1895. Public-school, in the American sense, is traced to c. 1669.

  2 In England publisher means a book-publisher.… An English newspaper may have a publisher; he is not, however, the owner, but corresponds roughly to what Americans call a business manager.

  3 Pumps is old in English, traced by the NED to 1555, but it seems to have gone out in the 80s. The DAE’s first American example is dated 1726. The Spoken Word That May Occasionally Baffle, by Joyce M. Horner, Yorkshire Evening Post (Leeds), Sept. 1, 1933: “In the [American] shoe department confusion can arise if one asks for court-shoes, for which the American is pumps.”

  4 The English-Speaking Peoples, by Alistair Cooke, London Evening Standard, Dec. 1, 1936: “The race-course they call race-track.”

  5 King Edward VIII used radio in a speech soon after his accession, and was denounced for the Americanism, but the official organ of the B.B.C. is the Radio Times (Robert Lynd, London News-Chronicle, May 22, 1943).

  6 Learn English Before You Go, by Frank Loxley Griffin, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1932, p. 775: “There are no railroads in England, and the railway trains do not have engineers.” But see engineer. Railway is by no means unknown in the United States. On Oct. 4, 1940, p. 14, the Chicago Tribune printed an article showing that of the 137 Class I railroads of the country, 69 use railroad in their names, 65 use railway, and three use neither. But an American always speaks of the railroads, not the railways. Street-railways are always so called in the United States.