The American Language

The American Language: An inquiry into the development of English in the United States  (1919)  by H. L. Mencken

Preface to the First Edition→

information about this edition.  2nd ed., rev. and enl. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1921. 1-58734-087-9 The American Language is H. L. Mencken's 1919 book about changes Americans had made to the English Language. The book discusses the beginnings of American variations from English, the spread of these variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colourful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart. — Excerpted from The American Language on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Title page of this edition

Contents

• Preface to the First Edition
• Preface to the Second Edition

• Introductory
  • The Diverging Streams of English
  • The Academic Attitude
  • The View of Writing Men
  • Foreign Observers
  • The General Character of American English
  • The Materials of the Inquiry
• The Beginnings of American
  • The First Differentiation
  • Sources of Early Americanisms
  • New Words of English Material
  • Changed Meaning
  • Archaic English Words
  • Colonial Pronunciation
• The Period of Growth
  • Character of the New Nation
  • The Language in the Making
  • The Expanding Vocabulary
  • Loan-Words and Non-English Influences
  • Pronunciation Before the Civil War
• American and English Today
  • The Two Vocabularies
  • Differences in Usage
  • Honorifics
  • Euphemisms
  • Expletives and Forbidden Words
• International Exchanges
  • Americanisms in England
  • Briticisms in the United States
• Tendencies in American
  • General Characters
  • Lost Distinctions
  • Processes of Word-Formation
  • Foreign Influences Today
• The Standard American Pronunciation
  • General Characters
  • The Vowels
• American Spelling
  • The Two Orthographies
  • The Influence of Webster
  • The Advance of American Spelling
  • British Spelling in the United States
  • Simplified Spelling
  • The Treatment of Loan-Words
  • Minor Differences
• The Common Speech
  • Grammarians and Their Ways
  • Spoken American As It Is
  • The Verb
  • The Pronoun
  • The Adverb
  • The Noun
  • The Adjective
  • The Double Negative
  • Other Syntactical Peculiarities
  • Vulgar Pronunciation
• Proper Names in America
  • Surnames
  • Given Names
  • Geographical Names
  • Street Names
• American Slang
  • Its Origin and Nature
  • War Slang
• The Future of the Language
  • English as a world language
  • English or American?

Appendices:

• Specimens of the American Vulgate
  • The Declaration of Independence in American
  • Baseball-American
  • Ham-American
  • Vers Américain
• Non-English Dialects in America
  • German
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Yiddish
  • Italian
  • Dano-Norwegian
  • Swedish
  • Dutch
  • Icelandic
  • Greek
  • The Slavic Languages
• Proverb and Platitude

Bibliography:

• General
• Dictionaries of Americanism
• The Process of Language Growth
• Loan-Words
• Pronunciation
• Regional Variations
  • General Discussions
  • New England
  • The Middle States
  • The South
  • The Middle West
  • The Far West
  • The Colonies
  • Negro-English
• Spelling
• Geographical Names
• Surnames and Given Names
• Non-English Languages in America
  • German
  • French
  • Dano-Norwegian
  • Dutch
  • Swedish
  • Spanish
  • Icelandic
  • Italian
  • Yiddish
  • Portuguese
  • General
• Other Colonial Dialects of English
  • Australian
  • Beach-la-Mar
  • South African
  • Canadian
  • East Indian
  • Pidgin-English
• Slang
• Euphemisms, Nicknames, and Forbidden Words
• Rudimentary Speech
• The Future of the Language
• Bibliographies of American English

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1923. The author died in 1956, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 50 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.