Index:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf

Title	The American Language; an Inquiry Into the Development of English in the United States
Author	Henry Louis Mencken
Year	1923
Publisher	A. A. Knopf
Location	New York
Source	pdf
Progress	To be proofread
Transclusion	Index not transcluded or unreviewed
OCLC	1155957511

Pages (key to Page Status)

Cover – – – Title ii ToC ToC ToC ToC vii viii ix x 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 – – – – – – Cover

Contents

	Preface to Third Edition			vii–ix
I.	Introductory			1
	1.	The Diverging Streams of English		1
	2.	The Academic Attitude		5
	3.	The View of Writing Men		13
	4.	Foreign Observers		26
	5.	The General Character of American English		29
	6.	The Materials of the Inquiry		40
II.	The Beginnings of American			47
	1.	The First Differentiation		47
	2.	Sources of Early Americanisms		53
	3.	New Words of English Material		57
	4.	Changed Meanings		64
	5.	Archaic English Words		67
	6.	Colonial Pronunciation		72
III.	The Period of Growth			77
	1.	Character of the New Nation		77
	2.	The Language in the Making		89
	3.	The Expanding Vocabulary		94
	4.	Loan Words and Non-English Influences		103
	5.	Pronunciation before the Civil War		113
IV.	American and English Today			116
	1.	The Two Vocabularies		116
	2.	Differences in Usage		120
	3.	Honorifics		138
	4.	Euphemisms		145
	5.	Expletives and Forbidden Words		150
V.	International Exchanges			159
	1.	Americanisms in England		159
	2.	Briticisms in the United States		170
VI.	Tendencies in American			179
	1.	General Characters		179
	2.	Lost Distinctions		184
	3.	Processes of Word-Formation		180
	4.	Foreign Influences Today		204
VII.	The Standard American Pronunciation			213
	1.	General Characters		213
	2.	The Vowels		231
VI.	American Spelling			228
	1.	The Two Orthographies		228
	2.	The Influence of Webster		235
	3.	The Advance of American Spelling		243
	4.	British Spelling in the United States		246
	5.	Simplified Spelling		250
	6.	The Treatment of Loan-Words		255
	7.	Minor Differences		260
IX.	The Common Speech			262
	1.	Grammarians and Their Ways		262
	2.	Spoken American as It Is		269
	3.	The Verb		278
	4.	The Pronoun		298
	5.	The Adverb		312
	6.	The Noun		315
	7.	The Adjective		316
	8.	The Double Negative		318
	9.	Other Syntactical Peculiarities		320
	10.	Vulgar Pronunciation		321
X.	Proper Names in America			329
	1.	Surnames		329
	2.	Given Names		347
	3.	Geographical Names		352
	4.	Street Names		366
XI.	American Slang			369
	1.	Its Origin and Nature		369
	2.	War Slang		378
XII.	The Future of the Language			382
	1.	English as a World Language		382
	2.	English or American?		392
Appendices
I.	Specimens of the American Vulgate			398
	1.	The Declaration of Independence in American		398
	2.	Lincoln's Gettysburg Address		402
	3.	Baseball-American		404
	4.	Vers Américain		405
II.	Non-English Dialects in America			407
	1.	German		407
	2.	French		410
	3.	Spanish		413
	4.	Yiddish		416
	5.	Italian		419
	6.	Dano-Norwegian		422
	7.	Swedish		424
	8.	Dutch		426
	9.	Icelandic		430
	10.	Greek		431
	11.	The Slavic Languages		432
III.	Proverb and Platitude			433
Bibliography
	1.	General		436
	2.	Dictionaries of Americanisms		441
	3.	The Process of Language Growth		442
	4.	Loan-Words		444
	5.	Pronunciation		445
	6.	Regional Variation		447
		a.	General Discussions	447
		b.	New England	447
		c.	The Middle States	448
		d.	The South	449
		e.	The Middle West	450
		f.	The Far West	451
		g.	The Colonies	451
		h.	Negro-English	451
	7.	Spelling		451
	8.	Geographical Names		453
	9.	Surnames and Given Names		456
	10.	Non-English Languages in America		457
		a.	German	457
		b.	French	458
		c.	Dano-Norwegian	460
		d.	Dutch	460
		e.	Swedish	460
		f.	Spanish	460
		g.	Icelandic	461
		h.	Italian	461
		i.	Yiddish	462
		j.	Portuguese	462
		k.	General	462
	11.	Other Colonial Dialects of English		462
		a.	Australian	462
		b.	Beach-la-Mar	462
		c.	South African	463
		d.	Canadian	463
		e.	East Indian	463
		f.	Pidgin-English	463
	12.	Slang		463
	13.	Euphemisms, Nicknames, and Forbidden Words		465
	14.	Rudimentary Speech		466
	15.	The Future of the Language		466
	16.	Bibliographies of American English		467
List of Words and Phrases				469
General Index				485