Book digitized by Google from the library of the University of Michigan and uploaded to the Internet Archive by user tpb.

xi, 769 pages, xxix, [1] pages ; 25 cm

The classic work on the evolution of American English from British English, American Pronunciation, spelling, proper names, and slang

Includes bibliographical references throughout

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

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