Page:America Today, Observations and Reflections.djvu/218

 "He married money" an American will say "He married rich"; but this, I take it, is a vulgarism—as, indeed, is the English expression. I find that in the modern American novel, setting forth the sayings and doings of more or less educated people, there are apt to be, on an average, about half a dozen words and phrases at which the English reader stumbles for a moment. Mr. Howells, a master of English, may be taken as a faithful reporter of the colloquial speech of Boston and New York. In one of his comediettas, he makes Willis Campbell say, "Let me turn out my sister's cup" (pour her a cup of tea). Mrs. Roberts, in another of these delightful little pieces, says, "I'll smash off a note," where an English Mrs. Roberts would say "dash off"; and where an English Mrs. Roberts would ring the bell, her American namesake "touches the annunciator." It is commonly believed in England that there is no such thing as a "servant" in America, but only "hired girls" and "helps." This is certainly not so in New York. I once "rang up" a friend's house by telephone, and, on asking who was speaking to me, received the answer, in a feminine voice, "I'm one of Mr. So-and-so's servants."

The heroine of The Story of a Play says to her husband, "Are you still thinking of our scrap of this morning?" "Scrap," in the sense of "quarrel," is one of the few exceedingly common American expressions which have as yet taken little hold in