Page:The American Language.djvu/46

30 3. "Others, which have long been obsolete in England, are still retained in common use among us."

Bartlett, in the second edition of his dictionary, dated 1859, increased these classes to nine;

1. Archaisms, i. e., old English words, obsolete, or nearly so, in England, but retained in use in this country.

2. English words used in a different sense from what they are in England. These include many names of natural objects differently applied.

3. Words which have retained their original meaning in the United States, though not in England.

4. English provincialisms adopted into general use in America. 5. Newly coined words, which owe their origin to the productions or to the circumstances of the country.

6. Words borrowed from European languages, especially the French, Spanish, Dutch and German. 7. Indian words.

8. Negroisms.

9. Peculiarities of pronunciation.

Some time before this, but after the publication of Bartlett's first edition in 1848, William C. Fowler, professor of rhetoric at Amherst, devoted a brief chapter to "American Dialects" in his well–known work on English and in it one finds the following formidable classification of Americanisms:

1. Words borrowed from other languages.

a. Indian, as Kennebec, Ohio, Tombigbee; sagamore, quahaug, succotash.

b. Dutch, as boss, kruller, stoop.

c. German, as spuke (?), sauerkraut.

d. French, as bayou, cache, chute, crevasse, levee.

e. Spanish, as calaboose, chapparal, hacienda, rancho, ranchero.

f. Negro, as buckra.

2. Words "introduced from the necessity of our situation, in order to express new ideas."

a. Words "connected with and flowing from our political institutions," as selectman, presidential, congressional, caucus, mass–meeting, lynch–law, help (for servants').

b. Words "connected with our ecclesiastical institutions," as associational, consociational, to fellowship, to missicmate.