Page:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf/11



This edition, like the second, has been extensively revised. I have added new material to nearly every chapter, and all of them have been diligently scrutinized for errors. In detecting those errors I have been greatly aided by the fact that the second edition was published in both the United States and England. One of the consequences thereof was that it was reviewed at length in the English press, and that my necessarily imperfect acquaintance with current English usages was improved by the observations of men on the spot. The result is visible in the chapter on "American and English Today," which, I hope, is measurably sounder than it was in the second edition. But even here there are still regions in which doubt prevails. So many Americanisms have gone over into standard English of late that Englishmen tend to lose the sense of their foreignness. For example, consider the word homely, in its American sense of unbeautiful. The latest English guide-book for visiting Americans (Muirhead's "London and Its Environs," 1922, p. 10) gives specific warning that homely means "domestic, unpretending, home-like" in England, and that it is "seldom if ever" used as a synonym for plain-looking. Moreover, Dean W. R. Inge, in an article in the London Evening Standard (November 24, 1921), has cited it as one of five important words whose meanings differ in the two countries. Nevertheless, a number of English reviewers objected to my attempt to distinguish between the American homely and the English homely, and insisted that the former was in universal use in England. In the face of such conflicts of evidence it is difficult to get at the truth. In many cases I have evaded the matter by omitting the word in dispute. But in other cases, despite indications of its transplantation to England, I have continued to regard it as an Americanism, though always noting that transplantation.