Page:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf/39

 ordinary vocabulary and with unconsciousness of any differences between their own and American usages."

Other Americans remain less resolute, for example, Vincent O'Sullivan, whose English schooling may account for his sensitiveness. In America, he says in the London New Witness, "the English literary tradition is dying fast, and the spoken, and to a considerable extent, the written language is drawing farther and farther away from English as it is used in England." He continues:

So much for the literati. The plain people of the two countries, whenever they come into contact, find it very difficult to exchange ideas. This was made distressingly apparent when American troops began to pour into France in 1917. Fraternizing with the British was impeded, not so much because of old animosities as because of the wide divergence in vocabulary and pronunciation between the doughboy and Tommy Atkins—a divergence interpreted by each as a sign of uncouthness in the other. The Y. M. C. A. made a characteristic effort to turn the resultant feeling of strangeness and homesickness among the Americans to account. In the Chicago Tribune's Paris edition of July 7, 1917, I find a large advertisement inviting