Page:The American language; an inquiry into the development of English in the United States (IA americanlanguage00menc 0).pdf/41

Rh Tokyo. The last edition of the present work brought me into pleasant contact with the two last-named, and I have received valuable suggestions from both. Says Dr. Ichikawa:

Apparently, the same difficulty has appeared in France. In 1921 the University of Paris sought to meet it by appointing two new lecturers—M. de Selencourt as lecteur d'anglais and M. Roy P. Bowey as lecteur d'americain.

That, even to the lay Continental, American and English now differ considerably, is demonstrated by the fact that many of the popular German Sprachführer appear in separate editions, Amerikanisch and Englisch. This is true, for example, of the "Metoula-Sprachführer" and of the "Polyglott Kuntze" books. The American edition of the latter starts off with the doctrine that "Jeder, der nach Nord-Amerika oder Australien will, muss Englisch können," but a great many of the words and phrases that appear in its examples would be unintelligible to most Englishmen—e. g., free-lunch, real-estate agent, buckwheat, corn (for maize), conductor and popcorn—and a number of others would suggest false meanings or otherwise puzzle—e. g., saloon, wash-stand, water-pitcher and apple-pie. In the "Neokosmos Sprachführer durch England-Amerika" there are many notes calling attention to differences between American and English usage, e. g., baggage-luggage, car-carriage, conduc-