ISBN: 0394400755 | 1984 | EPUB/MOBI | 816 pages | 3 MB/2 MB
The American Language, first published in 1919, is H. L.
Mencken’s book about the English language as spoken in the United
States.
Mencken was inspired by “the argot of the colored waiters” in
Washington, as well as one of his favorite authors, Mark Twain, and his
experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken remarked on
the “queer words which go into the making of ‘United States.’” The book
was preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually
asked “Why doesn’t some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the
American language… English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of
the plain people of this fair land?” It would appear that he answered
his own question.
In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American
dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend “Americanisms” against a steady
stream of English critics, who usually isolated Americanisms as
borderline barbarous perversions of the mother tongue. Mencken assaulted
the prescriptive grammar of these critics and American “schoolmarms”,
arguing, like Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary, that
language evolves independently of textbooks.
The book discusses the beginnings of “American” variations from
“English”, the spread of these variations, American names and slang over
the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was
more colorful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart.
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