American Language Read Online Free Page A

now and then the general protest against them rises to a roar. As for American literature, it is still regarded in England as somewhat barbaric and below the salt, and the famous sneer of Sydney Smith, though time has made it absurd in all other respects, is yet echoed complacently in many an English review of American books. 21
    There is an amusing compilation of some of the earlier diatribesin William B. Cairns’s “British Criticisms of American Writings, 1783–1815.” 22 Cairns is not so much concerned with linguistic matters as with literary criticism, but he reprints a number of extracts from the pioneer denunciations of Americanisms, and they surely show a sufficient indignation. The attack began in 1787, when the
European Magazine and London Review
fell upon the English of Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia,” and especially upon his use of
to belittle
, which, according to Thornton, was his own coinage. “
Belittle!
” it roared. “What an expression! It may be an elegant one in Virginia, and even perfectly intelligible; but for our part, all we can do is to
guess
at its meaning. For shame, Mr. Jefferson! Why, after trampling upon the honour of our country, and representing it as little better than a land of barbarism — why, we say, perpetually trample also upon the very grammar of our language, and make that appear as Gothic as, from your description, our manners are rude? — Freely, good sir, will we forgive all your attacks, impotent as they are illiberal, upon our
national character
; but for the future spare — O spare, we beseech you, our mother-tongue!” The
Gentleman’s Magazine
joined the charge in May, 1798, with sneers for the “uncouth … localities” [
sic
] in the “Yankey dialect” of Noah Webster’s “Sentimental and Humorous Essays,” and the
Edinburgh
followed in October, 1804, with a patronizing article upon John Quincy Adams’s “Letters on Silesia.” “The style of Mr. Adams,” it said, “is in general very tolerable English; which, for an American composition, is no moderate praise.” The usual American book of the time, it went on, was full of “affectations and corruptions of phrase,” and they were even to be found in “the enlightened state papers of the two great Presidents.” The
Edinburgh
predicted that a “spurious dialect” would prevail, “even at the Court and in the Senate of the United States,” and that the Americans would thus “lose the only badge that is still worn of our consanguinity.” The appearance of the five volumes of Chief Justice Marshall’s “Life of George Washington,” from 1804 to 1807, brought forth corrective articles from the
British Critic
, the
Critical Review
, the
Annual
, the
Monthly
, and the
Eclectic
. The
Edinburgh
, in 1808, declared that the Americans made “ita point of conscience to have no aristocratical distinctions — even in their vocabulary.” They thought, it went on, “one word as good as another, provided its meaning be as clear.” The
Monthly Mirror
, in March of the same year, denounced “the corruptions and barbarities which are hourly obtaining in the speech of our transatlantic colonies [
sic
],” and reprinted with approbation a parody by some anonymous Englishman of the American style of the day. Here is an extract from it, with the words that the author regarded as Americanisms in italics:
    In America authors are to be found who make use of new or obsolete words which no good writer in this country would employ; and were it not for my
destitution
of leisure, which obliges me to hasten the
occlusion
of these pages, as I
progress
I should
bottom
my assertation on instances from authors of the first
grade
; but were I to render my sketch
lengthy
I should
illy
answer the purpose which I have in view.
    The
British Critic
, in April, 1808, admitted somewhat despairingly that the damage was already done — that “the common speech of the United States has departed very