American English. 



337 



taiu community of expression as well as of thought, that is not only 

 practically prohibitive of the formation of new dialects, but also rap- 

 idly effaces the prominent lineaments of such variations as have at 

 different times been imported from the old world. If then, in this 

 particular respect, we are depraving our mother tongue, the only logi- 

 cal inference that can be drawn is, that a language reaches its best es- 

 tate in proportion as it is diversified by local peculiarities. 



It ought to be remembered also, in this immediate connection, that 

 the ordinary speech of the United States presents not greatly more of 

 what may be called caste variations than of those that are attributable 

 to differences of locality. A discriminating English traveler, tbe 

 Rev. F. Barham Zincke, Vicar of Wherstead and Chaplain-in-Ordinary 

 to the Queen, has mentioned as **a remarkable fact that the English 

 spoken in America is not only very pure, but also is spoken with 

 equal purity by all classes. * * The language in every man's 

 mouth," he adds, "is that of literature and society. * * It is even 

 the language of tlie negroes of the towns."* In other words, the 

 speech of the lower orders of our people, even down to the very sub- 

 strata, whether examined in regard to its vocabulary, its construction 

 or its pronunciation, differs from what all admit to be standard correct- 

 ness in a much smaller degree than we have every reason to believe to 

 bo the case in England, our enemies themselves being judges. A 

 careful comparison of slang dictionaries, I think, will reveal a far 

 longer list of unauthorized words as current among British thieves 

 and cadgers" than among their congeners in the United States. 

 Grammatical rules are violated badly enough by the ignorant of our own 

 cities everyday, no doubt; but how often, after all, will you hear from 

 intelligent and respectable working people of American descent quite 

 such a solecism as the " I were " and "he were " that are so frequently 

 noticed in the mouths of lower-middle-class Britons, accustomed all 

 their lives to conversation with speakers of the purest English ? And 

 as for pronunciation, we have our faults, of course, in abundance, the 

 best of us as well as the most careless, and should amend them with 

 all diligence ; but where, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, will you 

 discover any such utter disability of hearing or discernment as can per- 

 mit men to drop or multiply their li^s or transpose their w's and v^s^ 



II. 



Speaking of pronunciation, and with regard to the sound of the 

 language as used by the educated people of the two countries (a point 



*"Last Winter in the United States John Murray, London, 1863. 



43 



