338 



American English. 



which most writers on Americauisms pass over with the hriefest notice, 

 though one of the ablest of them all, Prof. George P. Marsh, has 

 devoted to it his chief attention), it must be admitted, I think, that 

 if the typical Euglish intonation is better than ours, it is because the 

 office of lauguage is what Talleyrand said it was — to conceal one's 

 thought. That is to say, the average American college graduate, for 

 instance, will speak more intelligibly and more agreeably wherever 

 there is any difficulty in speaking, as before a large assembly or in the 

 open air, than will the English university man. The Yankee may 

 talk through his nose, to bo sure; may unduly emphasize minor 

 words, cut off terminal letters rather abruptly, or select too high a 

 key; but he will not gulp or sputter ; he will seldom insert superfluous 

 ato^s or ugh^Sy and the reporter who may have to follow his utterance 

 will be far less liable to lose parts of a sentence, or to mistake one 

 phrase for another, than in discharging the same duty on the other 

 side. 



And when it comes to orthoepy proper, the deliberate sounding of 

 single words, it will be found that in almost every case the difference 

 is due to the American's following more closely than does the Briton 

 the spelling of the word — a practice which can hardly result in de- 

 praving the language, but seems rather to suggest that the American 

 is the greater reader of the two, and therefore likely to be the safer 

 guide in questions of verbal correctness. Thus the now thoroughly 

 anglicized French word trait, in which none of us ever thinks of 

 dropping the final ^, is still commonly called tray in England, and 

 that pronunciation is given the place of honor in the best British 

 authority, Stormonth'iS excellent dictionary. Sliver, which very many 

 Americans call sliver, following the obvious analogy of the more 

 common word liver, and following, too, the example of the poet Chau- 

 cer, is silver and sliver only, at present in Great Britain. Schedule, 

 which we invariably pronounce skedule, constitutes in England 

 almost the only exception to the rule that ch is hard after initial s, 

 being there called shedule. 



And in respect to geographical name?, the closer .adherence of our 

 countrymen to the guidance of the orthography is, of course, notorious 

 and manifest. Except the dropping, in imitation of the French, of 

 the final s of Illi?iois; the two words Connecticut and Arkansas (the 

 latter a very doubtful exception); and a few terms like Sioux, derived 

 from corruptions of Indian names — I can hardly recall any geographi- 

 cal appellation indigenous to our soil which is not pronounced very 

 nearly as it is spelled. And when names are imported with a well- 

 authorized divergence between the sound and the spelling, a strong 



