352 



American English. 



Sauce — Impudence. This is in Halliwell. 

 Shmny — A boy's game. This is in Brockett. 



Sjian, for perfectly. The expression " span new " is as old as 

 Chaucer. 



Stand, a platform, and Stock, equivalent to cattle, are both in 

 Halliwell. 



Stop for stay, as am stopping at a hotel." The insertion Oi this 

 detestable Briticism in a dictionary of Americanisms, of all places in 

 the world, is one of the absurdities of the book. Everybody who 

 knows anything about the variations of the language as spoken in the 

 two countries knows that it is heard a thousand times in England for 

 once that it is noticed here. 



Too thin. Here is anotlier Americanism of a very remarkable kind. 

 Smollett was guilty of it, for he wrote, in " Peregrine Pickle " (pub- 

 lished 1751), chap. "ZQ : "This pretextwas too thin to impose upon 

 her lover." And Sliakspere, a century and more earlier, in Henry 

 VIII., Act 5, Scene 2, makes the King say : You were ever good at 

 sudden commendations. Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not 

 to hear such flattery now, and in my presence ; they are too thin and 

 base to hide offences." Other instances could no doubt be found in 

 plenty, if it were worth while to look for them. But when one con- 

 siders that the phrase is invariably applied — as Smollett applies it — 

 to pretexts, coverings, what can be more obvious than that it must 

 necessarily always have been, not only perfectly good English, but the 

 simplest and most natural expression imaginable ? The insertion of a 

 phrase like that in a list of Americanisms or any other sort of isms, 

 only shows what follies men may be led into, upon whom the craze 

 for making long compilations has gnco seized. 



Tophet — The place of torment. This familiar Biblical term is of 

 course just as much an Americanism as is Eden, or Babylon, or 

 Jerusalem. 



Touch-and-go. Who does not remember the " touch-and-go young 

 Barnacle " of the Circumlocution Office in Charles Dickens' " Little 

 Dorrit" ? 



Tramp, a strolling vagabond, is in Halliwell. 



" IFe/?," a meaningless preface to a sentence. The word, is twice 

 used in this way by highly-aristocratic speakers in the Grst chapter of 

 Beaconsfield's "Endyniion." The author would, have been slightly 

 amused if Mr. Bartlett had informed, him that he represented Sidney 

 Wilton and William Ferrars as conversing in the American' dialect. 



It would be unprofitable to detail examples of the mere errors, vul- 

 gar expressions and slang terms which Mr. Bartlett enumerates as 

 peculiarly American. A few instances of his senseless repetitions, 

 enlarging the book to no possible good, may be mentioned with less 

 disgust: 



Bankit (French Banquette) " is defined as a sidewalk in Louisiana. 

 Immediately below we have banquette, the name for the sidewalk 



