On Americanisms, 



Art. V. Notes on Mr, Pickering's « Vocabulary of Words and 

 Phrases, which have been supposed to be peculiar to the United 

 States," with preliminary Observations, By T. Romeyn Beck. 



Before a Society composed like the present, it is not necessary 

 to enlarge on the importance of preserving the English Language, 

 whether spoken or written, in its pure state. In what that purity 

 consists, may be the subject of discussion and controversy, but 

 it evidently will resolve itself at last, into that idiom which is in 

 use among the best educated and most enlightened portion of the 

 community. This remark indeed applies to every country, the 

 language of which is not encumbered by dialects. Individuals 

 may be partial to certain words ; may deem their omission im- 

 proper, and may argue that their place cannot be supplied— that 

 no other will convey their precise ideas. But if general custom 

 has dispensed with them, a few voices will not be sufficient to give 



There is however a constant change in all this, agreeing with 

 the mutations to which man and all human works are liable. The 

 popular authors of the last century are no longer the most popular 

 of this : new views are taken of men and things — new modes of 

 expression are invented, and the ever restless and often original 

 mind of man developes untried means by which to convey the 

 ideas which occupy it in such varied profusion. Amidst this al- 

 teration, however, there are certain^names inscribed on the pages 

 of the history of every nation, to whom all their posterity must 

 do homage and pay deference. The standard writers of a lan- 

 guage are, like the guardians of a well ordered state, its present 

 ers from anarchy and revolution. They must be read — and as 

 far as imitation is allowable, must be copied ; not with a servile 

 devotion, but a generous emulation. The language they used has 

 been found sufficient to give " a local habitation and a name" to 

 the finest imaginings of poetry and the loftiest flights of oratory. 

 No true admirer would willingly alter it — nor would the idea be 

 tolerated, that it ought to undergo such a change as to render the 

 study of their productions a labour, or even an effort. 



Believing then that reason as well as patriotism conspire to 

 teach the importance of a certain degree of stability to a language, 

 it remains to inquire how far innovation, or, if we please, improve- 

 ment, is proper—Whether the introduction of new words is 



