THE AMERICAN PREPOSITION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 840, 11 June 1910, Page 9

THE AMERICAN PREPOSITION.

The typical American (writes H.W.H. in tba "Manchester Guard ian") is commonly thought of ; as a hustling person .who never uses twowhere one will do. When he invents new prepositions ho shows an exactly opposite tendency. '"Ho arrived . a few minutes ahead of time"; "others aside from Mr. , Markham might express their indebtedness"; "the words of our English speech have ■ & long history back of theih"; "the ■work is to cost in the neighbourhood of 200,000 dollars"; "the book will be published inside of a week." In these cases we should have been content to use the single words "before," "besides," "behind," "about," and "within." It is not only in the construction of new prepositions but in the different lise of old ones that, the Aniercian idiom 'varies from the English. In 'America, furniture is sold "at auction." !A j criminal is sentenced to four years "at hard labour." A gooc'l penman "has a knack at" rapid writing. The city of Alexandria is named "for" Alexander the Great. At a funeral service tho organist plays "the Dead March from 'Saul.'" A student "graduates from" Harvard; the dominant idea being apparently that, once he'has completed; his course,' he. shakes the dust of the university off his feet. A thoroughly competent captain would be able himself to take the helm "in a ' pinch." An exceptionally severe winter may be described as the coldest "in twenty years." "In" takes the place '.of "for" even when the period in question is not exactly specified! For example, "the most comprehensive statement that has appeared in many a. long day"; "tho worst-wreck that, has occurred in some time"; "he lias not eaten a substantial-'meal 'in so' long' that he had forgotten the taste for food." At 3.45 it is "a quarter of four," and at 4.30 it is ".half after four." When six-and. a half years old, • a'child is "midway off" his •; seventh year. The opponents of. incerased naval expenditure ask,.«"_ What do we want of a. big navy?" . A city health depart- : ment instructs its officers : "to keep close watch of" soda fountains for tho detection of impure /"summer drinks. "To" has entirely supplanted "about" in' the familiar phrases "That's .all there is to it." Many Republicans ifl Massachusetts "differ with," or "dissent ■• with," ' Senator Lodge on tho question of reciprocity. The preposition. which has been stimulated into greatest activity by. the 'American climate is "on," with ; its compounds "upon" and "onto" (commonly thus printed as a single word). A A'ew Yorker will tell you that he lives "on Twenty-third' Street." It is to secure the approval of "the man on the street" that politicians lay their plans.' The services rendered to American speech by this particle may be further estimated from the following typical instances: —"At night they sleep on cots"; "John Alexander Dowie to-day began a legal fight On his op- '■' poiients"-; "words which seem " perfectly natural on first blush"; "Robbins is rowing'- on the freshman crew at Yale this fall"; "dreamers awoke from their lethargy and seemed to take a hew lease on life"; "the South has no longer, a monopoly on 'Dixie'"; "after all, he had no copyright upon the proverb." Tho verb "belong" deserves special notice as having developtl in America a remarkable catholicity in the company it keeps among the family of prepositions. According to. an English dictionary, it is followed by "to" in all its senses. But in the American press we . find, these variations:—"Eighty • children belonging at the orphan asylum visited the island this morning"; "the museum lias received a number of gifts which belong in the ■ 'department of American antiquities"; "he belongs among those who habitually read book advertisements"; "cheese belongs with salad quite as much as it docs with coffee" ;i a youngster who belonged on New ■ York's great East Side.". In a few instances a different preposition is used because the construction is twisted around.' An English farmer feeds his horses with oats; an ' American feeds oats to his horses. So we. get a plan to instil youth with ideas of abrdience," and "the cars on the street railway have just been installed with electric searchlights." In one case, at least, American idiom changes the construction but retains the same preposition, for an active police officer, instead of throwing pickpockets into a panic, throws a panic into them. . . The common idea of the Americans a-s a succinct nation receives some countenance, after all, in their frequent omission of • prepositions which we should consider necessary. Here are some examples:—"This does not ' approximate the plan which we are urging"; "many of'the students are much incensed at the judges, and will probably protest the decision": "his significance and value for the Christian Church is in bis battling a theology that had a false philosophical bas'Ts"; "irreverent youths not only bribed them, but pelted them with fruit"; "to save our. small capital we ' were to walk, or jump freight trains"; "tho cockroaches that night literally swarmed the cabin." One of the commonest political terms is "to bolt," meaning "to bolt from." An incautious English reader might easily misunderstand such a statement as that "a sensation was caused to-day by the ' authorised' announcement that President Eliot, of Harvard, has bolted Judge Parker." The. writer by no means intended to suggest that Dr. Eliot had swallowed Judge Parker or Jud<*e Parker's policy ; Oil the other hand, the American s jondness for "of" and "on" brings

1 these words into use where wc should do without them. There is a- curious revival of a classical Greek genitive in the following examples: —".Keel of their cars now .and then, for the. ear is the horse's thermometer"; "the old man vncorked. the llaslt, ami. after smelling of the contents, handed it back with his thanks"; "all the things which exist in that world miss of being adequately under-.-.tood" ; "Do you remember of ever making a purchase as the result of an advertisement:'" 111 America "off" aecms to require the addition of "of" to make it a -proposition, as in "you and 1 have to got'oil: ..of tho ground if «'e are tu do anything'." What strikes one as the oddest use of "on" is in such a sentence as "the Hov. \V. D. Smith war, on yesterday'elected to tho oliice of archdeacon." It is also superfluously added after some verbs that have to do with study and calculation ; thus, "the governor must brush up a bit on his-ecclesiastical studies" ;■ "I don't admit it. I only say it is a hard problem. ,1 shall s\tudy on it, though." It may be presumed that, as in other cases of differences between English and American idioms, tho specilic American uses' of prepositions may he explained as due to: (1) Tho retention uf earlier English usages now obsolete among us or confined to dialects, (2) tho influence of immigrants, especially German nucMrish, and (3) the development of the. traditional speech in newsurroundings and under new conditions. But it would need, I think, an expert in linguistic history to allot to its proper source, each variation I have quoted— H. W..IH.