ENGLISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6504, 31 December 1881, Page 3

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH.

An American friend of mine, soy* Mr B, A. Proctor in the Oenttemn't Magatint, in response to the question by an Englishman (on exceedingly positive and dogmatic person, as it chanced), “ Why do Englishmen never say ' I guess f '" replied (more wittily than lastly), “ Because (hey aro eo positive about every thing.” But it is noteworthy that whereat the American says frequently I guess,” meaning ” I know” the Englishman it freely lards hit discourse with the expression " You know.” which is perhaps more modest. Yet.cn tho other side.it maybe noted, that the ” do»n East ” American often usee the expression "JC want to know In the same sense os our English expression of attentive interest “ Indeed, Among other familiar Americanisms may be mentioned the following 1— An American who ie interested in a narrative or statement will say, “Is that soP or •Imply, “So 1” The expression ”Fowlblo 1 is sometimes but not often heard. Dickens misunderstood this exclamation ae equivalent to ** Is it possible, but doe* not eoooern me;”

whsiiM in reality it ie equivalent to the expression “It S# pomible J>” I have occasion • ally heard the expression "Do tell I" but it i« less frequently heard now than of yore. The word " right" is more frequently used than ia England, and is used also in sensei different from those understood in our knglfsh usage of the word. Thu* the American will say “right.here," and “right there,” whore an Englishman would say “ Just here ” or “ just Ihers," or simply “ here" or “ there." Americans say “right away" where we say “directly." On toe other hand, I am inclined to think that the English expression “ right well," for “ y*ry well" la not commonly used in America. Americans ear, “Fee, sir" and “No, sir," with a sense different from that with which the word* are used in Englandj bat they mark the difference of sense by a difference of intonation. Thus, if a question is asked to which tho reply in England would be simply “ ye* " or “ no " (or, according to the rank or station of the querist, "yes, sir," or "no, sir,”) the American reply would he “ yes, sir," or “no rr," intonated os with us in England. But if the reply is intended to bo emphatic, then the intonation is such as to throw the emphasis on the word “sir "—the reply is “ yes, «>," or “ no, sir." In pasting, I may note that 1 have never heard an American waiter reply “yessir," a* our English waiters do. The American use of the word "quit" is Secuiiar. They do not limit the word, as we o, to the signification " take leave "—in fact, I have never heard an American use the word in that sense. They generally use it a* an equivalent to “leaveoff” or “stop." (In peeling, one may notice as rather strange the circumstance that the word “quit," which properly moan* “to go away from," and the worn "etop,” which means to “ stay," should both have come to be used as signifying to “leave off.’’) Thu* American* say “ quit fooling" for “leave off playing the fool,” “quit singing," “quit laughing,” and so iQftffii To English ears an American use of the word “tome" sounds strange-via., as an adrerb. An American will say, “I think some of buying a new house," or the like, " for I have some idea of buying," Ac. 1 have, indeed, heard the usage defended a* perfectly correct, though assuredly there is not an instance in all the wide range of English literature which will justify it. So, also, many Americans defend as good I English the use of the word good m such phrases as the following“ 1 have written that note good," for “ well,” “ that will make you feci good," for " that will do you good,” and in other waye all equally incorrect. Of course, then are instances in which adjective* are allowed by custom to be used as verbs, as, lor instance, "right” for “rightly," Ac,, but there can be no reason for substituting the adjective “good" in place of the adverb “ well," whieh is as short a word aad at least equally euphonious. The use of “real" for “really," as “real angry," “real nice," is, of course, grammatically indefensible. The use of the word “elegant” for “fine” strikes English ear* as strange. For instance, if you say to an American .* “This is a fine morning," he is likely to reply, “It *is’ an elegant morning," or perhaps oftener by using simply the word “elegant." It is not a pleasing use of the word. There are some Americanisms which seem more than defensible—in fact, grammatically more correct than our English usage. Thus, we seldom hear in America the redundant “got" in such expressions as “I hare got," Ac., Ac. Where the word would not be redundant, it is yet generally replaced by the more euphonious word “ gotten," now scarcely ever heard in England, Yet again, we often hear in America such expressions as “ 1 sbaU get me a new book," “I have got mo a drees," “ I must buy ms that,” and the like. This nee of “ me" for “ myself " is good old English, at any rate. I have been struck by the circumstance that neither the conventional, but generally very absurd, American of our English novelists, nor the conventional, but at least equally absurd, Englishman of American novelists, is made to employ the more delicate Americanisms or Anglicisms. We generally find the American “guessing" or “calculating" if not even more coarsely Yankee, like Beade’i Joshua Fullalove, while the Englishman of American novel*is almost always very coarsely British, even if he is not represented as using what Americans persist in regarding as the true “Henglish haccent.” Where ao American is lets coarsely drawn, as Trollope’s “American Senator,” be uses expressions which no American ever uses, and none of those Americanisms which, while more delicate, are in reality more characteristic, because they are common, all American* using them. And in like manner, when an American writer introduces an Englishman of the more natural sort, he never make* him speak as an Englishman wauld apeak; baton half-a-doaen sentences have been uttered he uses some expreaeton which ie purely American. Thus, no Englishman ever uses and no American maybe recognised at onoe by using auch expressions as “ I know it" or “ That’s •o," for “It is true," by saying “Why, certainly,” for “ Certainly, and so forth. There an a gnat number of these ab'ght but characteristic peculiarities of American and English English.