AMERICAN ENGLISH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 414, 23 July 1908, Page 4

AMERICAN ENGLISH.

“ We are of one language,” will declare the speakers at the banquets when the fleet is in Auckland, but there are some colloquialisms in common usage in America that will sound foreign to Aucklanders, A gentleman who had resided some years in America, speaking to an Auckland representative, said that some of the Yankee sayings were astonishing to an Englishman. “Suppose,” he said, “you use the good old English word ‘homely,’ and say New Zealand intended to give the reception a homely feeling. Well, homely to an American means ‘ugly.’ Then, if an American asks you to ‘ call a rig ’ he means that he wants a vehicle. ‘ Holding a dollar till the eagle squeals ’ indicates meanness, and a ‘cracker’ means a biscuit, and biscuit means a cake, while tramcars in America are ‘trolleys,’ and such feminine articles as hairpins and needles are ‘notions.’ If an American is angry he is referred to as being ‘rattled.’ The sailors will probably tell you that the hotels of New York city ‘lay over anything you ever saw,’ and that America ‘has got you beaten to death in the making of hotels.’ Another word ot common usage is ‘graft,’ but probably everyone knows that it does not indicate work, as in New Zealand or Australia, but bribery, corruption, and a lot of other things.”— Exchange.