CERTAIN "AMERICANISMS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 23 July 1907, Page 4

CERTAIN "AMERICANISMS."

Senator Lodge, writing in Sriibner's, makes a good point against Eug.ish cri-jlu-H who think American vernacular, with its "I tabulate" and i gues>" is ! vulgar. These critic;., he remarks, need not have gone far alieht. Turn, for instance, to the "New Letters*' of Thus. Carlyle, vol. 1, p. 78, and there read: "lie lias brought you a Foxes 'Book of Martyrs/ which i calculate will go in the parcel to-day: you will get right good reading out of it. I guess." That settles "calculate" a« being good Engli>h But the joke is that " it is rarely heard anywhere hi the Cnited States/' With "I guess" the rase is different. It is a very common phrase. It is "American." however. It is English -Chaucer iwd it, limy and Coleridge used it. and even scrupulously Engli-h Wordsworth. Senator Lodge, therefore, j'airiy claims that Americans are "vulgar'' iu very good company. On the toiler hand, he points out that Americans set Englishmen pood examples, which they are slow to follow. tor instance, an American never say?, one thing is "different to" another—he says, grammatically, that it Is "different from.'' Americans also, it is claimed, are more careful of the meanings of words than Englishmen/which means that they atfe more scrupulous in their choice ot words. Among their educated writers this may be true, but in their newspaper English and in conversation they are more apt than Englishmen to coin words and phrases which, if expressive, are often slangy. Still, Senator Lodge ghows that Americans arc not such original sinners in this respect as they are commonly supposed to be.