AMERICAN-ENGLISH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 223, 1 October 1943, Page 3

AMERICAN-ENGLISH

Sir,-It is impossible for a schooner to "scoon" for the simple reason that the word refers to the arrangement of the sails and not to the hull. The Dutch were the first to use the rig, and the English copied it and introduced it to America in the 17th century, It has always been spelled with an "h" wherever English is wrote, and I was once telled that it is derived from a Dutch word meaning "dainty"; but as I know as much about the Dutch language as "Kay" does of the English, I am unable to confirm this. _"Kay" seems to be unaware that the chief difference between American and English is this: the American speech remained stationary while the English progressed so that the Americans retained ‘many archaisms which were dropped by the English. These were later re-introduced to» the English as novelties. An example is the spelling of "honor," etc., which clever people regard as superior to the "our" ending. Kay’s argument is rather ridiculous when it is examined. He says, in effect, that because Mrs, Roosevelt used no word that couldn’t be found in the Oxford English Dictionary, we should use American words which are not in the O.E.D. He quotes American slang to prove the superiority of the American speech, and the slang he quotes is oldfashioned and already half-forgotten. Actually more lasting and trenchant phrases or words are continually introduced into the language from foreign

languages and the English dialects than from American slang.

SPITFIRE

(Wellington).