AMERICAN-ENGLISH
Sir,-I .confess I haven’t so much nautical knowledge as "Spitfire." As to the origin of the word schooner I take my authority from H. L. Mencken, a name to conjure with in the philological field. It is true that many archaisms remain in American speech-but to say that it has remained stationary is surely the language of hyperbole or malice. In this matter we have to be fair and objective. To-day, no language in the world has the same power to coin fresh words, words that fit the subject to an uncanay nicety: bell-hop, subsister, glad hand, lounge lizard, stuffed shirt, go-getter. "Spitfire" admits that trenchant phrases or words are introduced into the American tongue from foreign sources and English dialects. Why, then, have we English not made more use of our own expressive dialects? Surely it is a failing when among the multitude of good dialects used in England only Oxford English is considered authentic, and a man speaking a dialect is considered illiterate, That is the point I wish to stress: that American is essentially a people’s speech, in which slang and idiom are not only permitted but encouraged. When the desire to experiment ceases, our language is on the down-grade. For that reason we are glad to borrow-and do borrow freely-from the vigorous American
speech.-
KAY
(Auckland).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 225, 15 October 1943, Page 3
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221AMERICAN-ENGLISH New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 225, 15 October 1943, Page 3
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