even americans of the highest culture and of boston families speak english differently from any people in the old country. the difference may not be obvious to all, but it is there, and it is a thing to rejoice in, not to be sorry for. the american nation is different from the british, has different history and a different hope; it has a different soul, therefore its expression should be different. the american face as a type is different; it would be folly to correct the words of the mouth by oxford, or eton, or granville barker's theatre, or the cultured aberdonian, or any other criterion. the use of american expressions of quite moderate tone amounts to a breach of good taste in many british drawing-rooms; and if you tell a story in which american conversation is repeated with the accent imitated, you can feel the temperature going down as you proceed; that is, if you are not merely making fun of the americans. making fun of any foreign people is always tolerable to the british; a truly national and insular trait. the literary world and the working men and women of[pg 246] britain can enter into the american spirit, and even imitate it upon occasion; but that is only the misfortune of our populace, who ought to be finding national expression in journalism and music-hall songs and dancing, and who are merely going off the lines by imitating a foreign country. it is loss to britain that the americans speak a comprehensible dialect of our tongue, and that the journalist of fleet street, when he is hard-up for wit, should take scissors and paste and snip out stories from american papers; or that commercial entrepreneurs should bring to the british public things thought to be sure of success because they have succeeded in america—"within the law," "i should worry," "hullo ragtime!" and the rest. the people who are surest in instinct, though they are sympathetic to a brother-people, hate the importation of foreign uglinesses, and the substitution of foreign for local talent.

the american language is chiefly distinguished from the british by its emphatic expressive character. britain, as i have said, lives in a tradition; america in a passion. we are laconic, accidental, inarticulate; our duty is plain, and we do it without words. but the american is affirmative, emphatic, striving; he has to find out what he's going to do next, and he has got to use strong words. britain also is the place of an acknowledged caste system; but america is the place of equal citizens, and many american[pg 247] expressions are watchdogs of freedom and instruments of mockery, which reduce to a common dimension any people who may give themselves airs.

the subtler difference is that of rhythm. american blood flows in a different tempo, and her hopes keep different measure.

* * * * * * *

americans commonly tell us that theirs is the language of shakespeare and shakespearian england, and that they have in america the "well of english undefiled." but if they have any purely european english in that country it must be a curiosity. shakespeare was a lingual junction, but we've both gone on a long way since then, and in our triangle the line subtending the shakespearian angle gets longer and longer. o. henry makes a character in one of his stories write a telegram in american phraseology, so that it shall be quite unintelligible to people who only know english:

his nibs skedaddled yesterday per jack-rabbit line with all the coin in the kitty and the bundle of muslin he's spoony about. the boodle is six figures short. our crowd in good shape, but we need the spondulicks. you collar it. the main guy and the dry goods are headed for the briny. you know what to do.—bob.

this is not shakespearian english, but of course it is not shakespearian american. the worst of[pg 248] the contemporary language of america is that it is in the act of changing its skin. it is difficult to say what is permanent and what is merely eruptive and dropping. such expressions as those italicised in the following examples are hardly permanent:

"one, two, three, cut it out and work for socialism."

"i should worry and get thin as a lamp-post so that tramps should come and lean against me."

"him with the polished dome."

"she hadn't been here two days before i saw her kissing the boss. well, said i, that's going some."

"this is number nine of the ibsen, highbrow series."

"do you get me?"

"i'll put you wise."

"and how is your yoke-mate?"

"he thinks too much of himself: too much breathed on by girls."

"a low lot of wops and hunkies: white trash."

"poor negroes; coloured trash."

"she is one good-looker."

"she is one sweetie."

"my! you have a flossy hat."

but i suppose "he is a white man" is permanent, and "buy a postcard, it'll only set you back a nickel."

"she began to lay down the law: thus and so."

"now beat it!"

"roosevelt went ranching, that's how he got so husky."

"is it far? it is only a little ways."

"did they feed that to you?"

"when he started he was in a poor way, and carried in his hay in his arms, but now he is quite healed."

[pg 249]

but the difference in speech is too widespread and too subtle to be truly indicated by this collection of examples, and the real vital growth of the language is independent of the flaming reds and yellows of falling leaves. in the course of conversation with americans you hear plenty of turns of expression that are unfamiliar, and that are not merely the originality of the person talking. thus in:

"how do they get on now they are married?"

"oh, she has him feeding out of her hand,"

though the answer is clear it owes its form to the american atmosphere.

or, again in:

"i suppose she's sad now he's gone?"

"oh! he wasn't a pile of beans to her, believe me,"

you feel the manner of speech belongs to the new american language. the following parody of president wilson's way of speaking is also an example of the atmosphere of the american language:

so far as the prognosticationary and symptomatic problemaciousness of your inquiry is concerned it appears to me that while the trusts should be regulated with the most unrelentful and absquatulatory rigorosity, yet on the other hand their feelings should not be lacerated by rambunktions and obfusticationary harshness. do you bite that off?

punch would have no stomach for such rabelaisian vigour.

[pg 250]

but wherever you go, not only in the cities, but in the little towns, you hear things never heard in britain. i go into a country bakery, and whilst i ask for bread at one counter i hear behind me at the other:

"kendy, ma-ma, kendy!"

"cut it out, kenneth."

"kendy, kendy, kendy!"

"oh, kenneth, cut it out!" or, as i sit on a bank, a girl of twelve and her little baby sister come toddling up the road. the little one loses her slipper, and the elder cries out:

"slipper off again! ethel, perish!"

america must necessarily develop away from us at an ever-increasing rate. influenced as she is by jews, negroes, germans, slavs, more and more foreign constructions will creep into the language,—such things as "i should worry," derived from russian-jewish girl strikers. "she ast me for a nickel," said a jew-girl to me of a passing beggar. "i should give her a nickel, let her work for it same as other people!" the i shoulds of the jew can pass into the language of the americans, and be understood from new york to san francisco; but such expressions make no progress in great britain, though brought over there, just because we have not the big jewish factor that the americans have.

to-day the influence that has come to most fruition is that of the negro. the negro's way of speaking[pg 251] has become the way of most ordinary americans, but that influence is passing, and in ten or twenty years the americans will be speaking very differently from what they are now. the foreigner will have modified much of the language and many of the rhythms of speech. america will have less self-consciousness then. she will not be exploiting the immigrant, but will be subject to a very powerful influence from the immigrants. no one will then be so cheap as the poor immigrant is to-day. much mean nomenclature will have disappeared from the language, many cheap expressions, much mockery; on the other hand, there will be a great gain in dignity, in richness, in tenderness.