Contents: Volume 1- Twenty-Second Printing 1980 Supplement One- 12th Printing 1977Supplement Two- Ninth Printing 1978. Reviews of the book praised it lavishly, with the exception of one by Mencken's old nemesis, Stuart Sherman. Fourth Edition corrected, enlarged, and rewritten. The first class is the larger and has the longer history. The English Crowninshields commonly make it Crunshel.
Despite the 1930's publication, it's fascinating to read the opinions of the transformation of the English language on American soil. Thus the ancestor of the present Duke of Northumberland, born Smithson, took the ancient name of Percy on succeeding to the underlying earldom in the eighteenth century. Callowhill, down there, is commonly pronounced Carrol; Crenshawe is Granger; Hawthorne, Horton; Heyward, Howard; Norsworthy, Nazary; Ironmonger, Munger; Farinholt, Fernall; Camp, Kemp; Buchanan, Bohannan; Drewry, Droit; Enroughty, Darby; and Taliaferro, Tolliver. Very Good+ in a Very Good+ dust jacket. It includes a study of regional dialects and other things as well.
Mencken doesn't only focus how new words come into the language. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. Such words as hominy, moccasin, pone, tapioca and succotash remain everyday Americanisms. Massive study of American--English with the overlay of new words, pronunciations, spellings, and usages, in the chaotic wild of the New World. All domestic orders shipped protected in a Box.
Sticker residue to front panel of both volumes. Pages are clean and unmarked. Mencken having been written on the author's 79th birthday, September 12, 1941. With an initial release of only fifteen hundred copies, the book sold out rapidly. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. The visiting Englishman finds them very difficult.
I looked for this book because Richard Rodriguez, the author, thought that this was a great history book and it is. He found this surprising since the difference between the American and English languages was a subject that had preoccupied America since the colonial days. And with them have come in a vast number of characteristic American nouns, e. Many other words came in as the pioneers gained familiarity with the Indian life. Fourth edition reprint; reprint; reprint. You must have a real interest in the structure of language to even attempt this.
Meanwhile, American English had begun to borrow words, chiefly nouns, from the non-English settlers, and to develop many new words of its own. It is packed full of facts and information, though sometimes things take on a sort of listing quality not like a ship, like list after list after list and things often seem a bit random. Spine has Gold Gilt Lettering and Illustrations. Remains particularly and surprisingly well-preserved overall; tight, bright, clean and strong. I had thought that Mencken was simply a humorous curmudgeon, but this book reveals that he was in fact a scholar with the heart of a lexicographer. It began to read like a laundry list of differences between the English and American languages. Signed and inscribed by Mencken on front endpaper.
I expected much more out of this book than what I got. At the same time, verbs were made out of nouns, nouns out of verbs and adjectives out of both. Footnote 2 on page 559. What Englishmen call a shop was called a store by Americans as early as 1770, and long before that time corn, in American, had come to signify, not grains in general, but only maize. We have many other vintage and collectable books and other unique items in our store, so please check us out! Fine in a price-clipped dust jacket which is a little tanned on spine.
Linen boards; dyed upper text edges. A fascinating study of the English and American languages. The 4th edition, along with the second Supplement, were both published in 1948. Bindings are tight, hinges strong. All domestic orders shipped protected in a Box.
It's of course outdated and I found myself disagreeing with some of what Mencken says, but overall very interesting. After reading this book, and then stepping back to see the flow of history, you will surely discover the power of culture and its influence upon language, and vice versa. In 1789 , who had lived in England, denounced to advocate, to progress and to oppose as barbarisms, but all of them are good American to-day, and even good English. Mencken then spends a large portion of the book examining American slang, or informal words that have not yet been accepted as 'proper'. Thus the American dialect of English was firmly established by the time the Republic was well started, and in the half-century following it departed more and more from standard English. The treatment of loan words.