American English

AMERICAN ENGLISH

The English language was brought to America by masses of Englishmen (colonists from England) who settled along the Atlantic coast in the 17^th century. Even earlier than that, the American continent had begun to be invaded by Spanish, Portuguese, French and other immigrants, who were trying to escape from feudal exploitation and religious persecutions, as well as by adventurers in search of riches (E. Iarovici, 1973: 270)

The territory which now forms the U.S.A. witnessed three great periods of immigration:

a) The first period began in 1607 with the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia and ended in 1787 when the 13 colonies ratified the Federal Constitution after the war of Independence (also known as the American Revolution). The 13 colonies comprised four million English-speaking people, most of whom lived east of the Appalachian Mountains. During this period 90 per cent of the population came from Britain.

b) The second period, which closed with the Civil War, in 1865, covered the expansion of the 13 colonies west of the Appalachian Mountains as far as the Pacific Coast. During this period a great number of immigrants came from Ireland owing to the British oppressive policy and to the potato famine of 1845. About the same number came from Germany, after the European Revolution of 1848 was crushed.

c) The third period, from the end of the Civil War to the present day, was marked ethnographically by the arrival of Scandinavians, Slavs, and Italians. They were soon followed by immigrants from Eastern Europe. Also, Chinese and Japanese settled on the Pacific Coast, so that the cosmopolitan character of the United States became more and more accentuated. Further, Negroes from Africa have come to number over twelve million.

At present, the U.S.A. is a federal state consisting of 50 states.

From the linguistic point of view, the first period of immigration is the most important because it brought to North America the language that is spoken by the majority of its population. The colonists who came later from other countries were soon largely assimilated and their language exerted a rather unimportant influence.

In spelling, in pronunciation, in vocabulary or lexis, and in the syntax of colloquial speech, divergences persist between American English and British English, but they are unessential. The Preface to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language rightly points out that “…formal American English and formal British English, although they are separated by 3,000 Atlantic miles vary far less than the local dialects of Yorkshire” (cited from Iarovici, 1973: 296). The literary language of America, indeed, is not very different from that of England.

Certain divergences remain only in spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, and in the syntax of the lower levels of speech.

6.1. Spelling

American spelling often differs in small ways from that customary in England

a) The spelling –or has been introduced for the British –our (without u) at the end of French and Latin words, e.g. honor, labor, color, favor, humor, odor, etc.

b) The spelling –er stands for the British –re, e.g. center, theater, fiber, caliber, etc.

c) The spelling –se stands for the British –ce, e.g. offense, defense, pretense, etc.

d) Simple –l- is used instead of double -ll- before –ing, -ed or before adjectival suffixes, e.g. traveling, traveled, jewelry, woolen, marvelous, etc.

e) Other American simplifications of spellings are ax (for British axe), plow (plough), tire (tyre), story (storey), program (programme), catalog (catalogue), etc.

6.2. Pronunciation

From the time when the early colonists came, divergence in pronunciation (distinguishing it from the language of British English) began gradually to develop.

The pronunciation of American English as compared with that of British English is somewhat old-fashioned. It has qualities that were characteristic of English speech in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The pronunciation of American English differs from that of British English in point of intonation and rhythm.

The main characteristics of American intonation are the following:

a) Both sentence stress and word stress is weaker, less forceful in American than in British English and intonation is more level. Consequently, American speech is more monotonous, but at the same time it is generally more distinct in its division of syllables. Unstressed syllables are pronounced with more measured detachment and therefore with greater clarity.

b) Americans speak more slowly than Englishmen and with less variety of tone. “The Southern drawl” lengthens all stressed syllables, often turning vowels into diphthongs. On account of this prolongation of the stressed vowels, final consonant groups are weakened losing the last consonant.

c) Another characteristic is the “nasal twang” which is to be heard especially in the Middle West.

d) As far as word stress is concerned, the tendency to stress the first syllable is more marked in American English than in British English: address, research, locate, dictate, resource, corollary, romance.

Among the more outstanding features of American pronunciation a few may be noted.

a) [ ] in words such as fast, path, dance, grass, can’t, half corresponds in British English to the broad [ɑ:] which developed in the second half of the 18^th century and even later. It therefore represents the preservation of an older feature of the language.

b) In American English a sort of [ɑ] is to be heard in words like hot, not, crop, frog.

c) [r], which has disappeared in the Received Pronunciation ² of Britain except before vowels, is sounded in all positions in the greatest part of the United States, e.g. car [kɑ:r], farm, door, lord.

d) In American English l is always velar. In British English it is clear before a vowel and velar before a consonant, e.g. large, help.

e) Another specifically American development is the frequent change of t to a kind of d, sometimes called ‘the voiced t’. It is generally to be heard between two vowels, e.g. better, butter, water.

f) There are a few words with different pronunciation in American English: (n)either [(n)i:δər], ate [eit], clerk [klə:rk], tomato [tə`meitou], schedule [`skedju:l], laboratory [`læbrəto:ri], etc.

6.3. Vocabulary

The most numerous and striking differences belong to vocabulary. As the English language was spreading to America, it was but natural that local peculiarities should arise. As soon as the settlers landed in America, they found objects, such as plants and animals which were new to them. Even the landscape was different from the English countryside. The land was inhabited by people who spoke a strange language and who lived by customs different from anything the English had ever seen. Names had to be provided for all these aspects of their new life.

Americanisms, i.e. words characteristic of the USA can be divided into the following categories:

6.3.1. Words based on changed meanings (as compared to those of the respective words in British English). Under new natural, economic and political conditions, it was rather difficult for settlers to provide names for the numerous formerly unknown objects they came across, so they used old words in order to name the new concepts. That is why changes of vocabulary occurred in their language from the very beginning:

a) The word corn was transferred to an entirely new cereal: in British English it means crops such as ‘wheat’ and ‘barley’. In American English it means ‘maize’.

b) Clerk in British English is an official but in American English it has a wider meaning, that of a shop - assistant (extension of meaning).

c) Rock in British English means a large mass of stone. In American English it means ‘a small piece of stone’, e.g. Protesters threw rocks at the police.

d) To figure in American English means not only ‘to calculate’, ‘to compute’, but also ‘to think’, ‘to consider’, e.g. I figured you’d be late (= I thought).

6.3.2. Words borrowed from the Indians or from other settlers

Another means of naming the unknown objects such as plants, animals, natural phenomena found in America, was to borrow their names from the Indians or, sometimes, from other settlers.

Contact with the Indians brought into English a number of words having particular reference to the Indian way of life. Thus, they borrowed wigwam (= a hut of the American Indians); squaw (Indian woman, wife), canoe, toboggan, moccasin, tomahawk, hominy (ground maize prepared as food by boiling with water, corresponding to the Romanian ‘mamaliga’), to scalp, etc.

From the Indians the American settlers also borrowed names for certain animals such as: moose, raccoon (a flesh-eating animal with a bushy–ringed tail), skunk (a black and white striped animal, which protects itself with a foul-smelling spray} (fig. ‘a despicable person’); opossum (a nocturnal marsupial animal that lives in trees and that carries its young in a pouch);, chipmunk, etc.

Certain Indian words and phrases were translated into English: big chief, pale face (white person), pipe of peace (to smoke the pipe of peace), to bury the hatchet (to settle a disagreement, to become reconciled), medicine man.

From the very beginning of English colonization in America, the settlers borrowed words not only from the Indians, but also from colonists of various nationalities.

The English took a large number of words from the French colonists. Thus, they borrowed the words bureau, prairie (an extension area of grassland), depot (railway station), cache (a place where things are hidden), crevasse (a deep crack split or gap in the ice or a mountain), levee (a wall of soil built along the side of a river), bayou {marshy offshoot of river), etc.

A number of words were taken from the Dutch settlers: boss, dope, cookie, coleslaw (cabbage salad), Yankee (a native or inhabitant of the United States), to snoop.

A large number of Spanish words have been adopted especially since the 19^th century: canyon (valley with high steep cliffs on either side and through which a river usually runs); patio (inner courtyard); ranch (a very big farm); fiesta (a festival, celebration), adobe (unburnt sun-dried brick), mustang (wild horse), etc.

A small number of words were taken from the German immigrants: pretzel, noodle, hamburger (minced/ground meat that is fried or grilled); frankfurter (kind of sausage), sauerkraut (cabbage fermented in brine), delicatessen, etc.

Also, the word dumb in the sense of ‘stupid’ seems to come both from the German dumm and the Dutch dom. The American use of fresh in the sense of ‘impudent’ is probably to be accounted for by the German frech ‘cheeky’. The well-known Americanisms loafer (tramp) and bum (loiterer, loafer) seem to be of German origin.

6.3.3. Archaic features in American English

Another quality often attributed to American English is archaism, the preservation of old features of the language which have gone out of use in the standard speech of England.

An important number of Americanisms are in fact words which have either become obsolete in England – except in certain dialects – or have lost in England a meaning which is maintained in the United States. From the point of view of British English, these Americanisms are therefore archaisms and provincialisms.

Thus, what is called now The Government in Britain, was known there as The Administration, down to the middle of the 19^th century. The term Administration has been preserved in America.

Baggage in the sense of ‘luggage’ occurred in Britain in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. It is still in current use in the United States, whereas in Britain it refers only to portable army equipment, or to someone’s emotional problems.

The verb to guess in the meaning of ‘to suppose’, ‘to think’ occurred in Britain in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. G. Chaucer, describing the young squire writes “Of twenty years of age he was, I gesse”. This sense is extremely frequent in the United States: e.g. I guess you’re right. = I suppose you’re right.

To quit is rarely used in England now. In the United States it is in everyday use, in the meaning of ‘to give up’, ‘to leave’, ‘to stop’: to quit a job; Quit making that noise!

Sick underwent a change of sense in Britain (it is restricted to nausea) that was not carried over to America. Shakespeare uses it in the modern American sense in his play Henry V: e.g. He is very sick and would to bed”. (The British use ill)

The picturesque old word fall has been kept in America as the natural word for the season ‘autumn’ (used in England).

The fact that numerous Americanisms are actually words which in Britain have become archaisms in the meantime or are just provincialisms has resulted in the assertion that American English is more conservative than British English.

Indeed, American English has preserved certain older features of the language which have disappeared from Standard English in England. But it has also introduced a large number of innovations equally important, which we shall discuss in the following section.

6.3.4. Words formed in America are another category of Americanisms.

Besides resorting to borrowing from other languages and changing the meaning of existing words, the settlers introduced a large number of innovations, resorting to composition, affixation or conversion.

a)      Composition

The first settlers often made up descriptive compounds for naming the unknown plants, animals and natural phenomena they came across in their new homeland.

E.g. blue-grass (grass with bluish-green stems)

back-country (district not yet populated)

Little by little, composition was also resorted to for naming less concrete, abstract notions, qualities, etc. Many of the later compounds are based on metaphor:

Disk - jockey (an employee of a broadcasting station who conducts a programme of recorded music); hard - boiled (= callous, tough, shrewd: a hard-boiled detective); drive – in - movie (a cinema where you can see a film without getting out of your car); sky-scraper (a very tall building); hot-dog (hot sausage in a long bread roll); horse-sense (common sense).

Whereas early America compounds were often self-explanatory, recent ones are frequently rather elliptical. Thus, soap opera is a television or radio series about the imaginary lives of a group of people.

Other terse metaphors are: wire pulling, to have an ax to grind, to be on the fence. The Americans early manifested the gift, which they continue to show, of the imaginative, slightly humorous phrase: to bark up the wrong tree, to face the music, fly off the handle, go the whole hog, paint the town red, and many more.

b) Affixation has not been quite as productive as composition in American English.

Prefixes have been resorted to far less often than suffixes, with a few exceptions, such as: anti-, de-, re-, semi-, up-: anti-federalist, to debunk, to revamp (to arrange things, to improve), semi-centennial, to update.

As far as suffixes are concerned, the most frequent are

-ize, -ate, -ify, -acy, ee, -ery, -teria: to computerize, candidacy, trainee, cafeteria, etc.

c) Conversion is another means of forming new words. It is very frequent in British English too, but in England conversion is not carried to such extremes as in American English.

While composition and affixation have given American English numberless nouns, conversion has provided American English mostly with verbs derived from nouns. Practically speaking any noun may be converted into a verb: e.g. to boom (to increase in trade); to contact, to style, to engineer (to act as an engineer, to arrange something skilfully, such as to engineer a plot).

Even compounds have often been converted into verbs:

e.g. to weekend, to lobby-display (to influence members for or against a measure).

OK³ (also spelled okay) is the most grammatically versatile of words, able to serve as an adjective, a noun or interjection: e.g. Lunch was OK. (adjective); I need your OK on this. (noun); We seemed to manage okay (adverb); His doctor wouldn’t OK the trip (verb); OK, I’ll help you. (interjection).

Phraseological units: A large number of phraseological units or idioms have been coined in the United States. Some of them are bold, racy, vivid, full of imagination and - often - of humour (E. Iarovici, 1973: 290). For example, to look like a million dollars, to lose one’s shirt (to lose one’s temper; to lose a lot of money that you have invested); canned music (gramophone record), he’s so dumb you can sell him the Brooklin Bridge (he’s a perfect fool)

There are a number of variations between the everyday vocabulary of Britain and that of American English. This is due to certain differences between the economic, social, political, cultural conditions in the United States and those existing in Britain, as well as to certain American linguistic peculiarities (such as the preservation of words now obsolete in Britain, the acquiring of new meanings).

The main terms that differ are:

a) In the sphere of home-life: apartment (flat), elevator (lift), first – floor (ground-floor), package (parcel), faucet (tap), waste-basket (wastepaper basket)

b) In the sphere of food(stuffs): candy (sweets), broil (to grill or barbecue food), molasses (treacle), rare (underdone meat), can (tin), pitcher (jug)

c) In the sphere of clothing: pants (trousers), tuxedo (dinner jacket), vest (undershirt, waistcoat), suspenders (braces), sneakers (trainers), derby hat (bowler hat)

d) In the sphere of travelling: baggage (luggage), railroad (railway), truck (lorry), automobile (motor car), freight train (goods train), vacationer (holiday maker), baby carriage (pram), gasoline (petrol), hood (of a car) (bonnet), muffler (on a car) (silencer)

e) In the sphere of education: faculty (staff), recess (break), grade (form, class), grade school (primary school)

f) In the sphere of business, trades and occupations: raise (in pay, salary) (rise), bill (banknote), billfold (wallet), druggist (chemist), silent partner (sleeping partner)

g) Other variations: fall (autumn), sidewalk (pavement), vacation (holiday), movie (film), mail (post), mailbox (letterbox, postbox), subway (underground)

The difference between British and American vocabulary today is lessened by the fact that many American words have made their way into English use, and their number appears to be increasing rather than diminishing.

6.4. Grammar

As far as grammar is concerned, the differences between American English and British English are neither very important, nor very numerous.

Very often a British form, which fell into disuse long ago or may still be heard in a dialect or in substandard speech, is fully accepted as best American usage.

For example, the verb ‘help’ occurs without ‘to’ in informal British English and in a number of dialects, whereas in American it is perfect literary standard. Compare the use of the Short Infinitive instead of the Long Infinitive after the verb help:

This syrup will help cure your cold. (American)

This syrup will help to cure your cold. (British)

The Short Infinitive (the Infinitive without ‘to’) is also common American usage in sentences such as:

Look at him run; Listen to him talk.

where British English will more usually have –ing forms or other constructions: 

Look at him running; Look how he runs.

The indefinite article precedes half before hour, minute, dozen:

e.g. I’ll expect you back in a half hour. (W. Saroyan)

A half dozen policemen emerged out of the darkness. (J. Thurber)

Pronouns with indefinite reference: Americans use the impersonal pronoun one, and then continue with he and his, as in If one loses his temper, he should apologize, One should always look after his money where the English would replace his and he by one’s and one. If one loses his temper, one should apologize. One should always look after one’s money.

In American English the Past Simple is often preferred to the Present Perfect in British English with the adverbs just, yet, already:

e.g. Lucy just called. Did your friends arrive yet?

Did you already finish those letters?

In American English the Synthetic Subjunctive has been preserved to a greater extent than in British English. American sources abound in Subjunctive forms depending upon a main clause expressing will, wish, suggestion, or order. e.g. I’m only demanding that you do your duty. The Minister insisted that he leave the country immediately.

In British English the forms would be ‘…that you should do’ or ‘…that he should leave the country’.

The auxiliaries will and would are generalized, being also used in the first person (singular and plural):

e.g. I will be back later.

Sometimes the Past Participle of a verb is maintained in a form that is obsolete in England, e.g. gotten, proven.

e.g. When she had gotten safely into the street, she could scarcely restrain her tears.

(Th. Dreiser)

The following verbs: burn, dream, lean, learn, smell, spell, spill, and spoil are all regular in American English. In British English, they can be regular, but irregular past tenses and participles with –t are more common (burnt, dreamt, leant, learnt, smelt, spelt, spilt, spoilt)

Another area of contrast is the use or non-use of the preposition ‘to’ before the indirect object (The Retained Indirect Object) in passive sentences. The passive without to is standard in American English: A letter was sent him (in British English: A letter was sent to him).

The For- to construction, i.e. the Infinitival construction after nouns, adjectives, and verbs which can be followed by the preposition for is used in a larger number of contexts in American English than in British English. In addition to such constructions which occur both in British and American English (She waited for him to leave; It’s bad for her to smoke), the For- to construction is extended in American English to verbs and adjectives that do not normally take for:

I’d like for you to go.

We’d be proud for you to be our guest.

A characteristic of American English is represented by the frequency of ‘ly-less adverbs’. That is to say, adjectives are often used as adverbs in colloquial American English:

e.g. If you can’t sleep any this pill will help you some. (= somewhat, to some extent)

It’s real good. (= really); Drive slow.

It sure will help.

Prepositions are not always used in the same way as in Britain.

- The preposition on is dropped before the names of days of the week.

e.g. See you (on) Sunday.

Sundays we go into the country.

- In British English from…to are used to identify a period by its beginning and end: from June to December; In American English from…through are used to make clear that the whole period includes the second period named. Thus, from June through December means ‘up to and including December’.

- About and around in informal British English often have the vague meaning of ‘in the area of’ or ‘in various positions in’: There aren’t many shops about / around here.

In American English about is rarer and more formal in this sense than around.

Other prepositions which differ in American English are:

It’s ten after 5 o’clock. (past); out the window (out of); on the sky (= in)

6.5. American English dialects

American English itself is not uniform. Dialect differences in America include phonological or pronunciation differences (often called accents), vocabulary distinctions, and syntactic rule differences. The grammar differences between dialects are not as great as the similarities that are shared, thus permitting speakers of different dialects to communicate with each other.

American English is divided into three main dialects:

The most widely spoken dialect (viewed as the standard) is known as Standard or General American English. It includes the Middle Atlantic States (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware) and New York State, as well as the Middle and Western States. The General American dialect thus comprises two thirds of the whole population and four fifths of the land surface of the United States reaching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west.

The other two dialects, New England and Southern, are important and significant, but they are more limited geographically.

The New England dialect is spoken in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut. It is more like British English in many respects. For example, the rounded vowel is kept in dock, the long low back vowel is retained in dance, and the r is completely lost in dark. At the same time this dialect is less homogeneous than General American (S. Potter, 1990: 167).

The Southern dialect includes Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas.

In spite of countless smaller variations in pronunciation, vocabulary, and idiom, the three American dialects do not greatly differ. S. Potter points out that “For three centuries American families have been constantly on the move and speech communities have seldom remained isolated for more than one generation. It would be no exaggeration to say that greater differences in pronunciation are discernible in the north of England between Trent and Tweed than in the whole of North America.” (: 168)

NOTES:

¹ For an informative discussion of English and American spellings see. H.L.Mencken, The American Language, ch 8.

² There are three theories as to its origin: 1. It comes from someone’s initials; 2. It is adopted from some dialect; 3. It is a contraction of the expression All correct.

3. Received Pronunciation (RP) – the name given to the regionally neutral accent in British English.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1. In what respects is American English more conservative than British English and in what respects is it less so?

2. List the important differences between British English and American English. Which of the differences is most significant?

3. Describe five of the most important general differences between American and British pronunciation.