Difference between revisions of "American English"

Revision as of 11:59, October 1, 2009

American English is a dialect of the original language spoken in England which is used in the United States. American English itself consists of a number of different dialects. Distinctive dialects of American English include those spoken in the South, New England, and New York City, to name only a few. Even these dialects can be broken down further into distinctive dialects, such as the English spoken in Brooklyn, or that spoken in Boston.

History

The use of English in Colonial America was inherited as a result of British settlement of the Thirteen Colonies. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in Virginia and New England in the 17th century. During that time, there were also a few speakers in North America of Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, as well as numerous Native American languages. To a very small extent, he American dialect spoken commonly throughout the USA comes from the intertwining of many of these languages and dialects.

In many ways, compared to British English, American English differs in its grammar, phonology and vocabulary. Many of these differences were amplified by separate attempts in both Britain and the United States to standardize English usage. For example, Noah Webster, and his Webster's dictionary, was influential in firmly establishing many of the American spellings now in use today.

Roosevelt shoots holes in the dictionary as the ghosts of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dr Johnson moan.

During his presidency, 1901-1909, Theodore Roosevelt failed in efforts to simplify the spelling of common words. He tried to force government to adopt the system, sending an order to the Public Printer to use the system in all public documents. The reform annoyed the public, forcing him to rescind the order. Roosevelt told his friend, literary critic Brander Matthews, one of the chief advocates of the reform, "I could not by fighting have kept the new spelling in, and it was evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest when I was beaten. Do you know that the one word as to which I thought the new spelling was wrong — thru — was more responsible than anything else for our discomfiture?" Next summer Roosevelt was watching a naval review when a launch marked "Pres Bot" chugged ostentatiously by. The President waved and laughed with delight.^[1]

The Chicago Tribune also embarked on its own effort to simplify spelling and make it more phonetic.

Today American English is simpler and more phonetic than British English. Sometimes as an expression of anti-American sentiment, however, non-Americans will insist that use of British English is exclusively proper English, the implication being that American English is somehow "non-standard", which is obviously untrue as British English itself is not a unified standard either.

Further reading

• Dillard, Joey Lee. Toward a Social History of American English (1985) excerpt and text search
• Garner, Bryan A. The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style (2000) excerpt and text search
• Mencken, H. L. The American Language (1936) excerpt and text search of abridged edition

references

1. ↑ Pringle 465-7; Brands 555ff