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Modern English: NEW WORDS for and from a NEW WORLD George Bernard SHAW (1856-1950) paraphrase: America and Britain are two great civilizations divided by a common language. The English habit of borrowing - I prefer the word ADOPTING - words from foreigners and natives continued unabated as British settlers colonized North America. What I now realize is that much of the English language was also spread by the Irish, Scots, Welsh peoples. Because this is a big section for a web page, I have learned how to split such quantities of information into smaller segments as follows: SPANISH: Mexican / Caribbean / South American words. EUROPEAN: Dutch / French / German / Irish words. But then, after American Independence, the new nation and its people began to enrich English in a variety of ways. These are elaborated under the following headings: AMERICAN COMPOUND and REVIVED WORDS - they kept alive many Elizabethan words that have since become defunct in England. AMERICAN NEOLOGISMS and EXPRESSIONS AMERICAN GRAMMAR has also influenced English constructions e.g., revived use of the subjunctive (of a mood - denoting what is imagined, wished, in the future): If I were you... Be that as it may,... I wish he were here...) CONCLUSION: Had the Americans not taken the English baton, the language would not be the global tongue it is today. Films and TV have smoothed the differences between American and British English. In Britain, the Royal Mail delivers the post. In common speech, some 4,000 words are used differently:
MISCELLANEOUS STYMIED: - origin unknown - probably not American: Can YOU help me on this one? Is it a golf term when an opponent's ball lies between the player and the hole - thus, an obstruction to play. FINAL / PERSONAL COMMENT What I did find during my research into the English language, is that it was the American Universities that offered much more help to Dr. James A. H. Murray, when he was compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, than British Universities. And that is a credit to the American people. |
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