[ ENGLISH ]

Modern English:
ENGLISH in AMERICA
by ALEC GILL

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 British habit of borrowing - I prefer the word ADOPTING - words from foreigners and natives continued unabated as settlers colonized North America. What I am recently beginning to 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 WebPage, I have now learned to split such quantities of information into smaller segments as follows:

NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBAL WORDS

SPANISH: Mexican / Caribbean / South American words.

EUROPEAN: Dutch / French / German / Irish words. 

But then, more so 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

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 one it is today. Films and TV have smoothed the differences between American and British English.

In Britain, the Royal Mail delivers the post.
In America, the Postal Service delivers the mail.

In common speech, some 4,000 words are used differently:

MISCELLANEOUS

STYMIED: - origin unknown - probably not American: Can YOU help me on this one?

Golf term when the opponents 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 nation.