The American Language : an Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States.

Mencken, H.L.

Published by A.A. Knopf, New York, 1937 reprint of 1936 fourth edition,, 1937

About this Item

Cloth, blindstamped cover device, 8vo, 25 cm, xi, 769 pp, xxix, [1] pp. From the introduction: "The reader familiar with my earlier editions will find that [this fourth edition] not only presents a large amount of matter that was not available when they were written, but also modifies the thesis which they set forth. When I became interested in the subject and began writing about it (in the Baltimore Evening Sun in 1910), the American form of the English language was plainly departing from the parent stem, and it seemed at least likely that the differences between American and English would go on increasing. This was what I argued in my first three editions. But since 1923 the pull of American has become so powerful that it has begun to drag English with it, and in consequence some of the differences once visible have tended to disappear. The two forms of the language, of course, are still distinct in more ways than one, and when an Englishman and an American meet they continue to be conscious that each speaks a tongue that is far from identical with the tongue spoken by the other. But the Englishman, of late, has yielded so much to American example, in vocabulary, in idiom, in spelling and even in pronunciation, that what he speaks promises to become, on some not too remote tomorrow, a kind of dialect of American, just as the language spoken by the American was once a dialect of English. The English writers who note this change lay it to the influence of the American movies and talkies, but it seems to me that there is also something more, and something deeper. The American people now constitute by far the largest fraction of the English-speaking race, and since the World War they have shown an increasing inclination to throw off their old subservience to English precept and example. If only by the force of numbers, they are bound to exert a dominant influence upon the course of the common language hereafter. But all this I discuss at length, supported by the evidence now available, in the pages following. At the risk of making my book of forbidding bulk I have sought to present a comprehensive conspectus of the whole matter, with references to all the pertinent literature." Covers slightly faded, contents agetoned, otherwise Good.

Seller Inventory # ABE-63639

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The American Language : an Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States.
• Publisher: A.A. Knopf, New York, 1937 reprint of 1936 fourth edition,
• Publication Date: 1937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Miscellaneous Books