13.2. American English

The variety of E spoken in the USA is AmE. AmE is a regional variety, it has a literary normalised form – Standard American /American National Standard (SA). It is not a separate language: neither grammar nor vocabulary of its own.

An Americanism (AW) is a W / a set expression peculiar to E as spoken in the USA: cookie ‘a biscuit’; guess ‘think’; mail ‘post’; store ‘shop’. AmE differs from BrE in pronunciation, minor features of grammar, but chiefly in vocabulary.

AmE is based on the E of the 17^th c. The 1^st colonies, 1607 → the colonists were contemporaries of W. Shakespeare, E. Spenser & J. Milton. Ws which have died out / changed their meaning in GB may survive in the USA. I guess was used by G. Chaucer for I think. For more than 3 c. the Am vocabulary developed more / less independently of the British stock & was influenced by the new surroundings. Ws for fauna & flora: bullfrog ‘a large frog’, moose (Am elk, лось), opossum, raccoon; corn, hickory.

The influence of extra-linguistic factors upon vocabulary: absentee voting ‘voting by mail’, dark horse ‘a candidate nominated unexpectedly, not known to his voters’, gerrymander ‘to arrange & falsify the electoral, all-outer ‘an adept of decisive measures’. In the USA & GB leftist is ‘an adherent of the left wing of a party’. In the USA it is also a left-handed person; lefty in the USA is only ‘a left-handed person’; in GB it is a colloquial variant of leftist with a specific sense of a communist / socialist.

Many foreign elements borrowed into AmE from Spanish / Indian languages became IWs due to J. F. Cooper & H. Longfellow: canoe, moccasin, squaw, tomahawk, wigwam, & translation loans: pipe of peace, pale-face. The Sp LWs: cafeteria, mustang, ranch, sombrero.

Toponyms: Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Utah (all names of Indian tribes).

Specific features of pronunciation, stress / spelling standards: [æ] for [ɑ:] in ask, dance, path; [e] for [ei] in made, day.

The Am spelling is simpler than E, in other respects just different. The suffix -our is spelled –or: armor, humor. Altho :: although; thru :: through.

British spelling	American spelling
cosy	cozy
offence	offense
practice	practise
jewellery	jewelry
travelling	traveling
thraldom	thralldom
encase	incase

The lexical differences tend to decrease. AWs penetrate into SE and Britishisms come to be widely used in Am speech. It was customary to contrast the Eng W autumn with the Am fall. Both Ws are used in both countries, autumn is more elevated, in GB fall is rare in literary use, found in dialects & set expressions: spring and fall, the fall of the year.

Cinema, TV & the web are the most important channels for the passage of AWs into SE & other languages: the Germans adopted teenager; the Fr speak of l’automatisation. The Br term wireless is replaced by the Americanism radio.

The existing cases of difference between the 2 variants:

1. no equivalents in BrE: drive-in; dude ranch;

2. different Ws are used for the same denotatum: can, candy, mailbox, movies, suspenders, truck in the USA; tin, sweets, pillar-box (letter-box), pictures / flicks, braces, lorry in England;

3. the semantic structure of a partially equivalent W is different: pavement is ‘covering of the street / floor made of asphalt, stones / some other material’. In GrE the meaning is ‘the footway at the side of the road’. The Ams use sidewalk for this, pavement is ‘the roadway’;

4. equivalent Ws are different in distribution. The V ride in SE is mostly combined with a horse, a bicycle, more seldom ride on a bus. In AmE combinations a ride on the train, ride in a boat are usual;

5. the same W is used in AmE with difference in emotional & stylistic colouring. Nasty is a milder expression of disapproval in GB than in the USA, where it was considered obscene in the 19^th c. Politician in England means ‘someone in politics’; derogatory in the USA;

6. a marked difference in frequency: time-table occurs in Am E very rarely, yielding its place to schedule.

The same patterns & means of W-formation are used in coining neologisms in both variants. The suffixes more frequently used: -ее (draftee ‘a young man about to be enlisted’), -ette (tambour-majorette ‘one of the girl drummers in front of a procession’), -dom, -ster, as in roadster ‘motorcar for long journeys by road’, gangsterdom.

Specific models of Am slang: V-stem + -er + Adv-stem + -er: opener-upper ‘the first item on the programme’; winder-upper ‘the last item’. Specific affixes & semi-affixes not used in literary colloquial: -o, -eroo, -aroo, -sie, -sy: coppo ‘policeman’, fatso ‘a fat man’, bossaroo ‘boss’, chapsie ‘fellow’.

The trend to use shortened Ws & initial abbreviations is more pronounced. Ring Lardner: a hospital nurse uses 2 abbreviations: G.F. and B.F.; the patient asks her to clear the mystery: “He’s my G.F.’s B.F.” – “Maybe I’m a D.F. not to know, but would you tell me what a B.F. and G.F. are?” – “Well, you are dumb, aren’t you!” said Miss Lyons. “A G.F. that’s a girl friend, and a B.F. is a boy friend. I thought everybody knew that.”

Boy friend & girl friend originated in the USA.

Particularly common are Vs with the postpositive. In Hollywood you never meet a man: you meet up with him, you do not study a subject but study up on it. In SE similar constructions add a new meaning.

Ws possessing several structural variants: some are more frequent in 1 country, the others in another. Amid & toward are more often used in the US; amidst & towards in GB.

G. Mikes. How to Scrape Skies: ‘… although a lift is called an elevator in the United States, when hitch-hiking, you do not ask for an elevator, you ask for a lift. There is some confusion about the word flat. A flat in America is called an apartment; what they call a flat is a puncture in your tyre (or as they spell it, tire). Consequently the notice: FLATS FIXED does not indicate an estate agent where they are going to fix you up with a flat, but a garage where they are equipped to mend a puncture.’