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classic a diction, as the English. Our taste in language is less fastidious, and our licenses and inaccuracies are more frequently of a character indicative of want of refinement and elegant culture than those we hear in educated society in England."-George P. Marsh.

"We have no dialects in this country, either of locality or of caste. In regard to enunciation, the average American will make himself heard and understood, wherever there is difficulty in hearing, far better than the average Briton-not by virtue of vociferation, but on account of his clearer and more accurate speech, especially in following more closely the spelling. This is illustrated by such words as trait, silver, and schedule, which are pronounced in this country according to regular analogy, but have in Great Britain special and exceptional pronunciations. It is illustrated still more clearly by dozens of geographical names.

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'American spelling differs from British in one respect only-its greater simplicity. Illustrations: Waggon, parlour, storey (of a house), pease (plural of pea), plough, draught, shew, cyder, gaol, and many other words that have been simplified in this country.

"American speech changes less than British. (a) We have preserved hundreds of words that have gone out of use in Great Britain, and we avoid the use of many novelties invented in that country, such as totalling or totting, hipped, navvy, fad, randomly, outing, and tund. (b) We avoid many recent changes in meaning that are accepted by the English, such as using traffic for travel or passage, famous for excellent, bargain for haggle, rot for nonsense, jug for pitcher, good form for in good taste, trap for carriage, tub for bathe, starved for frozen, stop for stay, assist for be present, intimate for announce, etc. (c) We refuse to follow the British in their arbitrary restriction of the mean

ing of certain words. Thus, a young person is always a girl in England. The Briton rides in an omnibus, but always drives in a carriage; and though he will say that he is confined to a sick-room or stretched upon a sick-bed, he is horrified at the idea of being called sick, unless suffering from nausea. (d) We do not turn active and reflective verbs into intransitives. (e) We do not abbreviate words so much. (f) We are not so apt to get in superfluous words-'What ever are you doing!' 'The infant mortality is something enormous.' 'I don't say but what this work has got to be done.'

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American writers of the first class seem to be, on the whole, rather more careful about grammar than are British Of course, however, nobody denies that the language has suffered some bad treatment here as well as abroad."Gilbert M. Tucker.

British against American Orthoëpy. "The causes of the differences in pronunciation [between the English and the Americans] are partly physical, and therefore difficult, if not impossible, to resist, and partly owing to a difference of circumstances. Of this latter class of influences, the universality of reading in America is the most obvious and important. The most marked difference is, perhaps, in the length or prosodical quantity of the vowels; and both of the causes I have mentioned concur to produce this effect. We are said to drawl our words by protracting the vowels and giving them a more diphthongal sound than the English. Now, an Englishman who reads will habitually utter his vowels more fully and distinctly than his countryman who does not; and, upon the same principle, a nation of readers, like the Americans, will pronounce more deliberately and clearly than a people so large a proportion of whom are unable to read, as in England, From

our universal habit of reading there results not only a greater distinctness of articulation, but a strong tendency to assimilate the spoken to the written language. Thus, Americans incline to give to every syllable of a written word a distinct enunciation; and the popular habit is to say dic-tion-ar-y, mil-it-ar-y, with a secondary accent on the penultimate, instead of sinking the third syllable, as is so common in England. There is, no doubt, something disagreeably stiff in an anxious and affected conformity to the very letter of orthography; and to those accustomed to a more hurried utterance we may seem to drawl, when we are only giving a full expression to letters which, though etymologically important, the English habitually slur over, sputtering out, as a Swedish satirist says, one half of the word and swallowing the other. The tendency to make the long vowels diphthongal is noticed by foreigners as a peculiarity of the orthoëpy of our language; and this tendency will, of course, be strengthened by any cause which produces greater slowness and fullness of articulation. Besides the influence of the habit of reading, there is some reason to think that climate is affecting our articulation. In spite of the coldness of our winters, our flora shows that the climate of even our Northern States belongs, upon the whole, to a more southern type than that of England. In southern latitudes, at least within the temperate zone, articulation is generally much more distinct than in the northern regions. Witness the pronunciation of Spanish, Italian, Turkish, as compared with English, Danish, and German. Participating, then, in the physical influences of a southern climate, we have contracted something of the more distinct articulation that belongs to a dry atmosphere and a clear sky. And this view of the case is confirmed by the fact that the inhabitants of the Southern

States incline, like the people of southern Europe, to throw the accent toward the end of the word, and thus, like all nations that use that accentuation, bring out all the syllables. This we observe very commonly in the comparative Northern and Southern pronunciation of proper names. I might exemplify by citing familiar instances; but, lest that should seem invidious, it may suffice to say that, not to mention more important changes, many a Northern member of Congress goes to Washington a dactyl or a trochee, and comes home an amphibrach or an iambus. Why or how external physical causes, as climate and modes of life, should affect pronunciation, we can not say; but it is evident that material influences of some sort are producing a change in our bodily constitution, and we are fast acquiring a distinct national Anglo-American type. That the delicate organs of articulation should participate in such tendencies is altogether natural; and the operation of the causes which give rise to them is palpable even in our handwriting, which, if not uniform with itself, is generally, nevertheless, so unlike common English script as to be readily distinguished from it.

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"To the joint operation, then, of these two causes— universal reading and climatic influences—we must ascribe our habit of dwelling upon vowel and diphthongal sounds, or of drawling, if that term is insisted upon. But it is often noticed by foreigners as both making us more readily understood by them when speaking our own tongue, and as connected with a flexibility of organ, which enables us to acquire a better pronunciation of other languages than is usual with Englishmen. In any case, as, in spite of the old adage, speech is given us that we may make ourselves understood, our drawling, however prolonged, is preferable to the nauseous, foggy, mumbling thickness of articulation

which characterizes the cockney, and is not unfrequently affected by Englishmen of a better class.”—George P. Marsh.

Bryant's Prohibited Words. See INDEX EXPURGA

TORIUS.

but.

But. This word is misused in various ways. "I do not doubt but he will be here": read, doubt that. "I should not wonder but": read, if. "I have no doubt but that he will go": suppress "I do not doubt but that it is true" suppress but. "There can be no doubt but that the burglary is the work of professional cracksmen."N. Y. Herald. Doubt that, and not but that. "A careful canvass leaves no doubt but that the nomination," etc. : suppress but. "There is no reasonable doubt but that it is all it professes to be": suppress but. "The mind no sooner entertains any proposition but it presently hastens," etc. read, than. "No other resource but this was allowed him": read, than.

There are sentences in which but is used correctly with that: as, "I have no fear but that he will come "; meaning, I am sure he will come. "I have no fear that he will come," it will be seen, means the contrary of what the sentence means with the but. "I have no fear that he will not come " is, however, a form to be preferred. See WHAT.

Bulk. Though sanctioned by the dictionaries, the use of this word in the sense of the main mass, the majority, the greater part, is not considered by careful writers as being good diction.

"There was a severe frost in Manitoba, but although the bulk [greater part] of the wheat is still uncut, it was not damaged."

Bully. "The term is such good old English that there

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