ligence and wide observation, little surprise need be felt at the extraordinary mess of linguistic monstrosities perpetrated under the guise of Americanisms by men who lack the knowledge he possessed, but abound in prejudices in which he was lacking. The result is remarkable enough when they set out to represent the speech of American men; when it comes to represent that of American women, to use Colley Cibber's phrase, they "outdo their own outdoings." Exceptions, to be sure, always exist to general rules. By him who is on the lookout for it, grotesque and ungrammatical and vulgar expressions will be heard at times from the lips of inhabitants of every country; occasionally, too, in quarters where we should least expect it. But it is always the grossest of blunders to pick out the exceptional as the type of the general. In particular, educated women the world over are, as a body, far more scrupulous in the use of language than men of the same class. Especially is this a characteristic of those highly cultivated. The fact is doubtless due to the possession by them of greater natural refinement and to the consequent instinctive shrinking from anything bordering on the coarse and vulgar. Hence their comparatively slight addiction to slang or toleration of expressions suggestive of the indelicate or low.

All this is true of them on both sides of the Atlantic. But the American woman as depicted in the English novel, especially in that of the minor English novelist, uses the most extraordinary conglomeration of words and phrases that was ever raked together from the highways and byways of colloquial speech. As represented there, she is linguistically one of the most fearful and wonderful creations that the human imagination has ever concocted. She combines in her utterance all the time-worn peculiarities which the British traveler long ago discovered and faithfully reported to his countrymen. Necessarily she speaks through her nose. Certain words and phrases are constantly on her lips. She "guesses" and "fixes" to an extent that would astound those most addicted to the use of the words. She is fond of saying "jest lovely," "jest elegant." As a result of her assumed sensitiveness

about employing the word leg, she is invariably particular to substitute for it limb. These and scores of other phrases which have done duty for generations are assumed to adorn her speech on all occasions. If the portrait is drawn from life, one is naturally led to wonder what sort of American women those are who manage to get into reputable English circles; for it is there that they are represented as appearing. They certainly could not get into similar circles in their own land. It is, in truth, a libel upon cultivated English society to represent such persons as having effected an entrance into it. The novelists appear to felicitate themselves in all sincerity upon their success in reproducing American speech in the language they put in the mouths of American women. In a certain sense the result may do credit to their imaginative powers, but it is a good deal of a reflection upon their intelligence.

There is, however, a measurable palliation for errors of this sort on the part of Englishmen. Certain of our own writers are to some extent responsible for them; none more so perhaps than Lowell, who in his Biglow Papers ravaged all New England in search of quaint words, quaint phrases, quaint colloquialisms, quaint pronunciations, and quaint grammatical peculiarities, and blended them together in one volume of wise and witty sayings. Collectively, however, they have never been used by any single man or in any single community. But more responsible than all others ar probably the compilers of Americanisms, at least the early compilers. In their volumes little or no heed was paid to the distinction between cultivated and uncultivated speech. Furthermore, no sufficient attempt has been made to separate the local from the general. A word entitled to be called an Americanism should have at least an approach to universality. Strictly speaking, it should be familiar to the majority of the people of the country, whether they dwell in the East or in the remote West, in the North or in the South. Nothing of this sort has been done thoroughly; in the earlier dictionaries it was hardly even attempted. The peculiarities of small communities, even of individuals, dwell

ing in different parts of a country stretching over three thousand miles of territory have been jumbled together under one general title of Americanisms. The result is that a curious hodge-podge of words and expressions is attributed to the whole country which no one outside of some particular region could ever comprehend.

Now there may be a justification for including all these various sorts of words in a single volume. At least there would be a pretext; for a vocabulary confined to the speech of the educated class here, so far as it differs from that of England, would make an exceedingly slim volume. Only, in any scientific treatment of the subject, the fact ought to be brought out clearly that while these expressions may represent a form of speech used in different parts of America, they do not characterize the speech of America as a whole. Furthermore, it should be distinctly shown that in any dictionary representing cultivated speech a great deal contained in these vocabularies would be as much out of place as would be the cockneyisms of London or dialectic words and phrases of anywhere in a dictionary representing the speech of the educated class of England. The peculiar difficulty of separating with us the local from the general may be conceded. In no other country does change of residence take place on so grand a scale. A population as restless as the sea-wave is wandering constantly hither and thither. Not only do comparatively few die where they are born, but the distance which separates the cradle from the grave is often the breadth of a continent. It is inevitable under such conditions that peculiar expressions which characterize the speech of one part of the country should be transported to another and frequently a remote part. This involves special labor and difficulty in tracing the original home of many words and phrases, as well as the extent to which they have spread. The task of making a collection satisfactory to the student of language is thereby largely increased. None the less does the duty of so making it remain.

Furthermore, the difficulty of ascertaining the actual facts has been increased by the habit of making America

responsible for the creation or employment of words to which individuals have taken a dislike. This is a practice which once prevailed in England on a grand scale. Nor even yet has it disappeared among the prejudiced or ill-informed. Let us take a striking instance. In 1834 Samuel Taylor Coleridge died. In the year following, specimens of his "tabletalk" appeared under the editorship of his nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge. In that work the poet and philosopher is represented as relieving his mind on a wide variety of topics. It is not to be doubted, as it most assuredly is to be hoped, that his metaphysical utterances rested on a more solid foundation than his linguistic. One instance is given in which he devoted his attention to a word which has caused trouble to generations. "I regret," said he, "to see that vile and barbarous vocable talented stealing out of the newspapers into the leading reviews and most respectable publications of the day. Why not shillinged, farthinged, tenpenced, etc.? The formation of a participle passive from a noun is a license that nothing but a very peculiar felicity can excuse. If mere convenience is to justify such attempts upon the idiom, you cannot stop till the language becomes, in the proper sense of the word, corrupt. Most of these pieces of slang come from America."

The expression of opinion in the last sentence about the place of origin of objectionable words was enthusiastically re-echoed by the editor of the work in a note to the passage. "They do," he said, emphatically, "and I dare say since Mr. Washington Irving's 'Tour on the Prairies-the best English, on the whole, he has yet written-we shall have eventuate in the next year's Annuals." There is no need to concern ourselves here with the dismal forebodings of the speedy appearance in the Annuals of the verb. It is with the adjective we have to do. Coleridge does not say specifically that this particular formation was an Americanism, though he may be thought by the ordinary reader to imply it. It has not. however, escaped having its birthplace assigned to this country by others, not because they knew it to be so for that they did not know-but because it seemed satisfactory to have it so. There is,

furthermore, no doubt that this particular adjective has been the subject of controversy for generations. Just as there are men, so there are words, which seem born to endure contumely. They are constantly subjected to the hardest sort of buffetings both from the wise and the unwise. One of these unfortunates is talented. Like reliable, it has always had a thorny road to travel. Macaulay tells us that he would not use it, first because it was not wanted, and secondly because it is never heard "from those who speak very good English." This latter statement, if correct, would be ample justification for not employing it. But the reason that Coleridge gave for his denunciation of it was in no sense a reason at all. He missed the only possible linguistic objection to it. The word contains a plain allusion to the parable of the talents. But in the narrative which Christ delivers to His disciples it is the possessor of plural talents that is honored, not the possessor of the single talent. He is the one who is relegated to the realm of outer darkness. It was to that place many enemies of the derived word would have liked to have both it and its users sent.

Accordingly, from the point of view of its origin, objection to this adjective should be based upon the assumption that it ought to be formed from the plural and not from the singular. That, however, with this ending was practically impossible. But the termination ed added to the noun is in itself perfectly regular. Coleridge's remark upon such a derivation was nothing but an error springing from his ignorance. He was merely repeating the well-known criticism which Johnson had made in his life of Gray. "There has of late arisen," wrote Johnson, " a practice of giving to adjectives derived from substantives the termination of participles; such as the cultured plain, the daisied bank; but I was sorry to see in the lines of a scholar like Gray, the honied Spring." From the general attitude Johnson took to this poet we may well afford to doubt the deep-seatedness of his sorrow. At all events, there was no reason for it; for ed in such cases is an adjective termination. It is not a participial one, though its

form coincides with that of the past participle. Furthermore, it had not lately sprung up, as he asserted; it goes back to the earliest period of the language. Illustrations of it can be found in writers who flourished centuries before either one of these two censurers of it was born. It is not surprising that the bigoted Johnson should fail to bear in mind the words of a writer he never loved; but it is not easy to understand how Coleridge could have forgotten, among other instances, the "sworded seraphim" and the "mooned Ashtaroth" of Milton's "Hymn on the Nativity."

This sort of censure of words in common use wherever English is spoken is due generally to pure ignorance. To the same cause may be attributed the extraordinary conception of the usage prevalent in this country. It is, to be sure, frequently reinforced by prejudice and hostility, the ever-ready guides to credulity and error. But such is not always the case. So far, indeed, from the caricature of American speech being invariably due to antipathy, it has sometimes been accompanied with warm and almost enthusiastic admiration of the character portrayed. Take the case of Fullalove in Charles Reade's novel Hard Cash. He is manifestly a special favorite of the author. No small share of time and space is spent in enlarging upon his ability, his energy, and resourcefulness. He is described as engineer, mechanician, inventor, hunter, student, dreamer, and philanthropist. In all emergencies he is found equal to the situation. The language put into his mouth is also invariably entertaining; linguistically, however, it is even more grotesque. It is all the more entertaining to the American reader for the remoteness of the resemblance it bears to anything ever heard in real life. As coming from a man possessed of the intellectual gifts with which Fullalove is credited, it is simply impossible. Yet it is fairly certain that Reade was giving the sort of speech which he honestly believed to be prevalent to a greater or less extent in the United States. It is even more certain that it was a lingo which was never spoken in its entirety by mortal man anywhere.