The Queen's English vs The Dean's English [pp. 558-585]

562 tUke Queen's ~ngiish vs. [OcTo~E~
guage, and to acknowledge the lawful claims of these new
words and phrases to a position in the tongue which is not the
exclusive heritage of Englishmen. Considering the nature of
language, the character of our people, and the constant infusion of "strange tongues," it is surprising that the language
has not suffered greater changes at our hands than it exhibits
at present. Englishmen exaggerate the changes, while many
Americans either deny them or attempt to explain them, and
retort -by directing attention to the numerous errors in language prevalent in England. Dean Alford's book certainly
shows that not a few solecisms, and these by no means trivial,
are to be met with even amongst educated persons in England.
The English language as spoken in America undoubtedly has
some peculiarities, but to collect all the expressions to be
found in American books or newspapers, or to be heard
in the colloquial language of this country, that differs from the
language of the best English authors, and to call these Americanisms, and to denounce us as corrupters of the English
tongue, is manifestly unjust. The colloquial language of the
two countries differs much more than the written language.
We have common standards for the one, while in the other, the
racy, idiomatic expressions have been lost by reason of our
separation, and their places have frequently been supplied by
the strong but inelegant expressions that may, too often, be
designated as slang. Bartlett has gatbered from all sources,
but chiefly from the humorous writers of this country, many
hundreds of words and phrases, which he styles Americanisms.
-Many of them, however, are really good English; and surely
the slang expressions of this country no more represent the
language of America than does the argot of some of the low
characters of Eugene Sue's novels represent the language of
the cultivated class of the French capital, or the "flash" language of London low life represent that of elegant society in
the West End. Slang and even archaic modes of expression
ought to be excluded from any just estimate of the "deterioration which the Queen's English has undergone at the hands of
the Americans." And yet these, we think, constitute the great
body of the corruptions which we are charged with having
introduced.