The American English. The best American Invention. Some peculiarities of the American pronunciation

The American English

The early British colonists in the New World were speaking Elizabethan English which was actually the language of Shakespeare’s works. Some words have survived from that period (gotten (Part 2 from get), fall (autumn), sick (ill), mad (angry), to progress, mean (unpleasant)).

The new settlers in America obviously had to come up with new words to describe their New World. This problem was solved partly by borrowing from other languages and partly by inventing new words.

The American English has been known as a word borrower because the American nation was formed from different peoples who spoke different languages. There are borrowings from:

1. Indian languages (place names, names of rivers, lakes, mountains, food, plants, animals, new things, concepts, ideas – Manhattan, canoe, moccasin, wigwam, toboggan, tomahawk, totem, igloo, squash, raccoon, tobacco). Many of the Indian words were simplified and shortened. For example, in Massachusetts there was a lake that the Indians called Chargoggagomanchaugagochaubunagungamaug (which is said to translate as “You fish on that side, we’ll fish on this side, and nobody will fish in the middle” J!). Sure enough this name was modified and shortened.

2. French (rapids, prairies, Illinois, Detroit).

3. Spanish (Creole, mulatto, ranch, sombrero, rodeo, buffalo, avocado, mustang, coyote, canyon)

4. Dutch (boss, cookie, landscape, Yankee, Santa Claus)

Americans have also invented many words of their own – to televise, to park, good buy, lay-out, know-how, eggplant, baby-sitter, to baby-sit, teenager, hangover, blizzard, law-abiding, striptease, to advocate, publicity and many others.

The best American Invention J:

Of all the words invented in the New World one is undoubtedly the best invention – O.K. O.K. is the most grammatically versatile of words, able to serve as an adjective (Lunch was O.K.), verb (The document was okayed.), noun (I need your O.K. on this.), interjection (O.K., I hear you.), and adverb (We sis O.K.). It can carry shades of meaning that range from casual assent (Shall we go? – O.K.), to great enthusiasm (We did it! - O.K!) or meaningless filler of space (O.K., can I have your attention, please?). As a form of affirmation it has penetrated in almost every language of the world. The other interesting thing about it is that is does not seem to have an agreed correct spelling (O.K., OK, okay).

There are three main theories about how the word appeared the third one being the most plausible:

1. It comes from someone’s or something’s initials – the initials of an Indian Chief Old Keokuk, or a shipping agent called Obadiah Kelly or from Orrins-Kendall crackers that were popular in the 19^th century. In each of these theories the initials were stamped or scribed on documents or crates and gradually came to be synonymous with quality or reliability.

2. It comes from some foreign or English place name such as Finnish oikea, the Haitian Aux Cayes (the source of a particularly prized brand of rum) or the Choctaw (an Indian language) okeh.

3. It is a contraction of the expression “oll korrect”, often said to be the spelling used by the semiliterate seventh President, Andrew Jackson.

There are also words that sound the same but mean different things in the U.K. and the USA: homely (Br. cosy vs. Am. ugly), to table a document (Br. to put it aside vs. Am. to give it priority), presently (Br. in a little while vs. Am. now).

Some peculiarities of the American pronunciation:

1. Words ending in -ary/-ory have stress on the next to last syllable (secretary, laboratory).

2. Vocalized [r] (car, hare).

3. Sound [a:] is replaced with [əe] in word like bath, path.

4. Yod-dropping (sound [ju:] is replaced with [u:] in word like news, student).

5. Voicing of [t] in an intervocal position (it turns into [t] – city, pretty, sweetty)

Some peculiarities of the American spelling:

1. -our à -or (honor, neighbor, labor, color).

2. -tre à -ter (center, meter).

3. -ise à -ize (organize, urbanize).

4. -que à -ck/-sk (check, mask)

5. Simplification (through à thru, Marlborough à Marlboro, programme à program)

Some peculiarities of the American grammar:

1. Double negation (I don’t want no dinner).

2. Using adjectives instead of adverbs to modify verbs and other adjectives (He worked good. The movie was real interesting).

3. Preference of simple tense forms to perfect ones (Br. I’ve just  done it! vs. Am. I just  did it!)

Some lexical differences between the British and the American English: