The Vocabulary of American English

It is quite true that the vocabulary used by American speakers, has distinctive features of its own. More than that: there are whole groups of words which belong to the.American vocabulary exclusively and constitute its specific feature. These words are called Americanisms.

The first group of such words may be described as historical Americanisms.

At the beginning of the 17th c. the first English migrants began arriving in.America in search of new and better living conditions. It was then that English was first spoken on the American soil, and it is but natural that it was spoken in its 17th-c. form. For instance, the noun fall was still used by the first migrants in its old meaning "autumn", the verb to guess in the old meaning "to think", the adjective sick in the meaning "ill. unwell". In.American usage these words still retain their old meanings, whereas in British English their meanings have changed.

These and similar words, though the Americans and the English use them in different meanings, are nevertheless found both in (lie.American and in the British vocabulary.

The second group of Americanisms includes words which one is not likely to discover in the British vocabulary. They are specifically American, and we shall therefore call them proper Americanisms. The oldest of these were formed by the first migrants to the American con­tinent and reflected, to a great extent, their attempts to cope with their new environment.

It should be remembered that.America was called "The New World" not only because the migrants severed all connections with their old life. America was for them a truly new world in which everything was strikingly and bewilderingly different from what it had been in the Old Country (as they called England): the landscape, climate, trees and plants, birds and animals.

Therefore, from the very first, they were faced wiih a scrums lack of words in their vocabulary with which to describe all these new and strange things. Gradually such words were formed. Here are some of them.

Backwoods ("wooded, uninhabited districts"), cold sini/i '"a sudden trost"), bine-grass ("a sort of grass peculiar to Noith.\iiut.ja 'i. b'ue-jack ("a small American oak"), egg-plant ("a plant with edible fruit"), sweet potato ("a plant with sweet edible roots"), redbncl ("an American tree having small budlike pink flowers; the state tree of Oklahoma"). red cedar ("an American coniferous tree with reddish fragrant wood"), cat-bird ("a small North-American bird whose call resembles the mew­ing of a cat"), cat-fish ("called so because of spines likened to a cat's claws"), bull-frog ("a huge frog producing sounds not unlike a bull's roar"), sun-fish ("a fish with a round flat golden body").

If we consider all these words in terms of the "building materials" of which they are made we shall see that these are all familiarly Eng­lish, even though the words themselves cannot be found in the vo­cabulary of British English. Yet, both the word-building pattern of composition and the constituents of these compounds are easily recog­nized as essentially English.

Later proper Americanisms are represented by names of objects which are called differently in the United States and in England. E.g., the British chemist's is called drug store or druggist's in the United States, the American word for sweets (Br.) is candy, luggage (Br.) is called baggage (Amer.), underground (Br.) is called subway (Amer.), lift (Br.) is called elevator (Amer.), railway (Br.) is called railroad (Amer.), carriage (Br.) is called car (Amer.). car (Br.) is called auto­mobile (Amer.).

If historical Americanisms have retained their 17th-c. meanings (e.g.. fall. n.. mad. adj., sick, adj.), there are also words which, though they can be found both in the English and the American vocabulary, have developed meanings characteristic of.American usage. The noun date is used both in British and American English in the meanings "the time of some event"; "the day of the week or month"; "the year". On the basis of these meanings, in American English only, another mean­ing developed: an appointment for a particular time (transference based on contiguity: the day and time of an appointment > appointment it­self).

AN ENGLISH GUIDE TO AMERICAN

English............................. American

aerial (radio / TV)................ antenna

anorak................................. parka

autumn............................... fall

bank note............................ bill

billion = million million....... billion = thousand million

biscuit (sweet)...................... cookie

biscuit (unsweetened)............ cracker

bonnet (car)......................... hood

boot (car)............................ trunk

caravan................................. trailer

caretaker / porter................... janitor

centre (city)......................... downtown

chairman (business).............. President

chemist's shop...................... pharmacy / drugstore

chest of drawers................... dresser / bureau

chips................................... French fries

chocolate / sweets................. candy

cloakroom........................... check room

crisps (potato)...................... chips

cupboard............................. closet

curtains.............................. drapes

draughts (game)................... checkers

drawing pin......................... thumb tack

dress circle.......................... mezzanine

dummy................................ pacifier

dustbin................................ garbage / trash can

eiderdown............................ comforter

estate agent.......................... realtor

first floor............................ second floor

flat..................................... apartment

flex..................................... electric cord

fortnight.............................. two weeks

full stop.............................. period

garden................................. vard

grill.................................................. broil

hair grip.......................................... bobbie pin

handbag......................................... purse

holiday........................................... vacation

homely (pleasant).......... •............. homely (ugly)

interval........................................... intermission

jug................................................... pitcher

label................................................ tag

larder............................................... pantry

lavatory / loo / W.C...................... toilet /John / bathroom / restroom

lay-by............................................. pull-off

lift................................................... elevator

limited (company)....................... incorporated

lodger............................................. roomer

lounge suit..................................... business suit

mincer............................................ meat grinder

motorway...................................... freeway

nappy............................................. diaper

pack (card).................................... deck

parcel.............................................. package

pavement...................................... sidewalk

personal call.................................. person to person

petrol.............................................. gas

postal code.................................... zip code

postponement............................... rain check

public school................................. private school

queue (verb).................................. line up

reception (hotel)........................... front desk

ring up............................................ call / phone

saloon (car)................................... sedan

semi-detached.............................. duplex

silencer............................................ muffler

state school................................... public school

tap................................................... faucet

term (academic)........................... semester

tube................................................ subwav

wash up.................................................... do the dishes

wash your hands................................... wash up

wing / mudguard.................................... lender

zed............................................................ zee

The American vocabulary is rich in borrowings. The principal groups of borrowed words are the same as were pointed out for the English vocabulary. Yet, there are groups of specifically American bor­rowings which reflect the historical contacts of the Americans with other nations on the American continent.

These are. for instance. Spanish borrowings (e.g.. ranch, som­brero, canyon, cinch), Negro borrowings (e.g., banjo) and. especially, Indian borrowings. The latter are rather numerous and have a peculiar flavour of their own: wigwcim. squaw, canoe, moccasin, toboggan, cari­bou, tomahawk. There are also some translation-loans of Indian origin: pale-face (the Indian name for all white people), war path, war paint, pipe of peace, fire-water.

These words are used metaphorically in both American and British modem communication. A woman who is too heavily made up may be said (o wear war paint, and a person may be warned against an enemy by: "Take care: he is on the war path" (i.e. he has hostile intentions).

Many of the names of places, rivers, lakes, even of states, are of Indian origin, and hold, in their very sound, faint echoes of the distant past of the continent. Such names as. for instance, Ohio [ou'haiou], Michigan ['mifigan], Tennessee [^ene'si:], Illinois f^li'noiCs)], Ken­tucky [ken'tAki] sound exotic and romantic. These names awake dim memories of those olden times when Indian tribes were free and the sole masters of the vast unspoiled beautiful lands.

The Grammar System of American English

Here we are likely to find even fewer divergencies than in the vo­cabulary system. The first distinctive feature is the use of the auxiliary verb will in the first person singular and plural of the Future Indefinite Tense, in contrast to the British normative shall. The American "/ will %o there" does not imply modality, as in the similar British utterance (where it will mean "I am willing to go there"), but pure futurity. Some scholars seem to think that the British-English Future Indefinite shows the same tendency of substituting will for shall in the first person sin­gular and plural.

The second distinctive feature consists in a tendency to substitute the Past Indefinite Tense for the Present Perfect Tense, especially in oral communication. An.American is likely to say "/ saw this movie" where an Englishman will probably say "I've seen this film", though, with the mutual penetration of both varieties, it is sometimes difficult to predict what Americanisms one is likely to hear on the British Isles. Even more so with the substitution of the Past Indefinite for the Present Perfect, which is also rather typical of some English dialects.

Just as.American usage has retained the old meanings of some English words (fall, guess, nick), it has also retained the old form of the Past Participle of the verb to get: to get — got — gotten (cf.: Br. got).

As we know, Subjunctive I, which coincides in form wnh the in­finitive without the particle to and is synonymous to the Suppositional Mood, is more frequently used in American English than in Br.ii.-h

English. In contrast to the Suppositional Mood. Subjunctive I has no tense distinctions — the same form may refer to the present, past and future.

That is practically the whole story as far as divergencies in gram­mar of American English and British English are concerned. The grammatical system of both varieties is actually the same, with very few exceptions.

American English is marked by certain phonetic peculiarities. Yet. these consist in the way some words arc pronounced and in the intona­tion patterns. The system of phonemes is the same as in British English, with the exception of the American retroflexive [rj-sound, and the labi­alized fh] in such words as what. whv. white, wheel, etc.

American English is marked by certain phonetic peculiarities. Yet. these consist in the way some words arc pronounced and in the intona­tion patterns. The system of phonemes is the same as in British English, with the exception of the American retroflexive [rj-sound, and the labi­alized fh] in such words as what. whv. white, wheel, etc.All this brings us to the inevitable conclusion that the language spoken in the United Slates of America is. in all essential features, identical with that spoken in Great Britain. The grammar systems are practically fully identical. The American vocabulary is marked by cer­tain peculiarities which are not sufficiently numerous or pronounced to justify the claims that there exists an independent American language. The language spoken in the United States can be regarded as a regional variety of English.

Canadian, Australian and Indian (that is. the English spoken in In­dia) can also be considered regional varieties of English with their own peculiarities.