WORDS AND WAYS OF AMERICAN ENGLISH

Continuing the interest stimulated by Mencken and Krapp, this is a lively survey which gives the student a sense of the vitality of our own American English. Pyles discusses sources of our speech, homespun quality, coinages, adaptations, foreign survivals; he gives historical, sociological and geographical factors to corroborate reasons for regional validity of usage; he discusses the differences between British and American speech characteristics; he regrets the dependence on the schoolmaster's word that so often leads to loss of color and ease in expression.