By R. A. PROCTOR.

There are many points in which English and American speakers and writers of culture differ from each other as to the use of certain words and as to certain modes of expression.

In America the word “clever” is commonly understood to mean pleasant and of good disposition, not (as in England) ingenious and skilful. Thus, though an American may speak of a person as a clever workman, using the word as we do, yet when he speaks of another as a clever man, he means, in nine cases out of ten, that the man is good company and well-natured. Sometimes, I am told, the word is used to signify generous or liberal. I can not recall any passages from early English literature in which the word is thus used, but I should not be surprised to learn that the usage is an old one. In like manner, the words “cunning” and “cute” are often used in America for “pretty” (German niedlich). As I write, an American lady, who has just played a very sweet passage from one of Mozart’s symphonies, turns from the piano to ask “whether that passage is not cute,” meaning pretty.

The word “mad” in America seems nearly always to mean “angry;” at least, I have seldom heard it used in our English sense. For “mad,” as we use the word, the Americans say “crazy.” Herein they have manifestly impaired the language. The words “mad” and “crazy” are quite distinct in their significance as used in England, and both meanings require to be expressed in ordinary parlance. It is obviously a mistake to make one word do duty for both, and to use the word “mad” to imply what is already expressed by other and more appropriate words.

I have just used the word “ordinary” in the English sense. In America the word is commonly used to imply inferiority. An “ordinary actor,” for instance, is a bad actor; a “very ordinary man” is a man very much below par. There is no authority for this usage in any English writer of repute, and the usage is manifestly inconsistent with the derivation of the word. On the other hand, the use of the word “homely” to imply ugliness, as is usual in America, is familiar at this day in parts of England, and could be justified by passages in some of the older English writers. That the word in Shakspere’s time implied inferiority is shown by the line—

In like manner, some authority may be found for the American use of the word “ugly” to signify bad-tempered.

Words are used in America which have ceased to be commonly used in England, and are, indeed, no longer regarded as admissible. Thus, the word “unbeknown” which no educated Englishman ever uses, either in speaking or in writing, is still used in America in common speech and by writers of repute.

Occasionally, writers from whom one would expect at least correct grammar make mistakes which in England would be regarded as very bad—mistakes which are not, indeed, passed over in America, but still attract less notice there than in England. Thus, Mr. Wilkie, who is so severe on English English in “Sketches beyond the Seas,” describes himself as saying (in reply to the question whether Chicago policemen have to use their pistols much), “I don’t know as they have to as a matter of law or necessity, but I know they do as a matter of fact;” and I have repeatedly heard this incorrect use of “as” for “that” in American conversation. I have also noted in works by educated Americans the use of the word “that” as an adverb, “that excitable,” “that head-strong,” and so forth. So the use of “lay” for “lie” seems to me to be much commoner in America than in England, though it is too frequently heard here also. In a well-written novelette called “The Man who was not a Colonel,” the words—“You was” and “Was you?” are repeatedly used, apparently without any idea that they are ungrammatical. They are much more frequently heard in America than in England (I refer, of course, to the conversation of the middle and better classes, not of the uneducated). In this respect it is noteworthy that the writers of the last century resemble Americans of to-day; for we often meet in their works the incorrect usage in question.

And here it may be well to consider the American expression “I guess,” which is often made the subject of ridicule by Englishmen, unaware of the fact that the expression is good old English. It is found in a few works written during the last century, and in many written during the seventeenth century. So careful a writer as Locke used the expression more than once in his treatise “On the Human Understanding.” In fact, the disuse of the expression in later times seems to have been due to a change in the meaning of the word “guess.” An Englishman who should say “I guess” now, would not mean what Locke did when he used the expression in former times, or what an American means when he uses it in our own day. We say, “I guess that riddle,” or “I guess what you mean,” signifying that we think the answer to the riddle, or the meaning of what we have heard, may be such and such. But when an American says, “I guess so,” he does not mean “I think it may be so,” but more nearly “I know it to be so.” The expression is closely akin to the old English saying, “I wis.” Indeed, the words “guess” and “wis” are simply different forms of the same word. Just as we have “guard” and “ward,” “guardian” and “warden,” “Guillaume” and “William,” “guichet” and “wicket,” etc., so we have the verbs to “guess” and to “wis.” (In the Bible we have not “I wis,” but we have “he wist.”) “I wis” means nearly the same as “I know,” and that this is the root-meaning of the word is shown by such words as “wit,” “witness,” “wisdom,” the legal phrase “to-wit,” and so forth. “Guess” was originally used in the same sense; and Americans retain that meaning, whereas in our modern English the word has changed in significance.

It may be added, that in many parts of America we find the expression “I guess” replaced by “I reckon,” and “I calculate” (the “I cal’late” of the Biglow Papers). In the South, “I reckon” is generally used, and in parts of New England “I calculate,” though (I am told) less commonly than of yore. It is obvious from the use of such words as “reckon” and “calculate” as equivalents for “guess,” that the expression “I guess” is not, as many seem to imagine, equivalent to the English “I suppose” and “I fancy.” An American friend of mine, in response to the question by an Englishman (an exceedingly positive and dogmatic person, as it chanced), “Why do Englishmen never say ‘I guess?’” replied (more wittily than justly), “Because they are always so positive about everything.” But it is noteworthy that whereas the American says frequently, “I guess,” meaning “I know,” the Englishman as freely lards his discourse with the expression, “You know,” which is, perhaps, more modest. Yet, on the other side, it may be noted, that the “down east” American often uses the expression “I want to know,” in the same sense as our English expression of attentive interest, “Indeed?”

Among other familiar Americanisms may be mentioned the following:—

An American who is interested in a narrative or statement will say, “Is that so?” or simply “So!” The expression “Possible!” is sometimes, but not often, heard. Dickens misunderstood this exclamation as equivalent to “It is possible, but does not concern me;” whereas, in reality, it is equivalent to the expression, “Is it possible?” I have occasionally heard the exclamation “Do tell!” but it is less frequently heard now than of yore.

The word “right” is more frequently used than in England, and is used also in senses different from those understood in our English usage of the word. Thus, the American will say “right here” and “right there,” where an Englishman would say “just here” or “just there,” or simply, “here” or “there.” Americans say “right away,” where we say “directly.” On the other hand, I am inclined to think that the English expression “right well,” for “very well,” is not commonly used in America.

Americans say “yes, sir,” and “no, sir,” with a sense different from that with which the words are used in England; but they mark the difference of sense by a difference of intonation. Thus, if a question is asked to which the reply in England would be simply “yes” or “no” (or, according to the rank or station of the querist, “yes, sir,” or “no, sir,”), the American reply would be “yes, sir,” or “no, sir,” intonated as with us in England. But if the reply is intended to be emphatic, then the intonation is such as to throw the emphasis on the word “sir”—the reply is “yes, sir” or “no, sir.” In passing, I may note that I have never heard an American waiter reply “yessir,” as our English waiters often do.

The American use of the word “quit” is peculiar. They do not limit the word, as we do, to the signification “take leave”—in fact, I have never heard an American use the word in that sense. They generally use it as equivalent to “leave off” or “stop.” (In passing, one may notice as rather strange the circumstance that the word “quit,” which properly means “to go away from,” and the word “stop,” which means to “stay,” should both have come to be used as signifying to “leave off.”) Thus, Americans say “quit fooling” for “leave off playing the fool,” “quit singing,” “quit laughing,” and so forth.

To English ears an American use of the word “some” sounds strange—viz., as an adverb. An American will say, “I think some of buying a new house,” or the like, for “I have some idea of buying,” etc. I have indeed heard the usage defended as perfectly correct, though assuredly there is not an instance in all the wide range of English literature which will justify it.

So also, many Americans defend as good English the use of the word “good” in such phrases as the following:—“I have written that note good,” for “well;” “it will make you feel good,” for “it will do you good;” and in other ways, all equally incorrect. Of course, there are instances in which adjectives are allowed by custom to be used as adverbs, as, for instance, “right” for “rightly,” etc.; but there can be no reason for substituting the adjective “good” in place of the adverb “well,” which is as short a word, and at least equally euphonious. The use of “real” for “really,” as “real angry,” “real nice,” is, of course, grammatically indefensible.

The word “sure” is often used for “surely” in a somewhat singular way, as in the following sentence from “Sketches beyond the Sea,” in which Mr. Wilkie is supposed to be quoting a remark made by an English policeman: “If policemen went to shooting in this country, there would be some hanging, sure; and not wholly among the classes that would be shot at, either.” (In passing, note that the word “either” is never pronounced eyether in America, but always eether, whereas in England we seem to use either pronunciation indifferently.)

An American seldom uses the word “stout” to signify “fat,” saying generally “fleshy.” Again, for our English word “hearty,” signifying “in very good health,” an American will sometimes employ the singularly inappropriate word “rugged.” (It corresponds pretty nearly with our word “rude”—equally inappropriate—in the expression “rude health.”)

The use of the word “elegant” for “fine” strikes English ears as strange. For instance, if you say to an American, “This is a fine morning,” he is likely to reply, “It is; an elegant morning,” or perhaps oftener by using simply the word “elegant.” It is not a pleasing use of the word.

There are some Americanisms which seem more than defensible—in fact, grammatically more correct than our English usage. Thus, we seldom hear in America the redundant word “got” in such expressions as “I have got,” etc., etc. Where the word would not be redundant, it is generally replaced by the more euphonious word “gotten,” now scarcely ever heard in England. Yet again, we often hear in America such expressions as “I shall get me a new book,” “I have gotten me a dress,” “I must buy me that,” and the like. This use of “me” for “myself” is good old English, at any rate.

I have been struck by the circumstance that neither the conventional, but generally very absurd, American of our English novelists, nor the conventional, but at least equally absurd, Englishman of American novelists, is made to employ the more delicate Americanisms or Anglicisms. We generally find the American “guessing” or “calculating,” if not even more coarsely Yankee, like Reade’s Joshua Fullalove; while the Englishman of American novels is almost always very coarsely British, even if he is not represented as using what Americans persist in regarding as the true “Henglish haccent.” Where an American is less coarsely drawn, as Trollope’s “American Senator,” he uses expressions which no American ever uses, and none of those Americanisms which, while more delicate, are in reality more characteristic, because they are common, all Americans using them. And in like manner, when an American writer introduces an Englishman of the more natural sort, he never makes him speak as an Englishman would speak; before half a dozen sentences have been uttered, he uses some expression which is purely American. Thus, no Englishman ever uses, and an American may be recognized at once by using, such expressions as “I know it,” or “That’s so,” for “It is true;” by saying “Why, certainly,” for “Certainly;” and so forth. There are many of these slight but characteristic peculiarities of American and English English.—“Knowledge” Library.