AMERICAN ENGLISH

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 27

AMERICAN ENGLISH

Americans add to the English language in four ways, says Mitford M. Matthews, assistant editor of the Historical Dictionary of American English, a monumental . compilation of words in use in the country before 1900. The four methods, Dr. Matthews said, are borrowing self-evident compounding, twisting the meaning of old words, and' creating new ones. "We borrow everywhere," he said. "We.i have picked up' such words as 'shanty' from the French, 'cookie' and 'cruller' frbni the Danes,-'sombrero' and 'mustang' from the Spanish, and 'wigwam. arid'- 'tomahawk' ". from the Indians." ' "Cowcatcher" demonstrates a self-evident. compound/ which he said meant / the combination of two old words .to make . one with a meaning foreign to both. Incidentally, he said, .the word still is a stranger to, England, where the. trains' have no cowcatchers. The sports writer's use of "steal" and the general interpretation of "clever" were cited as words- having been twisted into new meanings. "Electro-! cution," "hydrant," and "spittoon" are examples of words made, up by Americans to-meet needs. "Electrocution" might easily have been described by any of numerous other words, Dr. Matthews said, because - when the execution method was new in the early nineties a request for a name was broadcast. Among the suggestions were "keraunokting," "elektrostohany," "fulmenicide," "blitsentod," and "galvanify." A conscientious etymologist grimaces even at "electrocute," he said, because it is a mixture of Latin and Greek. " - .