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    Americanisms 140709112445 Phpapp02

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    Americanisms emerged due to Noah Webster's advocacy for establishing a distinct American standard of English in the late 18th century. Throughout the 19th century, thousands of new words entered the American vocabulary from sources like Spanish and Native American languages. These included words for concepts relating to the American West like cattle, ranches, and six shooters. Webster's spelling reforms proposed in his Blue-Backed Speller of 1806 helped establish spellings that are now standard in American English but different from British English, such as dropping u's and replacing letters. Today there are many phrases and words used primarily in American English relating to areas like timekeeping, transportation, birthdays, and informal speech. There is debate around whether Americanisms

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    Americanisms 140709112445 Phpapp02

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    sohrab
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    Americanisms emerged due to Noah Webster's advocacy for establishing a distinct American standard of English in the late 18th century. Throughout the 19th century, thousands of new words entered the American vocabulary from sources like Spanish and Native American languages. These included words for concepts relating to the American West like cattle, ranches, and six shooters. Webster's spelling reforms proposed in his Blue-Backed Speller of 1806 helped establish spellings that are now standard in American English but different from British English, such as dropping u's and replacing letters. Today there are many phrases and words used primarily in American English relating to areas like timekeeping, transportation, birthdays, and informal speech. There is debate around whether Americanisms

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    Americanisms emerged due to Noah Webster's advocacy for establishing a distinct American standard of English in the late 18th century. Throughout the 19th century, thousands of new words entered the American vocabulary from sources like Spanish and Native American languages. These included words for concepts relating to the American West like cattle, ranches, and six shooters. Webster's spelling reforms proposed in his Blue-Backed Speller of 1806 helped establish spellings that are now standard in American English but different from British English, such as dropping u's and replacing letters. Today there are many phrases and words used primarily in American English relating to areas like timekeeping, transportation, birthdays, and informal speech. There is debate around whether Americanisms

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    95 views13 pages

    Americanisms 140709112445 Phpapp02

    Uploaded by

    sohrab
    Americanisms emerged due to Noah Webster's advocacy for establishing a distinct American standard of English in the late 18th century. Throughout the 19th century, thousands of new words entered the American vocabulary from sources like Spanish and Native American languages. These included words for concepts relating to the American West like cattle, ranches, and six shooters. Webster's spelling reforms proposed in his Blue-Backed Speller of 1806 helped establish spellings that are now standard in American English but different from British English, such as dropping u's and replacing letters. Today there are many phrases and words used primarily in American English relating to areas like timekeeping, transportation, birthdays, and informal speech. There is debate around whether Americanisms

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    Americanisms

    What they are, why they


    emerged and what we think
    about them
    What are Americanisms?
     English words or phrases-or a feature of
    grammar, spelling, or pronunciation-that
    originated in the United States and/or are
    used primarily by Americans.
    Why did they emerge? - 1
     Noah Webster’s ‘Dissertations on the English
    Language’ (1789)

     Stated that an “American standard” needed to


    be established

     Spelling reform – but not too radical (“No


    great change should be made at once”)
    Why did they emerge? - 2
     Webster’s ‘A Compendious Dictionary of the
    English Language’ (1806) contained 28,000
    words
     Attack on Johnson’s dictionary, e.g. on its
    difficult words, vulgarisms etc.
     Some were suspicious of recommended
    spellings and pronunciations, e.g. why does
    actor have no “u”, but flavour does?
    Why did they emerge? - 3
     Throughout America in the 19th century,
    thousands of new words were being coined

     But the new words weren’t reaching a wide


    public
    New American vocabulary
     19th century new vocab came from many
    sources, e.g. Spanish and native
    American words

     New vocab included: cattle town, chaps,


    dude, lasso, ranch, range, roundup and
    six shooter
    Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller
     First published in 783 but had revisions, e.g.
    in 1804 and 1806.
     1804 version contained proposals, e.g.
     Deleting ‘u’ from words ending in ‘-our’ e.g.
    favor
     Deleting ‘k’ from words ending in ‘ick’ e.g.
    music
     Replacing –re with –er, e.g. theater
     Replacing –ce with –se, e.g. defense
     Dropping the final ‘e’, e.g. examin, definit
     Dropping silent letters, e.g. fether
    Examples today - 1
     24/7 instead of 24 hours, 7 days a week
     “We’re going to deplane soon” (i.e. getting off
    an aircraft)
     “It is what it is.”
     “Transportation” – why not just transport?
     Birthdays – “turning” 21, 40 etc.
     “gotten”
     “take-out” – why not take-away?
    Examples today - 2
     “my bad” after you make a mistake
     “Math” – instead of Maths
     “regular” instead of “medium”
     “Period” instead of full stop
     “Season” for a TV series
     “Issue” instead of “problem”
     “Turn that off already”
    Examples today - 3
     “color” instead of “colour”, etc – wasting time
    spell checking on Word.
    • Are Americanisms taking over the
    British language?

    •Who decides what is “good” or


    “correct” English when the way it
    is spoken differs from country to
    country?
    An example I
    found….
    Video

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