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.
