But there is one word which we must surrender up to the Americans as their very own, as the children say. I will quote a passage from one of their papers:—
“The editor of the Philadelphia Gazette is wrong in calling absquatiated a Kentucky phrase (he may well say phrase instead of word.) It may prevail there, but its origin was in South Carolina, where it was a few years since regularly derived from the Latin, as we can prove from undoubted authority. By the way, there is a little corruption is the word as the Gazette uses it, absquatalized is the true reading.”
Certainly a word worth quarrelling about!
“Are you cold, miss?” said I to a young lady, who pulled the shawl closer over her shoulders.
“Some,” was the reply.
The English what? implying that you did not hear what was said to you, is changed in America to the word how?
“I reckon,” “I calculate,” “I guess,” are all used as the common English phrase, “I suppose.” Each term is said to be peculiar to different states, but I found them used everywhere, one as often as the other. I opine, is not so common.
A specimen of Yankee dialect and conversation:—
“Well now, I’ll tell you—you know Marble Head?”
“Guess I do.”