To be distinguished from the cases of duality or plurality of standard are those of complexity of standard. A portion of a linguistic area, which recognises in general outlines, or in the most essential characteristics, the common standard of the whole, may develop inside these limits a secondary standard of its own, which, in its turn, asserts itself as a unifying influence above the disparities of the popular dialects. Such is the status of the American-English, if indeed it be admitted that there be any American standard at all. The wide disagreement upon this latter much-mooted question arises largely from a failure to recognise what the true nature of a standard in language is. In the light of the preceding discussion, and by the help of the abundant available material, it cannot be difficult to reach some consistent solution of this question.
The attitude of the extremists on the one side is well represented by the dictum of Richard Grant White:[220] ‘In language whatever is peculiarly American is bad.’ In other words, the absolute test of correctness is the English standard, which is notably the usage of the educated classes in the great centre of English life. It must, however, be remarked, at the beginning of any discussion of this sort, that the question concerns not what ought to be or might best be, but what is the fact. If it be actually the fact that any considerable body of men, whose usage, be it through respect for their culture, their intelligence, or their position, or for any other reason, commands the deference of the great mass of American speakers and writers, follows so loyally the English standard as to regard as bad in language all that is peculiarly American, then it is the fact that there is no such thing as an American standard in language. There is, then, only one standard English speech, and that the standard of London.
There exists, however, in America no educated or cultured class in the English sense. The educated stand nearer the people than in England. The children of the better classes are, furthermore, not so easily isolated from the influence of the dialect of their locality as in England. Certainly there exists in general no class with which the popular mind associates the idea of authority in matters of speech, nor whose speech is respected or admired as correct. The class of men most likely to be imitated and most likely to exercise an unconscious influence upon the usages of society is the intelligent mercantile class, but this is not a permanent or well-defined body. Certainly it is not a body likely to follow puristically a foreign standard of speech.
It is in part this absence of a homogeneous usage among the more intelligent and influential classes, such as undoubtedly exists in England, that occasions the apparently immoderate use of dictionaries in America as standards of orthoëpy. So various is the usage in the pronunciation even of many common words, like quinine, courteous, envelope, tribune, route, suite, wound, that the ear in its confusion of impressions fails to decide definitely, and recourse must be had to the dictionaries. It is most frequently in cases of doubt like these that appeal is made to the greater certainty of the English standard. It plays the part of a convenient arbiter. This differs entirely in principle from an attempt, for example, to introduce the totally non-American pronunciation of trait with silent t final, or of bureau with accent on the second syllable.
No single district or city in America ever has been or can be generally recognised as furnishing a standard of speech. Washington is in no such sense the capital of the United States as Paris is of France; New York is not a metropolis in the sense that London is. Eastern Massachusetts, with its chief city Boston, enjoys a certain preëminence in the superior education and intelligence of its people; but its local idiom, like the general spirit of its population, is too strongly provincial to attract any imitation. In fact, nowhere in the United States have the schools and all their adjuncts made more vigorous efforts to root out the popular dialect, and nowhere does the English standard receive so full recognition. The situation furnishes a tolerably exact parallel to the rigidity of Hanoverian German, an imported standard on Low German soil, and constitutes a further illustration of the well-known orthodoxy of recent converts. The schools of Boston teach the ultra-English pronunciation of been as bīn, while the native dialect has běn, and the American κοινή has extended to general use the secondary form bĭn.[221]
The stage is not yet in a position to exercise any marked influence upon the language, to say nothing of furnishing a standard. The influence of the pulpit is probably greater.
But though neither the stage, an educated class, nor any given locality has availed to vindicate for itself the right of establishing a standard, it is an incontrovertible fact that, within certain limits and to a certain extent, an American standard of English does exist. There is a great number of words, of word usages, of pronunciations, of phrases, and of syntactical constructions, which have, though not recognised in English usage, a universal and well-accepted currency among the best writers and speakers of America, and rise entirely above all suspicion of provincialism. To avoid or rebuke them, or to attempt the substitution of pure English words or expressions would be only an ostentatious purism unsupported by the facts of society and the necessities of language, and would expose the would-be corrector even to ridicule and to the reproach of alienism. As has already been remarked, we are not concerned in a case like this with the ideally desirable, but solely with the existing fact. On no other basis can the existence of a standard be determined. If, for example, any one should, in deference to English usage, assume to correct an established and universally accepted American expression like railroad car, which a well-known poet[222] has thought worthy a place in serious verse, into its foreign equivalent railway carriage, it would be generally regarded as an odious affectation. The relatively few Americans who, without any sufficient reason, but in a spirit of undisguised and helpless imitation, affect to adopt English manners, usages, and dress, are as a class notably unpopular with the mass of Americans, and, as unpopular, are uninfluential. What is true of their other usages, would be in like degree of their language.
To illustrate from the vocabulary alone, there is a large and constantly increasing body of non-English words, which are used in all sections of the country, which are shunned by no class of writers or speakers, but which are universally used and esteemed as sound and normal expressions. Such are lengthy, to donate, to loan, to gerrymander, dutiable, gubernatorial, senatorial, bogus, shoddy, mailable; these are slowly penetrating into the English of England, and the path of such words is rendered plainer by their previous adoption in the British Colonies, whose linguistic history is so akin to that of America. Many words of this kind are of French, Spanish, Dutch, or Indian origin, but have been so thoroughly assimilated into the language by usage as to rank entirely with the purest English element; thus levee, crevasse, prairie, canyon, ranch, stampede, to stampede, corral, boss, stoop, squaw, wigwam, hickory, racoon, moccasin, hammock, canoe, toboggan, hominy, opossum, terrapin.
In determining the existence of a standard and what may belong to that standard, we are in no wise concerned with the origin of words or expressions. It is not a question of origin, but a question of usage and of ‘good form.’ The observation that to guess, in its sense of ‘opinari,’ is found in Chaucer and Gower, contributes nothing to either side of the discussion whether there is or is not an American standard. The only question is whether guess, ‘opinari,’ is in universal and accepted American use. The fact is, that, though in widely extended use, it still remains dialectic, and is not a feature of the standard. The word fall for autumn may in isolated instances be found in English writers, and is undoubtedly with some meaning or other a good old English word, but the fact is, that, as a substitute for autumn, it is not ‘good form’ in England, and is in America. Spry, ‘active, nimble,’ is an ‘Americanism,’ because, though found in the English dialects, it is a standard word only in America. The American use of sick, in retaining the old English value now expressed by the modern English ill, vindicates rather than controverts the existence of a separate standard. Differences in the uses of words common to the two types are illustrated by the following: lumber, in English, ‘cumbersome material;’ in American, equivalent also to English timber: tiresome, in English, ‘dull, annoying;’ in American, ‘fatiguing,’ as ‘a tiresome day:’ to fix, in English (and sometimes also in American), ‘to fasten;’ in American, ‘to repair,’ ‘to arrange:’ corn, in English, ‘grain;’ in American, ‘maize:’ transpire, in English, ‘to exhale,’ ‘to become public;’ in American, ‘to occur:’ bright, in English, (of persons) ‘cheerful;’ in American, ‘quick of intellect.’ Cases in which the two standards use different words for the same idea or object are, Amer. piazza, Eng. verandah; Amer. bureau, Eng. dressing-table; Amer. elevator, Eng. lift; Amer. sleigh, Eng. sledge; Amer. trunk, Eng. box; Amer. store, Eng. shop; Amer. public schools, Eng. national schools; Amer. academies, Eng. public schools; Amer. to graduate, Eng. to take a degree; Amer. student, Eng. undergraduate; Amer. druggist, Eng. chemist. Amer. mush, Eng. porridge; Amer. biscuit, Eng. roll; Amer. cracker, Eng. biscuit; Amer. candy, or confectionery, Eng. sweets; Amer. pitcher, Eng. jug; Amer. tidy, Eng. antimacassar; Amer. postal, or postal-card, Eng. post-card; Amer. city, Eng. town; Amer. fall, Eng. autumn; Amer. sick, Eng. ill; Amer. rare (of meat), Eng. underdone; Amer. smart, Eng. clever. Many articles of clothing, especially men’s clothing, have different names. Thus, Amer. vest, Eng. waistcoat; Amer. sack-coat, Eng. jacket; Amer. pants, Eng. trousers; Amer. drawers, Eng. pants; Amer. underwear, Eng. underclothing; Amer. waist, Eng. body, bodice; etc., etc.
Especially instructive it is to note how special activities, particularly those of more modern development, have found themselves in England and America separate vocabularies. Let us take for illustration the language of railways and railway travel: compare Amer. locomotive, Eng. engine (also American); Amer. engineer, Eng. driver; Amer. fireman, Eng. stoker (limited in America to steamships); Amer. conductor, Eng. guard; Amer. baggage-car, Eng. van; Amer. railroad, Eng. railway; Amer. car, Eng. carriage; Amer. cars (as ‘to get off the cars’), Eng. train (also American); Amer. track, Eng. line; Amer. to switch, Eng. to shunt; Amer. switch, Eng. point; Amer. to buy one’s ticket (not unknown in England), Eng. to book; Amer. freight-train, Eng. goods-train; Amer. depot (pronounced de̅e̅´po), Eng. station (gaining ground in America); Amer. baggage, Eng. luggage; Amer. trunk, Eng. box; Amer. to check, Eng. to register; Amer. horse-car, Eng. tram or tram-car; Amer. horse-car track, Eng. tramway. The Americans adhere to a nautical figure, and speak of ‘getting aboard the cars.’