‘No more he is!’ was the quick retort.
When the dialogue had reached this point, it being obvious not only that the two ladies were at cross-purposes, but that they were, in consequence, becoming a little heated, I deemed it advisable to interpose, and explain how their mutual misapprehension had arisen.
In connection with the phrase, ‘A man of talent,’ made use of by my countrywoman in the course of the above conversation, I may observe that ‘talent’ or ‘talented’ is an expression seldom heard from the lips of a native of New England. Lord Macaulay asserts that these words owe their origin to the ‘Parable of the Talents’ in the New Testament, and on one occasion he challenged Lady Holland to cite a single instance of their being employed by any English writer prior to the latter part of the seventeenth century. To the circumstance, therefore, that at the period when the Puritans left their native land to seek new homes in the New World, the words in question had not been incorporated into the language, may, I conceive, be attributed the fact that to this day they seldom have a place in the vocabulary of the inhabitants of the Eastern States.
When a word is already in existence which is fully adequate to express the idea it is employed to convey, it seems not a little curious that the use of it should be superseded by another, not, indeed, coined for the purpose, but by one divorced from its original meaning. Yet this has been the case in various instances in the United States. A place where goods are sold at retail is called a ‘store,’ not a shop, the use of the latter word being exclusively confined to those establishments in which some manufacturing or other mechanical industry is carried on. When ‘corn’ is spoken of, maize or Indian corn is always meant; all the other cereals being invariably designated by their respective names, as wheat, oats, barley, &c. Railway in America becomes ‘railroad;’ station, ‘depôt;’ line, ‘track;’ carriage, ‘car;’ whilst for tram, the phrase employed is ‘horse-car.’ A timber building is a ‘frame-building;’ a row of houses is a ‘block’ of houses. For poorhouse or workhouse, the expression used is ‘almshouse.’ When the idea intended to be conveyed is that which an Englishman attaches to the latter phrase, the word ‘asylum’ or ‘home’ is used by an American.
In fact, a list which should comprise all the words employed by our transatlantic cousins in a different sense from ourselves would be a tolerably long one. But the desultory examples I have given will suffice to illustrate the fact—to which I have already adverted—that in numerous instances, and without any apparent cause, many common English words have acquired in the United States a totally different meaning from that which they bear in this country.
A GOLDEN ARGOSY.
A NOVELETTE.
CHAPTER IX.
It was nearly ten o’clock on the following morning before Edgar reached the Bedford, Covent Garden. He found the American in his private room waiting his arrival, and clad in a loose dressing-gown, which made him look extra tall and thin—a wonderful garment, embracing every known hue and colour, and strongly resembling, save as to its garishness, a Canadian wood in the fall. Mr Slimm laid aside a disreputable brier he was smoking, as soon as he perceived his visitor. ‘Morning!’ he said briskly. ‘Tolerably punctual. Hope you don’t object to the smell of tobacco so early?’
‘I don’t know,’ Edgar replied, throwing himself down in a chair. ‘Like most well-regulated Britons, I cannot say I am partial to the smell of tobacco before breakfast.’