The American Language (Hardcover)

by H.L. Mencken (Author) "The first American colonist had perforce to invent Americanisms, if only to describe the unfamiliar landscape and weather, flora and fauna confronting them..." (more)
Key Phrases: oral errors, college slang, grammatical niceties, New York, United States, Dialect Notes (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The American Language, first published in 1919, is H. L. Mencken's book about the English language as spoken in the United States.

Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his favorite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United States.'" The book was preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" It would appear that he answered his own question.

In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend "Americanisms" against a steady stream of English critics, who usually isolated Americanisms as borderline barbarous perversions of the mother tongue. Mencken assaulted the prescriptive grammar of these critics and American "schoolmarms", arguing, like Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary, that language evolves independently of textbooks.

The book discusses the beginnings of "American" variations from "English", the spread of these variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colorful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart.

The book sold exceptionally well by Mencken's standards-1400 copies in the first two months. Reviews of the book praised it lavishly, with the exception of one by Mencken's old nemesis, Stuart Sherman.

source: Wikipedia

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 816 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 4th edition (1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394400755
• ISBN-13: 978-0394400754
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 2.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,390 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Word-Nerds come find your fodder., May 9, 2000

By	Jacob Blair (Portland, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

We all knew Mencken was a master of wit, but little did we know that his mastery of words could also be introspective to the language itself. As a linguistics major, I found this tome extremely interesting. If you want meticulous detail on the historyu and the divergence from the British English, snap this book up. If you're still not satisfied, hunt around for the appedices he wrote later in his life.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable for Language Lovers, September 8, 2006

By	Kenneth J. Atchity "Story Merchant" (Dappertutto) - See all my reviews

Whether you're wondering about given names or surnames,place names or euphemisms--or just the ageold rivalry between British and American English and your love of the language they sometimes share--this is a must-have reference book for professional storytellers by one of the greatest wits in either tradition.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The American Language, May 14, 2009

By	Gary Carson (Rolla, Missouri) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was wandering around in our local used book store when I found a fantastic three-volume hardback copy of the fourth edition of The American Language with both supplements for only $25.00. I'm a big Mencken fan and this looked like an incredible deal, so I bought the set to round off my collection, but I never thought I'd get into it much, unlike his other books. Ten million words on obscure American dialects and so on looked pretty dull, frankly, but I started to read parts of the thing and found myself getting completely absorbed. Mencken was a great writer, one of the last real journalists this country has seen, and I don't think he could have written a dull word even if he wanted to. I still haven't finished the main book here, much less the supplements, but if you like Mencken, you should check it out--and try to imagine one of our contemporary news babes writing something like this. Mencken was an incredibly prolific writer who never went to "Journalism School" and cranked out his stuff on a manual typewriter, which just goes to show that college degrees and word processors are no substitute for an actual, functioning brain.