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H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.

Page 220

and make the word rhyme with lark; in the United States it rhymes with lurk. Finally, there is lieutenant. The Englishman pronounces the first syllable left; the American invariably makes it loot. White says that the prevailing American pronunciation is relatively recent. “I never heard it,” he reports, “in my boyhood.”  32 He was born in New York in 1821.