H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
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anonymous watchman of the North American Review who protested against to locate pronounced his anathema upon “such barbarous terms as presidential and congressional,” but the plain need for them kept them in the language. Gubernatorial had come in long before this, and is to be found in the New Jersey Archives of 1734. In-fluential was denounced by the Rev. Jonathan Boucher and by George Canning, who argued that influent was better, but it was ardently defended by William Pinkney, of Maryland, and gradually made its way. Handy, kinky, law-abiding, chunky, solid (in the sense of well-to-do), evincive, complected, judgmatical, underpinned, blooded and cute were also already secure in revolutionary days. So with many nouns. Jefferson used breadstuffs in his Report of the Secretary of State on Commercial Restrictions, December 16, 1793. Balance, in the sense of remainder, got into the debates of the First Congress. Mileage was used by Franklin in 1754, and is now sound English. Elevator, in the sense of a storage house for grain, was used by Jefferson and by others before him. Draw, for drawbridge, comes down from revolutionary days. So does slip, in the sense of a berth for vessels. So does addition, in the sense of a suburb. So, finally, does darkey.
The history of many of these Americanisms shows how vain is the effort of grammarians to combat the normal processes of language development. I have mentioned the early opposition to dutiable, influential, presidential, lengthy, to locate, to oppose, to advocate, to legislate, and to progress. Bogus, reliable and standpoint were attacked with the same academic ferocity. All of them are to be found in Bryant’s Index Expurgatorius30 (circa 1870), and reliable was denounced by Bishop Coxe as “that abominable barbarism” so late as 1886.31 Edward S. Gould, another uncompromising purist, said of standpoint that it was “the bright particular star … of solemn philological blundering” and “the very counterpart of Dogberry’s non-com.”32 Gould also protested against to jeopardize,
Note 30. Reprinted in Helpful Hints in Writing and Reading, comp. by Grenville Kleiser; New York, 1911, pp. 15-17. [back]
Note 31. A. Cleveland Coxe: Americanisms in England, Forum, Oct., 1886. [back]
Note 32. Edward S. Gould: Good English, or, Popular Errors in Language; New York, 1867, pp. 25-27. So recently as 1918 a reviewer denounced me for using it in a book and hinted that I had borrowed it from the German standpunkt. [back]
