The definitive edition of The American Language was published in 1936. Since then it has been recognized as a classic. It is that rarest of literary accomplishments–a book that is authoritative and scientific and is at the same time very diverting reading. But after 1936 HLM continued to gather new materials diligently. In 1945 those which related to the first six chapters of The American Language were presented as Supplement 1, and the present volume contains those new materials which relate to the following chapters:
1. The Two Streams of English. The earliest alarms. The English attack. American "barbarisms." The English attitude today. The position of the learned. The views of writing men. The political front. Foreign observers.
2. The Materials of Inquiry. The hallmarks of American. What is an Americanism?
3. The Beginnings of American. The first loan-words. New words of English material. Changed meanings. Archaic English words.
4. The Period of Growth. A new nation in the making. The expanding vocabulary. Loan-words and non-English influences.
5. The Language Today. After the Civil War. The making of new nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech. Foreign influences today.
6. American and English. The infiltration of English by Americanisms. Surviving differences. English difficulties with American. Briticisms in the United States. Honorifics, euphemisms, forbidden words, and expletives.
Although the text of Supplement I is related to that of THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, it is an independent work that may be read profitably by persons who do not know either The American Language or Supplement II.
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