Description
Book SynopsisThe story of how English became American -- and how it became Southern, Bostonian, Californian, African-American, Chicano, elite, working-class, urban, rural, and everything in between By the time of the Revolution, the English that Americans spoke was recognizably different from the British variety. Americans added dozens of new words to the language, either borrowed from Native Americans (raccoon, persimmon, caucus) or created from repurposed English (backwoods, cane brake, salt lick). Americans had their own pronunciations (bath rhymed with hat, not hot) and their own spelling (honor, not honour), not to mention a host of new expressions that grew out of the American landscape and culture (blaze a trail, back track, pull up stakes). Americans even invented their own slang, like stiff as a ringbolt to mean drunk. American English has continued to grow and change ever since. The United States of English tells the engrossing tale of how the American language evolved over four hundred y
Trade ReviewFrom a rich body of literature, Ostler mines material for this special history of the United States with the stories and reasons for creating the uniquely American language. * Robert S. Davis, New York Journal of Books *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: The Beginnings of American English Chapter 2: Early Regional Dialects Chapter 3: Building the Vocabulary Chapter 4: American Grammar and Usage Chapter 5: The Spread of Regional Speech Chapter 6: Ethnic Dialects Chapter 7: Language Innovation outside the Mainstream Chapter 8: The Social Life of American English Chapter 9: American English Today Afterword: American English Tomorrow Appendix: American Vowels Endnotes Select Bibliography
