H. L. Mencken (1880–1956)

I read the 1936 4th edition, last reprinted in 1974. I note that the price in pencil is marked down to $5.98 and my address is written in it from 1977, so I bought it used. The book has been on various shelves in four states since then. It took a Coronavirus pandemic to get me to look at it, and I ended up reading it through. If you’re interested in the difference between English in England vs the US, in the history of the development of American English, in the origin of American surnames, in American place names, in American slang, or in the historical development of any of these things, I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t enjoy this detailed work.

If you are of a sensitive nature, you might be offended by Mencken’s well-known bigotry, but he does not display it openly here. It is just occasionally slightly exposed. You might not even notice it unless you are an American of non-English ancestry.

Of some interest were:
Mencken explains the difference between the meaning of the expression to jew someone in the US and England on p. 124 (Who knew?).

There is a list of Americanisms that derive from commercial products. Some are surprising and some that anyone would have known in 1936 have disappeared, e.g. uneeda.

There is a list of common short words that were selected and used by newspaper editors for their headlines that sometimes popularized the word, e.g.

Ace. In the sense of expert or champion it came in during the World War. It has since been extended to mean any person who shows any ponderable proficiency in whatever he undertakes to do…
Blast. It has quite displaced explosion in headlines…
Car. It is rapidly displacing all the older synonyms for automobile, including even auto….

He discusses the creation of American verbs in various ways, e.g. to phone … to tiptoe (for to walk tiptoe) … to reminisce … to orate … to author, and others using -ize and a proper name which are now almost lost to us, e.g. to hooverize (introduced in 1917 and included in Webster’s New International Dictionary in 1934) and to oslerize appearing after a famous oration by Dr. William Osler in 1905.

Along with other true or pseudo-abbreviations Mencken mentions the American expression O.K., which he comments was already used internationally in 1936, and he discusses its various false origin histories.

There is an extensive discussion of the differences between American and English school terminology that I found useful since I never understand what it means if a character in a novel is in their third standard, or what the differences are among an usher, a master, a pro-chancellor, or a high steward.

Various American vs English euphemisms are mentioned including nerts that I mostly see in old comic strips, but was apparently very widely used in 1936. He mentions some odd euphemisms that have been used in newspapers where gonorrhea, syphilis, venereal, and even virgin were prohibited. In 1933 the new treatment of giving a patient malaria to treat tertiary syphilis was invented (the fever is beneficial; the inventor won the Nobel prize in Medicine). The New York Times spoke of it only as a dread form of insanity caused by a blood disease. Mencken tells us that in Appalachia and the Ozarks certain common words were avoided in every-day speech regardless of context. Examples include bed, tail and leg!

There is an interesting discussion of various expletives and the history of their development, e.g. hell and, in England, bloody.

In a fantastic discovery (!), I learned that the word insignia is, in Latin, the plural of insigne, and that it was formerly considered inappropriate to use insignia as a singular noun, much as some decry data or criteria as a singular.… (mehr)

I have read this book off and on for a decade i suppose. A topical selection of his newspaper columns- arranged by Presidents, food, music, Scopes trial, Baltimore miscellany and so forth. Consistently great, if cranky reading. Has great charm in the 1st draft of history way - that is about Harding and Coolidge and Hoover and Roosevelt before they had established their reputation (none of that inevitability of history that retrospective history books necessarily use). Cranky, but light hearted - he often strikes me as a man who is paid for his opinion and even if he doesn't have a strong opinion will devolve on one - immediately - to serve his purpose (the writing of the article). Fair enough. Great writer- one wonders how he was so popular when he is insulting his readers almost constantly. I know we all see ourselves as part of the rarefied group - with Mencken, of course- who see through bunk and rise above the rabble he so disparages.… (mehr)