Our American Cousins and their Lingo Part 3

This four-part posting is a more or less word-for-word version of a talk that was given on two relatively unacademic occasions, in July 1989 and (in a revised version) May 1990. It was written partly to entertain American visitors and partly to demonstrate the hitherto undreamt-of possibilities of searching the OED (OED2) electronically. It is now posted in response to a request. There are a few biographical and lexicographical inserts not in the original talk. The examples, searches, and numbers have not been corrected with reference either to OED Online (OED3) or to the vast range of other online resources which were not then available. Some of the opinions advanced might well be revised after 27 years.

Part 3 — Our American Cousins: British attitudes to American expressions

This part of the paper is based on a search of the OED2 database.

You will have noticed that several of the quotations in Part 2 didn’t simply refer to Americans or their activities in general; they referred specifically to the way Americans talk, or are thought to talk.

Notice especially the later quotations in Part 2, 1888 for THIN and 1890 for MAKE.

The apology is a very lame one—what our American cousins call ‘thin’. 

Suppose..that I am a man, as our American cousins say, ‘on the make’—suppose that I have parliamentary ambitions.

They effectively say ‘I would never normally use an Americanism but it’s good enough for being abusive’.

This led me to search the OED database for other examples of similar expressions, not using our American cousins but doing a similar job. Here’s a list of the phrases searched:

What / as our American friends call / say	4
What Americans call / have called / would call / term / style	15
Which Americans have taken to using / call	2
As Americans would say / call / put it	14
Transatlantic	16
Termed in America	6
The Yankees: as / what ~ call / say	13
What the Americans call / term	45
Americans..as they call it	1
As the Americans…	45
Total	161

Looking at the gap between the word’s first appearance in the US and the first British comment, apart from the 31 cases where the British comment is the first use, the average gap, both for ones now assimilated into the common core and those not assimilated is 30 years. If you add in those of the ‘first use’ cases that are now assimilated the gap comes down to 25 years.

General breakdown

A Of US origin but not now felt to be US (33), average gap 30 years

B still felt to be US (24) average 29 years

C asserted to be US but not (10)

D assertion of US origin is the first or only quotation (like canoodle) (31)

E more complicated cases (7)

F terms limited to specific US use (8)

G rare, obsolete, historical terms still not felt to be British (23)

Detailed breakdown

A. Of US origin, but not now felt to be US (subjective judgement)

Lexical item	Gap in years
Drinking problem	12
Lengthy	53
Cereal	10
A hunch	34
The limit	3
Stunts	31
Trouble shooter	35
Leaning over backward	27
Bogus	27
Take the back seat	20
Progressing	40
Eventuated	46
Made good	7
Indignation meeting	40
Contacts (= people one gets in contact with)	0 (= 1st US)
Cussedness	22
Hung jury	114
Junkets (= free trips)	87
Lynch law	28
A mixer (drink)	23
Nitty-gritty	5
Slush	27
Table-manners	37
On the ball	49
Concede (election)	84
Materialize	13
Run (by)	27
Tony (adj.)	9
To contact	9
Deadpan	14
Debunking	4
Sneak previews	1
Squatter	46
Total	33
Average gap in years	30

B. Familiar terms, still felt by British speakers to be US (where sufficiently familiar)

Lexical item	Gap in years
A lead-pipe cinch	28
A line (= a queue)	unclear
Caught with one’s pants down	26
Humdinger	21
Strictly for the birds	7
Cute	66
Dearjohn	12
Soft-shell	20
Rocks (= ice)	6
How the cookie crumbles	7
End run	50
Fixings	44
No, sir	76
Trailer	40
Go-fer	5
The big drink	40
To major	34
Right now	35
With a punch	3
Leveraged buy-out	4
Quite a place	7
To reach (REACH v.1 12f: jump to a conclusion)	13
Ranking member	107
Up a tree	14
Total	24
Average	28

C. Not of US origin, according to OED2, but asserted to be so in quotation

Lexical item	First date in OED2
A good time of it	1863
Servicing industries	1930
Chintz / chinch (= flea)	1851
Thusness	1888
Demagogism	1824
Optimization	1961
Cold war	1948
We had to do it	1831
Hitchlessly	1958
Researched (of a book)	1965
Total	10

D. Where the quotation asserting US origin is the first or only quotation

Lexical item	Date
Palimony	1979
Rooming house	1893
Therologist	1877
Brooder	1880
One-eyed (town)	1871
Spoiling for a fight	1865
Trouble (= festivities)	1884
A chestnut	1887
Fact-sheet	1959
Facultized	1872
Frame (= thin animal)	1880
Gimme Girl	1928
glued-up (drama)	1906
House caucuses	1888
A Mr Fixit	1967
Trouble-men	1889
Try it on a dog	1890
A whale of a good time	1913
On the back burner	1963
Go-ahead (adj.)	1840
Ingrain carpets	1836
Knife-pleats	1891
A liquor-up	1872
A trifle previous	1885
South-west Asia	1980
Spell weather	1868
Spillway	1889
Teener	1894
Approaching bid	1926
Mezzo-brow	1925
Protection racket	1937
Total	31

E. More complicated cases

A spanking*	1868	vulgar / dialect	not felt to be US
Chores	1934	dialect or U.S.	not felt to be US
Wilted	1779	dialect, reintroduced from U.S.
Rare (of meat)	1861	e19c Brit, l19c US	felt to be US
Sick to my stomach	1947	not US in 19c	felt to be US
I guess	1814/1826	not originally US	now felt to be US
Something awful	1834	Not labelled US, but 1st quot. US	not felt to be US

*1868 in Sat. Rev. (1869) 30 Jan., I gave her what some American friends call ‘a spanking’, sharp, short and effectual. 1885 G. A. Sala Let. in Queen 26 Sept. 307/3 The American lady doctor‥suggested ‘spanking’ all round as a cure for the evil.

F. Terms limited to specifically US fauna, institutions, etc.

Tariff reform

Flexographic

Hopperdozer

Jumbo (= lifting gear)

Coyote getter

Home run

Barber (= cold wind)

Stump oratory

Total: 8

G. Rare, obsolete, historical terms that would still be felt to be alien or nonstandard, and are of US origin

Humanics

Cop a plea

Gumming

Hen-fruit

A ‘caution’

Slantindicular

Tall talk

A jump off

Notions

Alundum

Check-off (Can.)

Claw-hammer coat

Dink

Freezing to him

Get (= move fast)

Knickerbockers

Agony piled high

The plug

Keep myself ‘posted up’

Calicoes

Morcelization

Association books

Massification

Total: 23

Let’s now consider who some of the commentators are. The noticers and borrowers include some prominent names from Byron to H. G. Wells and of course Winston Churchill. So for example:

1812 Southey in Q. Rev. VIII. 320 That, to borrow a trans-atlantic term, may truly be called a lengthy work.

1827 Scott Chronicles of the Canongate Introd. Ii, The style of my grandsire..was rather lengthy, as our American friends say.

1831 Scott Jrnl. Progressing, as the transatlantics say.

1814 Byron Diary ‘I guess now’ (as the Yankees say).

1826 Scott Jrnl. I guess (as Mathews makes his Yankees say).

1969 E. Ambler Intercom Conspiracy (1970) ii. 46 He has what our American friends call a drinking problem. Not an alcoholic, but certainly a heavy drinker.

What does this show?

We need to be careful with the evidence: OED editors would be expected to be seeking out references to US English. But nonetheless there is a notable dearth of US quotations referring to British usage.

1. A process of borrowing and highly successful assimilation of US expressions into British English
2. British writers have been very aware of US language at all times.
3. Ambivalence about whether to make use of the lexical wealth of the nouveau-riche self-made cousin (see more below)
4. They sometimes got it wrong!

We don’t seem to find a reciprocal awareness across the Atlantic. Searching OED2 for the following phrases produced some results but none showing Americans describing British locutions:

What the British

What British

Which the British

What in England

As the British

Our British

Termed in British

In Britain near called

Britisher

Here’s one example of Americans’ ideas of British usage:

1975 L. Trilling in Times Lit. Suppl. (1976) 5 Mar. 250/4 Was she [sc. Jane Austen] perhaps to be thought of as nothing more than a good read?‥ Now that we have before us that British locution, which Americans have lately taken to using, the question might be asked why the phrase should have come to express so much force of irony and condescension.

But in fact this expression was well established in America and used, e.g. by Lowell:

1870 Lowell Stud. Wind. 39 A good solid read‥into the small hours.

So perhaps American awareness and adoption of Briticisms is at altogether a lower pitch?