Produced by Bruce Albrecht, RichardW and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Original spelling and grammar has mostly been retained. Many inconsistencies in the use of hyphens and character accents have been retained; many of these were probably intentional. Footnotes were moved to the ends of chapters. The original pagination of this 1919 edition is shown in square brackets, e.g. [Pg009]. There are an awful lot of italics in this book. In this text version, /italics are marked with the solidus/. Text that was originally small caps is shown in uppercase.
In this even simpler Latin-1 text version, the oe ligature character U+0153 is shown as [oe]. Latin small e with breve U+0115 is shown as [)e]; Latin small a with macron U+0101 as [=a]; Latin small e with macron U+0113 as [=e].
Further details are provided in the TRANSCRIBER'S ENDNOTE.
OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK FIFTEEN HUNDRED COPIES HAVE BEEN PRINTED AND THE TYPE DISTRIBUTED THIS IS NUMBER 1434
/A Preliminary Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States/
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
The aim of this book is best exhibited by describing its origin. I am, and have been since early manhood, an editor of newspapers, magazines and books, and a critic of the last named. These occupations have forced me into a pretty wide familiarity with current literature, both periodical and within covers, and in particular into a familiarity with the current literature of England and America. It was part of my daily work, for a good many years, to read the principal English newspapers and reviews; it has been part of my work, all the time, to read the more important English novels, essays, poetry and criticism. An American born and bred, I early noted, as everyone else in like case must note, certain salient differences between the English of England and the English of America as practically spoken and written--differences in vocabulary, in syntax, in the shades and habits of idiom, and even, coming to the common speech, in grammar. And I noted too, of course, partly during visits to England but more largely by a somewhat wide and intimate intercourse with English people in the United States, the obvious differences between English and American pronunciation and intonation.