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Webster toured the United States, convincing that "America must be asindependent in literature as she is in politics, as famous for arts as for arms”, and to accomplishthis she must protect the literary products of her countrymen by copyright. Webster also wrotehis vigorous Federalistic work Sketches of American Policy (1785). In Philadelphia, where hepaused briefly he published his politically effective An Examination into the Leading Principlesof the Federal Constitution (1787).In 1806, Webster published his first Dictionary, the next step in his program tostandardize the American language The following year, at the age of 43, Webster began writingan expanded and comprehensive dictionary, "An American Dictionary of the English Language",which took him twenty-seven years to complete.
To supplement the etymology of the words,Webster learned twenty-six languages, including old Anglo-Saxon and Sanskrit.He completed his two-volume Dictionary after returning fromEuropean tour andpublished it in 1828, when he was already 70. His book contained seventy thousand words andbecame the culmination of Webster’s efforts on Americanization of the English language.The dictionary was not sold well at Webster’s lifetime and to bring out his second editionWebster had to mortgage his house. On May 28, 1843, a few days after he had completedrevising an appendix to the second edition, Noah Webster died.in debt and poverty.Though not all Webster’s ventures were recognized at his time, his contribution in thecreation of American language is hard to overestimate.
His name became synonymous with theword “dictionary”, and. his works on linguistics had an enormous influence on Americanstandards of spelling and writing. By including thousands of technical and scientific terms,Webster laid the groundwork for modern lexicography and very many dictionaries published inthe USA still bear his name.Two Nations separated by the same languageOnce a famous Irish playwright Bernard Show said that America and England were twonations separated by the language. What are the main differences between British andAmerican English now?There are a few grammatical differences.UUTo begin with, some British irregular verbs (e.g. burn, learn, etc.) turned into regular ones inAmerica.
Past participle of get became gotten.Americans say “Do you have a car?” where British people would prefer to say: “Have you gota car?The auxiliary word shall is used more seldom, and model verb may in the meaning“permission” has been changed for can.So-called “bare infinitive” (without to) is used after help, insist, suggest, etc.: The doctorinsisted / suggested that the injured man be taken to hospital.Past Simple (not Present Perfect) is often used with modifiers just, already, yet:” I’m nothungry.
I just had lunch”. “Don’t forget to mail the letter. I already mailed it”.One may say that Americans tend to use articles more loosely than Englishmen. The definitearticle is often omitted in America after “all” in cases where it would be considered necessaryin English.
So Americans say “all day”, “all night”, “all morning”, “all week,” “allsummer”. A difference in the order of words may be noted in the use of the indefinite article.An American might say “a half dozen”or “a half hour”, whereas an Englishman would say“half a dozen”, “a half of an hour”.On the matter of prepositions there is some difference between English and American usage,too.
Thus Americans say: “the worst accident in (not for) years”, “five minutes after (notpast) three”, a quarter of three, the man on (not in) the street, on the train, (not in it). He isthe best player on the team (not in the team); to write someone (without to).American English also tends to coin and use more freely nouns compounded from a verb anda preposition, such as blowout, checkup, fallout, feedback, etc. New words are frequentlycreated by shifting the function of an existing word.
Nouns are used as verbs: to park, topackage, to program, to vacation, adjectives can become nouns: briefs, comics, reds .Punctuation-Use of commas and periods inside quotation marks;-Word order in date writing;-Business letter salutations, colons vs. commasThough British and American spelling is the same in most cases, it differs in a few detailsUUowing to N. Webster’s reforms. The British word reflection is written in America asreflexion,Centreascenter,Catalogueascatalog,Programmeasprogram,Organisation, analyseasorganization, analyze,Defence, licenceasdefense, license,Travelling, cancellingastraveling, canceling,Practiseaspractice.There are differences in the intonation and pronunciation in two languages. as well.American English intonation does not rise or fall as much as that of British English, it soundsmore monotonous.
American voices usually have a higher pitch. That is why AmericanEnglish often seems too emphatic and American voices seem louder than those of Britishspeakers.American pronunciation is more nasalized than English. There are certain differences in thepronunciation of both consonants and vowels: AE [ae] – BE [a:] in class, last, bath; [ju:] ispronounced like [u:] in such words as «tube», «duty», «new» that are after the initial t, d, n, s,and z. ^ instead of [ O ] e.g.
“hot” [h^t], “body’ [b^di], “college” [k^lidз]. American [r]unlike the British [r] is pronounced with no friction and the tip of the tongue is curledbackward.-American [L] is always dark (твердое)-[t] is often omitted after [n]: “twenty” [‘tweni]-Voiceless consonants become voiced in the intervocalic position , e.g. “better” [‘bedэ]Here are some other examples of these differences:Pronunciation in B.E.Pronunciation in A.E.Chance, last, past [‘tIa:ns, ‘la:st, ‘pa:st][ ‘chains, ‘laest, ‘paest]Duke, suit[ ‘du:k, ‘su:t ][‘dju:k, ‘sju:t }Doctor, stop, pot [‘dоkta, ][‘d^kt ,’st^p , ‘p^t]Butter, atom[‘b^tэ, ‘aetэm][‘ b^ dэ , ‘aedэ m]Plenty, twenti[‘plenti, ‘twenti][‘pleni, ‘tweni]Clerk[‘ klэ: k][k’la:k]Either, neither ( A.E.- [i:], B.E.- [ai]), advertisement (A.E.-[ai], B.E.-[э:]tomatoB.E.{a:},A.E.{ei}; process-B.E.{эu}, A.E.{a}; candidate(, A.E.[ei] B.E.[I]).It is necessary to keep in mind, that pronunciation and intonation may be different indifferent American dialects.
The major dialect areas, recognized in American English areEastern New England, Western or Middle American, and Southern Americans can easilyidentify a man as a New Englander or a Southerner after hearing him say a few words. Thereare people who believe that the New England variety is a truly cultural form of speech, andthere are many Southerners who are quite sure that their way of speaking is the Americanbest.The speech of New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont) is characterized bythe retention of rounded vowel in words like ”hot” and “path” and flat a.
The ConnecticutRiver is an important regional dialect boundary, separating the r-less dialect of Boston fromthe other regions. Southern dialect is characterized by the loss of r finally before theconsonants and by the unrounded vowel (as in father, grass, dance, path). Instead ofdiphthong [aw] southerners pronounce sound [a] house, South, out. Many speakers insertglide in Tuesday [tyua-] and make no distinction between vowels in pin/pen.
Final consonantcluster reduction occurs in words like last and kept (these are pronounced something like lassand kep). People in the southern states speak with a drawl - they tend to speak slowly andlengthen the last sound of each word. They use contracted Y’all for You all, expressions like“Howdy, y’all” for “Hello, everybody”. President Clinton, from Arkansas, had a southernaccent.In New York City, especially in the boroughs outside Manhattan, many people speak socalled New Yorkese.Speakers of New Yorkese often speak very fast and tend not topronounce “r” in words that end in “er”.
A word like “water’ sounds like “wata”. Thepresence or absence of “r” has become class marker. The pronunciation of curl as coil andbird as boid is characteristic of working-class speech.The language which teenagers often like to use is strongly influenced by popular musicand fashion.
The immediate examples: Yinz, yunz, you’uns (plural you): Hey yoy, gues; Mypeoples = my parents; I were = I was; I didn’ have no money; there ain’t no sense= there is nosense; got’em=got them; gimme=give me; I ain’t got= I haven’t got; oughtta=ought to; niggergal= black girl; Whaddaya think she’s talkin’ about? (What do you think she’s talkingabout?), wysi-wyg (what you see is what you get)Black American or Afro-American Speech has also some peculiarities.One theory holds that this variety of American English developed from so-called pidginEnglish – the language first used by black slaves of different African languages forced tocommunicate with each other and their owners.
Another view holds that Black English resultsfrom the retention of British English features that have not been retained in other varieties ofAmerican English.American VocabularyOne of the peculiarities of American English is the usage of a number of medievalEnglish words, which are no longer used in Britain today. When the earliest English colonistscame to America they were speaking English of the 17-th century.
The words fall (autumn),used by Shakespeare, and corn (which means in England any grain, e.g .wheat) are immediateexamples. Some old English words have developed new meanings. The very popular wordsheriff, which meant in England or Wales a person appointed by the King to carry outceremonial duties, and in Scotland the senior judge, in America is applied to the person whoobserves the law in the state. The word guy (a boy, or a man in A.E. in informal use) camefrom the name of one of the most popular villains in England Guy Fawkes who organizedGunpowder Plot against King James 1 in 1605.Here are a few examples of British and American words, meaning the same phenomenaor people:B.E.A.E.B.E.GovernmentAdministrationGoods trainfreight trainSecuritiesbondslabeltagBanknotebank billsome time agoa way backChairmanpresidentchildrenkidsManagerexecutivepostmailMinistersecretaryform(at school)gradeMilliardbilliontramstreet carLeadereditoriala tina canOffertendera billa checkGuaranteewarrantya carpeta rugTo run a businessto operate businessa cara automobileGoods trainfreight traina lorrya truckLabeltagtimetablescheduleBiscuitscookiesintervalintermissionSecondary schoolhigh schooltapfaucetBarristor/solicitorattorneysweetscandyWhen your flight deplanes (B.E.-disembarks) in America, you take carry-on (handbaggage), get a cart (trolley), stand in a line (queue) to receive your baggage (luggage) in theairport.
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