Author: Gale, Cengage Learning
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
ISBN: 1410339793
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Author: Cengage Learning Gale
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781375389617
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
A Study Guide for H. L. Mencken's "The American Language," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Nonfiction Classics for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Nonfiction Classics for Students for all of your research needs.

Author: H.L. Mencken
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307808793
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 817

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Book Description
The American Language, first published in 1919, is H. L. Mencken's book about the English language as spoken in the United States. Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his favorite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United States.'" The book was preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" It would appear that he answered his own question. In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend "Americanisms" against a steady stream of English critics, who usually isolated Americanisms as borderline barbarous perversions of the mother tongue. Mencken assaulted the prescriptive grammar of these critics and American "schoolmarms", arguing, like Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary, that language evolves independently of textbooks. The book discusses the beginnings of "American" variations from "English", the spread of these variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colorful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart.

Author: Henry Louis Mencken
Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Incorporated
ISBN: 0394400755
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 817

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Book Description
A modified, one-volume edition of Mencken's classic analysis of American English

Author: Henry Louis Mencken
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Americanisms
Languages : en
Pages : 518

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Author: Henry Louis Mencken
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
ISBN: 0394400763
Category : Americanisms
Languages : en
Pages : 798

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Author: H. L. Mencken
Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 794

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Book Description
The present book 'The American Language' was written by language researcher H. L. Mencken. This book is about the English language as spoken in America and explores the nuances of how it is different from other parts of the world. It was first published in the year 1919.

Author: H. L. Mencken
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780075447665
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: H. L. Mencken
Publisher: Cosimo Classics
ISBN: 9781616402884
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: H.L. Mencken
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307808785
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 798

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Book Description
Perhaps the first truly important book about the divergence of American English from its British roots, this survey of the language as it was spoken-and as it was changing-at the beginning of the 20th century comes via one of its most inveterate watchers, journalist, critic, and editor HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN (1880-1956).In this replica of the 1921 "revised and enlarged" second edition, Mencken turns his keen ear on: • the general character of American English • loan-words and non-English influences • expletives and forbidden words • American slang • the future of the language • and much, much more. Anyone fascinated by words will find this a thoroughly enthralling look at the most changeable language on the face of the planet.