Contents
-SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
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Hungarian words that it is unintelligible to Germans.
20 Transported to the United States, it has taken in so many English words and phrases, and particularly so many Americanisms, that it is now nearly unintelligible, as spoken in the big cities of the East, to recent arrivals from Russia and Poland. Such typical Americanisms as
sky-scraper, loan-shark, graft, bluffer, faker, boodler, gangster, crook, guy, kike, piker, squealer, bum, cadet, boom, bunch, pants, vest, loafer, jumper, stoop, saleslady, ice-box, and
raise are quite as good Yiddish as they are American. For all the objects and acts of everyday life the East Side Jews commonly use English terms,
e. g., boy, chair, window, carpet, floor, dress, hat, watch, ceiling, consumption, property, trouble, bother, match, change, party, birthday, picture, paper (only in the sense of
newspaper),
gambler, show, hall, kitchen, store, bedroom, key, mantelpiece, closet, lounge, broom, table-cloth, paint, landlord, fellow, tenant, bargain, sale, haircut, razor, basket, school, scholar, teacher, baby, mustache, butcher, grocery, dinner, street and
walk. In the factories there is the same universal use of
shop, wages, foreman, boss, sleeve, collar, cuff, button, cotton, thimble, needle, machine, pocket, remnant, sample, etc., even by the most recent immigrants. Many of these words have quite crowded out the corresponding Yiddish terms, so that the latter are seldom heard. For example,
ingle, meaning
boy (=Ger.
jüngling), has been wholly obliterated by the English word. A Jewish immigrant almost invariably refers to his son as his
boy, though strangely enough he calls his daughter his
meidel. “Die
boys mitdie
meidlach haben a good time” is excellent American Yiddish. In the same way
fenster has been completely displaced by
window, though
tür (=
door) has been left intact.
Tisch (=
table) also remains, but
chair is always used, probably because few of the Jews had chairs in the old country. There the
beinkel, a bench without a back, was in use; chairs were only for the well-to-do.
Floor has apparently prevailed because no invariable corresponding word was