Useful excerpts from Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue

Part One – Influence

The Danish influence on English: freckle, leg, skull, meet, rotten, clasp, crawl,
dazzle, scream, trust, lift, take, husband and sky. Also the grammatical forms:
they, them and their.

The Norman influence on English: justice, jury, felon, traitor, petty, damage,
prison, marriage, sovereign, parliament, govern, prince, duke, viscount and baron.
Also the grammatical expressions court martial, attorney general and body politic
(reversal of word order).

Chaucer (the London) influence: the loss of inflections down to two only for
adjectives (now just one), plurals endings down to two only -s and -en. Now only
the -s remains (though we have kept the words children, brethren and oxen),
verbs became more regularised (there are still 250 irregular verbs remaining in
modern English).

Part Two – Dynamics

The multiplicity of synonyms: big, large, immense, vast, capacious, bulky, massive
and whopping.

Three cultural levels of English: popular, literary and scholarly. We can think or
ponder or cogitate on a problem for example.

Polysemy or when one word sprouts multiple meanings; Boil water in a pan whilst
a boil on th skin; Excise meaning “to cut” and excise meaning customs duty.

Contronym or when the same word has contradictory meanings: Sanction can
either mean permission to do something or forbidding to be done; fast is either
stuck firmly or moving quickly.
Part Three – Creation

International influence: shampoo from India, ketchup from China, potato from
Haiti and sofa from Arabia to name but a few.

Adding a foreign form as an adjective: mouth and oral, book and literary, house
and domestic, town and urban. (The noun form is unrelated to its adjective form).

Although English is a Germanic tongue we have borrowed very few of their

words: kindergarten and hinterland.

Unknown pedigree: jaw, bad, jam, big, gloat, fun, crease, pour, put, blizzard,
rowdy, yuppie and sound bites.

Technology words: lunar module and cardial infarction for example.

Shakespeare's words: barefaced, critical, leapfrog, monumental, castigate,

majestic, obscene, frugal, radiance, dwindle, countless, submerged, excellent,
fretful, gust, hint, hurry, lonely, summit, pedant, gloomy and some 1,685 more!

Catachresis (drift of word meaning): British vest is an American undershirt, a Brit

uses bracers to hold up their trousers but an American uses suspenders for their
pants. Americans never use pants for underwear or knickers (except for golfers
maybe). A jumper in Britain is a sweater in American English (a jumper is a
pinafore dress).

Affixes and Infixes: The French word mutin in English is mutiny, mutinous,
mutinously, mutineer and there are more, however the French have just the one
form! We have six ways to express negation with prefixes; a-, anti-, in-, il-, im-, ir-,
un-, and non-.

The prefix in- and the suffix -less have dubious negations as in habitable and
inhabitable and pricey and priceless.
Shortened words; mobile vulgus became mob. God-be-with-you became goodbye
and whole be thou became hello.

Compounding words: airport, seashore, footwear, wristwatch, landmark and

flowerpot for example. Also the trickier reversals: basketwork and a workbasket,
casebook and bookcase and houseboat and boathouse. (German and Dutch can
do it too).

Part Four – Pronunciation

Plosives, fricatives, gutturals and others (ibid?): examples given as soft “g” in
singer*and hard “g” in finger, the soft “th” in thought and hard “th” in those. A
puff of air is given to “k” sounds at the start of a word as in kitchen and conquer
but not with “sk” words like skill and skid. With onomatopoeia we give more air as
in zing and bang but not as much for something and rang.

Aphesis: to take part of the front end off a word as in meejutly for immediately.

Syncope: to take part of the middle out of a word as in fo'c'sle for forecastle and
haypth for halfpennyworth.

Apocope: to take the back end off a word as in nessree, libree and strawbree for
necessary, library and strawberry.

Multiples; daisy was day's eye, shepherd was sheep herd, lord was loafward and
fortnight was fourteen-night.

Emergence of around 150 Noun/Verb distinctions as in mouth the noun and

mouth the verb. See also: outlaw, rebel and record (noted by Bryson as the
original three to have their noun stress moved to the first syllable).

American v British diction as in la-bor-a-tory v labratree or fra-gill v fra-gile.(see

Part 6)

Slurring as in the -ed endings. Chaucer's was hel-pud and nowadays it's help'd.
The Great Vowel Shift: the movement of tense (long) vowels forward and upward
in the mouth so hoose became house, mood became mode and whom became
home. Most oo sounds rhymed with the word food around 1400 but after this
date variations took hold so we have the pronunciation anomalies blood, stood
and road for example. There are also competing doublets as in roof which can be
voiced to rhyme with goof or to rhyme with foot. Plus there are relics from the
long vowel - to - short vowel change-over as in strop and strap, toffy and taffy and
God and gad.

Early American colonisation preserves older forms of English pronunciations

leading to distinctions that are today remarked as American English (ibid page 87
and see Part 6).

-er replaces most -ar sounding words with only derby, clerk and heart surviving in
Britain. Only heart dates back to Elizabethan times in America. The modern
doublets person and parson, university and varsity and perilous and parlous both
survive.

French words: older 17th century “borrowings” have hardened tch-sound such as
change, charge and chimney but the newer have the softened ch-sound such as
champagne, chivalry and chaperone. Also: older -age suffix with the idge-sound in
bandage, cabbage and language but the modern -azh-sound in badinage and
camouflage. Older French words move their stresses to the first syllable like
mutton, button and baron but newer words like cartoon and balloon haven't.

British influence on French words: Attempts at moving the stress forward too as
in cafe and pate though these words are more clearly French with their
inflexions? Also: buffet and ballet and British pronunciation of fillet as fill-ut. The
word garage is an in-between, Bryson says as Briton's now pronounce it in the
newer idge-sound form.

Spelling changes before pronunciation: the t in often which is often voiced

(however not in soften, fasten and hasten). Also waistcoat was pronounced wess-
kit and forehead was pronounced forrid. As recently as the 19th century swore
was pronounced with a silent w as sword still is.
*the Irish pronounce singer with a hard 'g'.

Part Five – Spelling

The invention of the printing press around 1500: however it gives us the variation
in spellings today that reflect this prior eras pronunciations. For example; gnaw,
folk, aisle, bread, eight and enough contain silent letters that are shadows of older
pronunciation. Also in 1600's arose a tendency to re-insert the Latin origin
spellings for words such as debt and doubt previously spelt dette and doute. Also
receipt, island, scissors and anchor.

Spellings affecting pronunciation: as in perfect (perfet), verdict (verdit) and

adventure (aventure). Note: most inserted letters are now voiced in modern
words.

Unknown etymological spellings: tight and delight conform to night and right.
Also rime becomes rhyme.

Preservation of foreign spellings: as in the spelling doublet buffet, a French noun

and buffet an English verb. Also examples such as: brusque, garage and chef.

Spelling reform begins in the late 18th century and one hundred years later the
Americans had attempted 11 new spellings; liv, tho, wisht, catalog, definit, gard,
hav and ar. Only catalog made it (though later in the US demagog, dialog, omelet
and program did too). The British reformed a list of 300 common spelling
doublets; ax and axe, gray and grey and inquire and enquire are the sole three
survivors across the English language. A word such as judgement survives but
judgment became extinct.

Subtracting letters: as in deposite, fossile, musick, and physick (note the

Americans did this more; see Part 6 and ibid page 123).

Advantages of non-phonetic spellings: eat can be differentiated from the same

sounding word eight and the spelling seed means we have the two words recede
and reseed. Fissure means we can also have the word fisher; sew and sow, seas
and seize, flees and fleas, aloud and allowed, chance and chants, air and heir,
wrest and rest, flu, flue and flew and also weather, whether and wether and there
are many many more...These varied spellings are an advantage as they can now
cater for the wide variety of global pronunciations of English in the world – in
particular American.

Part Six – American English

The first pilgrims from England in the early 1600's were in the first generation of
English speakers to use has and runs rather than hath and runneth. Also the
pronouns thee and thou had almost faded out of usage. However in contrast this
immigration preserved today’s American past participle gotten**.

In the second half of the 19th century more than 30 million people flooded into
America, along with their home languages.

More than 500 words were borrowed from the Spanish language by these new
inhabitants such as: rodeo, buffalo, avocado, mustang, fiesta and coyote.

Some Mexican Spanish (words that never came from Spain) also such as:
stampede, cafeteria and rancher (from the Spanish rancho).

Some French words also such as: prairie and dime. Transcriptions such as: gopher
(from gaufre) and chowder (from chaudiere) come to exist.

Some Dutch words also such as: landscape, cookie and caboose.

Indian words are predominately place names, rivers and lakes. Only three to four
dozen Indian words exist in American English such as: canoe, raccoon, hammock
and tobacco. Transcriptions such as: hickory (from pawcohiccora) and squash
(from isquonterquashes) come to exist.
The word dollar originates from Germany, and was first recorded as daler in 1553
by the English. Dollar was proposed as America's currency by Thomas Jefferson in
1782 (and made official in 1785) but was already in widespread use in the colony
by then.

The word America originates from the Latin form of Amerigo Vespucci. It was
placed on the map of America in error but became the word of choice by the
locals.

Hundreds of American origin words such as: bullfrog, eggplant, grasshopper,

rattlesnake, mockingbird and catfish that all combine two pre-existing English
words into one new ones. English words such as: beech, walnut, laurel, partridge,
robin, pond and hemlock have their meanings changed in America.

New expressions come out of America such as: cattywampus, rambunctious, to

move like greased lightning, to kick the bucket and to be in cahoots with.

The most famous word (arguably) to come out of America is: OK.

However no regional variety developed in America. It has been suggested that

this was because of the increase social mobility, intermingling of people and but
most importantly Bryson says, it was because the new immigrants wanted to form
a common national identity in America. So they settled on a single way of
speaking.

Those that didn't fit in got names such as: wop, kraut, dago, kike, bohunk and
mick for Italians, Germans, Jews, Hungarians and the Irish (ibid pages 162-163).

Preservation in the pronunciation of some short vowels (see Great Vowel Shift
above) as in the short-a in bath and path. American words such as schedule and
lieutenant are pronounced differently from English (also see in American
Pronunciation above).

American words that have died out in Britain such as:** fall as a synonym for
autumn, mad for angry, progress as a verb, platter for a large dish, assignment for
a job or task, deck of cards for pack of cards, slim for small, mean for stingy, trash
for rubbish and hog for pig.
Also archaic British words such as: mayhem, magnetic, chore, skillet, ragamuffin,
homespun and the expression I guess are still used in America.

American words which have established in Britain (and internationally

elsewhere?) due to American usage. such as: maybe, leaf through, frame-up,
commuter, bedrock, snag, striptease, cold spell, gimmick, baby-sitter, lengthy,
sag, soggy, teenager, telephone, typewriter, radio, to cut no fudge, publicity,
joyride, bucket shop, blizzard, stunt, law-abiding, department store, notify,
hindsight, beeline, raincoat, scrawny, take a backseat, cloudburst, graveyard,
know-how, to shut down, to fill the bill, to bank on, to stay put and stiff upper lip.
Also: to register (in a hotel), to hold down (as in keep), to hold up (as in rob), to be
stung (cheated), advocate (as a verb), to rattle (as in unnerve) and currency (as in
money). Roundabout was originally an American word and came to replace the
cumbersome word gyratory circuses in Britain.

Modern American words and Americanism such as: lorry, airplane, smog,
weekend, gadget, miniskirt, radar, program, disk, brain drain, eventuate,
demoralize, constitutionality, lengthy, presidential, placate, transpire, antagonize,
shoestring and gay (for homosexual).

Also phrases such as: the 64,000 question, looking like a million bucks, having
megabucks, stepping on the gas and taking a raincheck.

Subtlety in changes by American English such as: aim at doing becomes aim to do,
haven't got to don't have, the first time for years becomes the first time in years.
They use begin to as a negative; this doesn't begin to make sense.

Spelling changes such as the dropped-u in color, humor, honor and labor. The
British haven't changed these common usage words but have a dropped-u in
coloration, humorist, honorary and laborious credited to American books and
journals.

Early movie influence in words such as: grapevine, phoney, gimmick and fan. Also:
turn of the century.
American idioms: to table a motion now means to 'put aside an idea' in American
but it used to mean to 'put forward an idea for discussion'. The expression
knocked up means to get pregnant and presently at least in the Americas means
'now' not 'in a little whiles'.

Modern doublets between America and Britain: aforementioned lorry which is

truck and airplane which is aeroplane. Interestingly Bryson mentions that recently
truck has driven out lorry in international usage. as has airplane with aeroplane.
Other words made international from American English usage. such as: passport,
hotel, telephone, gadget, bar, soda, cigarette, sport, golf, tennis, stop, OK.,
weekend, jeans, know-how, self-service, sex appeal, no problem and recently
game over.

American influence on British spelling such as: jail replaced gaol, wagon replaced
waggon, reflection replaced reflexion, today and tomorrow replaced to-day and
to-morrow. The American words disk and program (mentioned above) partially
replaced disc and programme in Britain but for computer usage only.

There are over 4,000 words today that are used completely differently between
American and British English such as: barf for vomit, cotton candy for candy floss,
crosswalk for pedestrian crossing, downspout for drainpipe, ground round for best
mince (or mince meat), lightning bug for glow-worm, overpass for flyover, pacifier
for baby's dummy, tetter-totter for see-saw, trunk (of the car) for boot, yard for
garden, elevator for lift, trashcan for dustbin, cookie for biscuit, candy for sweet
and finally zucchini for courgette.

See Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue , Penguin Books 1990, ISBN 0-140-14305-X

(Post note: Bill Bryson also wrote a second book on the English Language called
Troublesome Words)
Appendix

Michael Rundell noted in his post a couple of weeks ago that there was a clear British/American
divide in the use of the expression, "Thanks a bunch": it's often used sincerely in American English,
but ironically in British. That distinction, in one respect, is the tip of an iceberg: the iceberg of
adverbial modification.
There are many ways in which Brits and Yanks express the degree to which they do, love, hate,
esteem, disparage, or qualify something in ways that differ only by a word or two. The points of
difference are all adverbials, that is, single words or expressions that modify a verb or modify
another modifier. Many of these adverbials can be called intensifiers because they serve to make
the meaning of the word they modify stronger, just as "a bunch" does with "thanks."

As a point of departure, I'll begin with something I'm pretty sure about: If you use the expression
"pretty sure," there's a two-to-one chance that you're an American, or under the influence of
American English. The expression occurs in most varieties of English, but Americans are more likely
to be pretty sure—or to remark that something is pretty good, pretty cool, or pretty darn close—
because pretty is the intensifier of choice in informal American English. Why is this?

It may be because Americans are rather reluctant to use rather as an intensifier. To Americans,
rather in front of an adjective sounds a bit formal and a bit British. Though this may seem rather odd,
rather strange, or rather silly, the British use of rather is much more frequent than American in rather
+ adjective collocations such as these.

I know that I'm quite right about that because corpus data makes it quite clear. Corpus data also
makes it quite clear that Brits are, quite simply, wild about saying things like "quite right" and "quite
clear"—and of course, "quite simply." Americans, on the other hand, are more likely to opt for "pretty
clear," and to just say "right" when someone or something is right, rather than modifying the
adjective, because technically, "right" shouldn't really admit of degrees: Perhaps Americans are
inclined to think that something is either right, or it's not.

Whether you quite agree with that will depend on which variety of English you're most comfortable
with; Americans and Brits don't quite agree on what quite means. The usage note in the Macmillan
Dictionary puts it this way:

In British English quite usually means "fairly": The film was quite enjoyable, although some of the
acting was weak. When American speakers say quite, they usually mean "very": We've examined
the figures quite thoroughly. Speakers of British English sometimes use quite to mean "very," but
only before words with an extreme meaning: The whole experience was quite amazing.

That's a fairly accurate way of expressing the differences in usage (as an American is inclined to
say), but you could also say that it's somewhat accurate, rather accurate, quite accurate or pretty
accurate. In all of those cases, you might be giving hints as to where your allegiance lies, but you
wouldn't be revealing your linguistic identity unambiguously. If you were to say that it was mighty
accurate though, you'd be giving yourself away, because Brits don't use mighty as an intensifier
except when they're sending up Americans.

Corpus data shows many instances of "mighty fine" in British English, but they're nearly all examples
of Brits' poking fun at Americans. That's the other side of the coin from Americans' being able to
intimate Britishness in a light-hearted way by simply saying, "Oh, rather!" or, " Oh, quite!"

A version of this article first appeared on MacmillanDictionary.com's blog.