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Amglish in, Like, Ten Easy Lessons

A Celebration of the New World Lingo

Arthur E. Rowse

with illustrations by John Doherty

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

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The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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Copyright © 2011 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rowse, Arthur E. (Arthur Edward)

Amglish in, like, ten easy lessons : a celebration of the new world lingo / Arthur E. Rowse ; with illustrations by John Doherty.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4422-1167-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) —

ISBN 978-1-4422-1168-1 (electronic)

1. English language—United States—Slang. 2. Americanisms.

I. Title.

PE3729.U5R69 2011

427'.973—dc23

2011022884

™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Preface

When I was growing up in Lexington, Massachusetts, in the 1920s, we had no “language arts” in my public grade school. We had separate classes in English grammar, spelling, and penmanship run by no-nonsense teachers. Despite having much difficulty twisting my wrist into the prescribed position for perfect penmanship in the Palmer style, I learned to love the language even with its many idiosyncrasies.

I liked to read books about boys going on great adventures and playing tricks on people. They made me want to write for fun or money. But since there were not many such paying jobs for ten-year-olds, I created my own job by starting a weekly neighborhood newspaper. I got the idea when my father gave me a cast-off Remington typewriter after I had spent a day “helping” him at his office.

My first brush with censorship came early when I put a snide dinner-table quip from my father into print. He had said a neighbor’s new baby girl had been named “Hope” because the parents were hoping for a boy. My father made me run a crayon through the disputed sentence. I made sure the words remained visible. (The rebellious quality comes from living in “the birthplace of American liberty.”)

My first bout with a stilted language came on graduation day after six grades at Hancock School when I was awarded a prize for scholastic excellence. I was hoping for something useful such as a chocolate cake, certainly not a copy of Master Skylark, a Story of Shakespeare’s Time, published in 1897.

When I opened the book later and read the first page of flowery British prose by author John Bennett about “punts . . . poling slowly on the Avon” and “April sunlight dancing on the brazen horns and the silver bellies of the kettledrums,” I put the book down for good. It was not my kind of English.

After four years as editor and publisher of the Naborhood News, I retired because of issues—today’s in-word for such complications as schoolwork—that led to an editorial in the town weekly titled “Why Editors Quit.” I eventually fell into some “higher education,” World War II duty in North Africa and Italy, the authorship of a few books, and a string of editing and writing jobs mostly at Boston and Washington newspapers, where some knowledge of formal English was still required.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized why my neighbors and relatives were willing to pay two pennies to read the Naborhood News. I concluded