tourist camp, tourist court, 1916;
The list goes on and on, for the car completely changed American life and language. The car created the gasoline industry and all its words reshaped the family vacation and resort industry and spawned many of travel and recreational terms. [9. p.78 ]ъ
2.8. American English Idioms.
It’s Raining Cats and Dogsseems to be a good old-fashioned American expression. Here are some others heard over and over;
The sight of you is good for sore eyes.
She's no chicken, she's on the wrong side of thirty, if she's a day.
Fingers were made before forks.
I thought you and he were hand-in-glove.
She has more goodness in her little finger than he has in his whole body. [10. p.464 ]
These are all familiar expressions, but none was originally American. They are all listed in English satirist Jonathan Swift's 1738 Polite Conversations—as examples of the banalities and clichés of polite British conversation! Swift also used another popular "American" expression in Hail fellow, well met, All dirty and wet; Find out if you can, Who's master, who's man. "My Lady's Lamentation," 1765.It just goes to show that all American popular expressions don't originate in America.
During the last 200 years it seems it has almost literally been raining cats and dogs in America. Although American Indians kept pets, with dogs and beavers being the most common ones, the early colonists believed that keeping pets was a sign of witchcraft (two dogs were executed as witches in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692). Keeping pets did become acceptable, however, during the mid 18th century, the habit spreading from European palaces and manor houses into the average home. Today there are at least 100 million cats and dogs in the United States—and each year more than a million people are bitten by dogs. Cats and dogs have given us such terms as:
to bark up the wrong tree, 1832, probably from hunting dogs thinking they had treed a raccoon.
cat burglar, J907, when it first appeared in English.
eatery, a shout of displeasure or good-humored ridicule, 1898.
catfit, catnip fit, a fit of anger or frenzied excitement, 1905. If the original form was catnip fit it may have come into being merely as a corruption of or by confusion with conniption fit.
cat food, 1907.
cat nap, cat's nap, a short nap, 1820s.
catnip, 1712, often called cat mint in bygone days; catnip tea, 1837.This aromatic mint plant, Napeta cataria, was named because of its attraction for cats; it has been widely used in cooking. catty, given to spiteful remarks, around 1885.
dog, an unsuccessful, ugly, or disliked person or thing, early 1930s.
dogcatcher, 1835, also euphemistically called a humane officer, 1939,and bureaucratically called a canine control officer, 1942.
dog eat dog, everyone for himself, 1834. dog it, to shirk, 1920.
dog my cats!, an exclamation of surprise, 1839.
dog paddle, as a way to stay afloat or swim, 1904. dog pound, 1875. Many pounds are now under the auspices of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA),founded by Henry Bergh in 1866, when horses were often
underfed, overworked, and cruelly treated.
look like the cat after it had eaten the canary, look guilty, 1871; look like
something the cat brought/dragged/drug in, look bedraggled, late 1920s.
put on the dog, put on a display, dress up, etc., 1871.
see a man about a dog, to leave abruptly, especially in order to urinate, 1867 in English use.
The older English it'sraining cats and dogs was joined by our to rain pitchforks in 1844, with the expression right as rain, meaning perfect, well, absolutely right, appearing in 1894. [10. p.465 ]
Another old English expression dealing with a rainstorm is to steal one's thunder. The story behind this expression is that in 1709 English playwright John Dennis invented a new way to produce stage thunder for his play Appius and Virginia. Few people liked his tragedy and it soon closed, but not long after, Dennis was watching a new production of Macbeth and heard his thunder being used. He angrily got up from his theater seat and shouted to all the audience, "See how the rascals use me! They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder!" So was born another popular American expression—in England. [10. p.466 ]
Conclusion
In this work paper we investigated the peculiarities of American English emphasizing especially the etimology of American English words.
So in the research it was proved that:
North America has given the English lexicon many thousands of words, meanings, and phrases. Several thousand are now used in English as spoken internationally; others, however, died within a few years of their creation. The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as the colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Among the earliest and most notable regular "English" additions to the American vocabulary, dating from the early days of colonization through the early 19th century, are terms describing the features of the North American landscape.
American settlers combine descriptive words to give many vivid names for the mammals, reptiles, fish, birds, and insects—and Americans have continued to name animals by descriptive combinations ever since.
Americans have given many of their native trees, grasses, flowers, and shrubs descriptive names, often by combining two old words.
The early settlers and frontiersmen also borrowed many plant names from the Indians, French, and Spanish. Other plants and trees are named after people. Other native American plants were misnamed, merely because the settlers who first saw them thought they were identical to those back home in England when they weren't.
Americans borrowed the names for their money generally from such languages as Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French. Or they merely used the money from some foreign country such as Spain, Italy or France.
Also appearance of the car greatly influenced the names of roads and everything connected with the traffic. The rise of capitalism, the development of industry and material innovations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries were the source of a massive stock of distinctive new words, phrases and idioms.
Most of American English Idioms are not purely American. Almost all of them were borrowed from British English. Also many proverbs came from Indians.
Many of the Italian words in English entered the language during the Renaissance when Italian culture was very much in vogue. Most Italian borrowings are only partially naturalized, still being associated mainly with Italians or things Italian which includes dozens of Italian food terms.
French has had a direct influence on American English: via French explorers, trappers, and fur traders. The French have also given many place names, especially along the Canadian border, around the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi, throughout the old French Louisiana Territory, and in the plains and mountain regions of the West.
American English has borrowed more words from Spanish than from any other language, and is still borrowing them— there are hundreds of thousands of Mexicans living in the Southwest; 650,000 Puerto Ricans in New York City; and 100,000 Cubans in New Orleans, plus several hundred thousand more in the Miami area. Spanish has also given many American place names, including the names of six states, over 2,000 names of U.S. cities and towns, and thousands of names of rivers, mountains, valleys, etc.
So in the end of our work paper we can assume that American English vocabulary was formed in general under the influence of environment and with the help of borrowings.
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[The dates in vocabulary indicate the year of recording of the word or phrase]
Appendix
1. Alabama, 1819, 22nd state—from Choctaw alba ayamule, "I open the thicket," literally one who clears the land and gathers food from it. Previously Alabama Territory; also called the Cotton State, the Heart of Dixie.
2. Alaska, 1959, 49th state—the Russian version of the Eskimo Alakshak or Alayeksa, "great land, mainland." Previously called Russian America; also called the Last Frontier.
3. Arizona, 1912, 48th state—from Papago Arizonac, "place of the small spring." Also called the Grand Canyon State.
4. Arkansas, 1836, 25th state—Sioux for "south wind people, land of the south wind people." Previously spelled Arkansaw; also called the Wonder State, the Land of Opportunity.
5. allow, guess, reckon, meaning to think, which had all become obsolete in England.
6. automobile tire, 1877 (wagon tires date from the 15th century); jack, 1877; tread, 1877, retread, 1890; blowout, 1915; balloon tire, early 1920s; tubeless tire, introduced by B. F. Goodrich, 1948; radial ply tire, 1967.
7. automobile accident, 1882; car crash, 1915; hit-and-run, 1920s.
8. bluegrass, 1751, being any of several American grasses of the for genus and having a bluish cast, earlier called Dutch grass (1671). Kentucky bluegrass, 1849, a type of bluegrass, Poa pratem valuable as pasturage and hay; Bluegrass region, Bluegrass country the Blue Grass, a region in Kentucky, 1860s; the Bluegrass Stof Kentucky, 1886.
9. butternut, 1741, or white walnut (1743), called butternut from the oiliness of the nut. By 1810 butternut also meant the brownish dye obtained from the tree's bark, its color, and fabric dyed wit. it. During the Civil War Butternut (1862) meant a Confederate soldier, from the butternut dye used on some homemade uniforms. The Butternut State, Missouri, 1863.
10. buttonwood, 1674, because of its buttonlike burrs. This name was given the tree in New England; Southerners called it sycameri (1709), thinking it was that familiar English tree.
11. to bark up the wrong tree, 1832, probably from hunting dogs thinking they had treed a raccoon.
12. cat burglar, J907, when it first appeared in English.
13. catfit, catnip fit, a fit of anger or frenzied excitement, 1905. If the original form was catnip fit it may have come into being merely as a corruption of or by confusion with conniption fit.
14. cat nap, cat's nap, a short nap, 1820s.
15. catnip, 1712, often called cat mint in bygone days; catnip tea, 1837.
This aromatic mint plant, Napeta cataria, was named because of
its attraction for cats; it has been widely used in cooking. catty, given to spiteful remarks, around 1885. copycat, 1915 as a noun, 1942 as a verb.
16. belittle, coined by Thomas Jefferson in 1787.
17. bluff, used in the South since 1687, instead of tte British river "bank." This has the distinction of being the first word attacked as being a "barbarous" American term.
18. bureau, meaning chest of drawers, which was obsolete in England.
19. buffalo beef, 1722, buffalo meat.
20. buffalo robe, 1723, also called buffalo rug, 1805. This Indian item
21. was first described by Marquette and Joliet in 1681; it served
22. many Indians and whites as robe, coat, blanket, and sleepingbag. buffalo-headed duck, 1731, now known as the bufflehead (1858), a
small, widely distributed duck with a large, squarish head. buffalo road, 1750; buffalo trace, 1823; buffalo trail, 1834. These are all paths or trails worn by buffalo herds.
23. buffalo fish, 1768, various fish of the sucker family, especially along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.
24. buffalo grass, 1784, a low-growing perennial grass common to the buffalo ranges.
25. buffalo dance, 1805, an Indian ritual dance, often performed in a buffalo skin and mask.
26. buffalo horse, 1827, a horse used in buffalo hunts.
27. buffalo wallow, 1834. These hollow places made by buffaloes rolling in the dirt sometimes filled with water, preventing many a horse and rider from suffering from thirst.
28. buffalo chips, ,4840, dried buffalo dung, the common fuel of the prairie, also calledbuffalo wood, 1855.
29. buffalo boat, 1844, made by stretching buffalo skins over a wooden frame.
30. Buffalo Bill, William Frederick Cody (1846-1917), who had been a pony express rider and cavalry scout before earning this nickname as a buffalo hunter supplying large quantities of meat to Union Pacific Railroad construction crews in 1867-68. The name Buffalo Bill was given him by Ned Buntline (pen name of Edward Zane Carroll Judson, 1821 -86), a writer of adventure fiction and one of the first dime novelists. Cody himself gave us the term Wild West Show, opening Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Omaha, May 37, 1883.
31. buffalo soldier, 1873, a Black soldier, so called by Indians because the soldiers' short, tightly curled hair resembled that of buffalo (there were two Black infantry and two Black cavalry regiments serving permanently in the West for 30 years following the Civil War). White soldiers called these Black soldiers brunets. to buffalo someone, 1870s, to cheat or intimidate someone. buffalo gun, 1907, a large-caliber rifle, as for shooting buffalo.
32. bald eagle, 1688, because its white neck and head make it look bald.
This bird was considered our national symbol before its picture
was placed on the Great Seal of the United States in 1785; since
then it has also been called the American eagle, 1798, and the
United States eagle, 1 847. Baltimore oriole, 1771, originally called the Baltimore bird, 1669, because its black and orange colors were those on the coat of arms of Lord Baltimore. barn swallow, 1790, because it often builds its nests in the eaves of barns.