The myth of American English gotten as a
historical retention
In this article, I investigate where and when the
myth of American English as a conservative variety originates, and
how it has become linked to the verb form gotten in
particular. Drawing on corpus materials, prescriptive grammar
writers of the time, publications on Americanisms, and
nineteenth-century newspaper articles, this article shows that
gotten is not a historical retention, but was
revived in the nineteenth century in American English. However, this
revival was not linked (yet) to the idea of it being a specific
American form. Once this indexical link was established, however, it
seems to have fuelled the rise of gotten further.
The concept of gotten as indexing AmE linguistic
conservativism is thus indeed a myth (if a powerful one).
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: The myth
- 2.Unmasking the myth: The corpus evidence
- 3.Investigating the source of the myth
- 3.1The collection of nineteenth-century grammars (CNG)
- 3.2Dictionaries and glossaries of Americanisms
- 3.3American newspapers
- 4.Twentieth-century publications
- 5.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
Newspaper databases
-
References
-
Appendix
References
Newspaper databases
AHN America’s
Historical
Newspapers
contains
over 1,000 newspapers published between 1690 and
1922, available
at
[URL].
NCNP
Nineteenth Century U.S.
Newspapers
contains
ca. 1.7 million articles from
1800–1900, available
at
[URL].
Algeo, John
(ed.) 2001 The
Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. VI: English
in North
America. Cambridge: CUP.
Anderwald, Lieselotte
2016 Language
between Description and Prescription: Verb Categories in
Nineteenth-Century Grammars of
English. Oxford: OUP.
Anderwald, Lieselotte
2017
Get,
get-constructions and the
get-passive in 19th-century English: Corpus
analysis and prescriptive
comments. In
Exploring
Recent Diachrony: Corpus Studies of Lexicogrammar and
Language Practices in Late Modern
English [
Studies in Variation,
Contacts and Change in English
18],
Sebastian Hoffmann,
Andrea Sand &
Sabine Arndt-Lappe (eds). Helsinki: Varieng, Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki.
[URL]
Anderwald, Lieselotte
Forthcoming.
Historical
retention, progressive nation or the eye of the beholder?
The evolution of morphological
Americanisms. In
Earlier
North-American Englishes,
Merja Kytö &
Lucia Siebers eds Amsterdam John Benjamins
Bartlett, John Russell
1848 Dictionary
of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually
Regarded as Peculiar to the United
States. New York NY: Bartlett and Welford.
Bartlett, John Russell
1859
[1848] Dictionary of Americanisms. A
Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded as Peculiar
to the United States. Second
edition, greatly improved and
enlarged. Boston MA: Little, Brown and Company.
Baskervill, William M. & Sewell, J. W.
1895 An
English Grammar for the Use of High School, Academy, and
College Classes. New York NY: American Book Company.
Bentley, Rensselaer
1825 The
American Instructer; Calculated to Succeed the English, and
other Spelling-Books; Containing a Selection of the
Principal Part of the Words in Common Use, Divided,
Accented, Defined, and their Pronunciation Accurately
Pointed out. Adapted to the Orthography and Pronunciation of
Walker Interspersed with Instructive and Entertaining
Reading Lessons; to which is Added a Comprehensive
Abridgment of English
Grammar. Troy: E. Platt & Co.
Bingham, William
1867 A
Grammar of the English Language: For the Use of Schools and
Academies. With Copious Parsing
Exercises. Philadelphia PA: E.H. Butler & Co.
Brown, Goold
1851 The
Grammar of English Grammars, with an Introduction Historical
and Critical; the Whole Methodically Arranged and Amply
Illustrated; with Forms of Correcting and of Parsing,
Improprieties for Correction, Examples for Parsing,
Questions for Examination, Exercises for Writing,
Observations for the Advanced Student, Decisions and Proofs
for the Settlement of Disputed Points, Occasional Strictures
and Defences, an Exhibition of the Several Methods of
Analysis, and a Key to the Oral Exercises: to which are
Added Four Appendixes, Pertaining Separately to the Four
Parts of Grammar. New York NY: Samuel S. & William Wood.
Brown, James
1820 An
American Grammar, Developing the Principles of our Language
and Impressing them upon the Memory by Exercising the
Judgment of the Learner. Designed for the Use of Schools in
the United
States. Troy: Francis Adancourt.
Clapin, Sylva
1902 A
New Dictionary of Americanisms: Being a Glossary of Words
Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States and the
Dominion of Canada. New York NY: Louis Weiss & Co.
Crowell, Michael G.
1967 Richard
Grant White and
Americanisms.
American
Speech 42: 122–130.
Curme, George O.
1927 Gotten.
American
Speech 2(12): 495–496.
Davies, Mark
2010– The
Corpus of Historical American English: 400 million words,
1810–2009.
[URL]
Ellis, Alexander J.
1869 On
Early English Pronunciation, with Especial Reference to
Shakspere and Chaucer, Containing an Investigation of the
Correspondence of Writing with Speech in England, from the
Anglosaxon Period to the Existing Received and Dialectal
Forms, with a Systematic Notation of Spoken Sounds by Means
of the Ordinary Printing Types. Vol. I: On the Pronunciation
of the XIVth, XVIth, XVIIth, and XVIIIth
Centuries. London: Published for the Philological Society by Asher & Co.; and for the Early English Text Society, and the Chaucer Society, by Trübner & Co.
Elwyn, Alfred L.
1859 Glossary
of Supposed
Americanisms. Philadelphia PA: J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Farmer, John S.
1889 Americanisms –
Old & New: A Dictionary of Words, Phrases and
Colloquialisms Peculiar to the United States, British
America, the West Indies, &c. &c, Their Derivation,
Meaning and Application, Together with Numerous Anecdotal,
Historical, Explanatory, and Folk-Lore
Notes. E.C.: Privately printed by Thomas Poulter.
Finegan, Edward
1980 Attitudes
towards English Usage: The History of a War of
Words. New York NY: Teachers College Press.
Finegan, Edward
2001 Usage. In
The
Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol. VI: English
in North America,
John Algeo (ed.), 358–421. Cambridge: CUP.
Görlach, Manfred
1999 English
in Nineteenth-Century England: An
Introduction. Cambridge: CUP.
Gowers, Rebecca
2016 Horrible
Words: A Guide to the Misuse of
English. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hallock, Edward J.
1849 A
Grammar of the English Language; for the Use of Common
Schools, Academies and
Seminaries. New York NY: Mark H. Newman & Co.
Hundt, Marianne
2009 Colonial
lag, colonial innovation or simply language
change? In
One
Language – Two Grammars? Differences between British and
American English,
Günter Rohdenburg &
Julia Schlüter (eds), 13–37. Cambridge: CUP.
Jespersen, Otto
1931 A
Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Vol. IV:
Syntax. Third Volume. Time and
Tense. London & Copenhagen: Allan & Unwin & Munksgaard.
Kenyon, William Colgrove
1849 Elements
of English Grammar, Analytical and Synthetical; Arranged in
Progressive Exercises, 2nd
edn. Rochester: Erastus Darrow; New York NY: Baker & Scribner; Philadelphia PA: Hogan & Thompson; and Boston: Perkins & Co.
Marckwardt, Albert H.
1958 American
English. Oxford: OUP.
Mencken, Henry L.
1919 The
American Language: A Preliminary Inquiry into the
Development of English in the United
States. New York NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Mencken, Henry L.
1936
[1919] The American
Language, 4th corrected, enlarged,
and rewritten edn. New York NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Mencken, Henry L.
1948 The
American Language: An Inquiry Into the Development of
English in the United
States,
Supplement
II. [Supplement to the 4th edn,
1936]. New York NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Michael, Ian
1991 More
than enough English
grammars. In
English
Traditional Grammars: An International
Perspective [
Studies in the History
of the Language Sciences 62],
Gerhard Leitner (ed.), 11–26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Michael, Ian
1997 The
hyperactive production of English grammars in the nineteenth
century: A speculative
bibliography.
Publishing
History 41: 23–61.
Milroy, James & Milroy, Lesley
1999
[1985] Authority in Language:
Investigating Standard English, 3rd
edn. London: Routledge.
Montgomery, Michael
2001 British
and Irish
antecedents. In
The
Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume VI:
English in North America,
John Algeo (ed.), 86–153. Cambridge: CUP.
Nevalainen, Terttu & Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid
2006 Standardisation. In
A
History of the English
Language,
Richard M. Hogg &
David Denison (eds), 271–311. Cambridge: CUP.
OED
2011– Oxford
English Dictionary
Online. Oxford: OUP.
[URL]
Pickering, John
1816 A
Vocabulary, or Collection of Words and Phrases which have
been Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States of
America. To which is Prefixed an Essay on the Present State
of the English Language in the United States. Originally
Published in the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences; and now Republished with Corrections and
Additions. Boston MA: Cummings & Hilliard.
Pue, Hugh A.
1841 A
Grammar of the English Language, in a Series of Letters,
Addressed to Every American
Youth. Philadelphia PA: Published by the Author.
Putnam, John M.
1828
[1825] English Grammar, with an
Improved Syntax, Part I: Comprehending at one View what is
Necessary to be Committed to Memory, Part II: Containing a
Recapitulation, with Various Illustrations and Critical
Remarks. Designed for the Use of
Schools, 2nd
edn. Concord: Jacob B. Moore.
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan
1985 A
Comprehensive Grammar of the English
Language. Harlow: Longman.
Schele de Vere, Maximilian
1872 Americanisms;
The English of the New
World. London: Trubner & Co.; and New York: Charles Scribner.
Schneider, Edgar W.
2007 Postcolonial
English: Varieties around the
World. Cambridge: CUP.
Strunk, William & White, E. B.
1959 Elements
of Style. New York NY: Macmillan.
Thornton, Richard H.
1912 An
American Glossary: Being an Attempt to Illustrate Certain
Americanisms upon Historical
Principles. London: Francis & Co.
Trudgill, Peter & Hannah, Jean
2002
[1982] International English: A Guide
to Varieties of Standard
English. 4th
edition. London: Edward Arnold.
Webster, Noah
1789 Dissertations
on the English Language: With Notes, Historical and
Critical. To Which is Added, by Way of Appendix, an Essay on
a Reformed Mode of Spelling, with Dr. Franklin’s Arguments
on that Subject. Boston MA: For the author.
Wells, William H.
1847
[1846] A Grammar of the English
Language; For the Use of
Schools. Andover: Allen, Morrill, and Wardwell; and Boston MA: John P. Jewett & Co.
White, Richard G.
1870 Words
and their Uses, Past and Present: A Study of the English
Language. New York NY: Sheldon and Company.
White, Richard G.
1877a Americanisms.
The
Galaxy 24(3): 376–383.
White, Richard G.
1877b The
federal language.
The
Galaxy 24(5): 681–688.
White, Richard G.
1878a Americanisms.
The
Galaxy 25(1): 94–101.
White, Richard G.
1878b Americanisms
I.
Atlantic
Monthly 41(246): 495–503.
White, Richard G.
1878c Americanisms
II.
Atlantic
Monthly 41(247): 656–664.
White, Richard G.
1878d Americanisms
III.
Atlantic
Monthly 42(249): 97–106.
White, Richard G.
1878e Americanisms
IV.
Atlantic
Monthly 42(251): 342–348.
White, Richard G.
1878f Americanisms
V.
Atlantic
Monthly 42(253): 619–631.
White, Richard G.
1879a Americanisms
VI.
Atlantic
Monthly 43(255): 88–98.
White, Richard G.
1879b Americanisms
VII.
Atlantic
Monthly 43(257): 379–392.
White, Richard G.
1879c Americanisms
VIII.
Atlantic
Monthly 43(259): 656–666.
White, Richard G.
1879d English
Skies.
Atlantic
Monthly 44(261): 107–116.
White, Richard G.
1882 Every-Day
English: A Sequel to “Words and Their
Uses”. Boston MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
Witherspoon, John
1802 The
Works of the Rev. John
Witherspoon, Vol. IV, 2nd
edn. Philadelphia PA: William W. Woodward.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.