1. Americanisms What they are, why they emerged and what we think about them

2. What are Americanisms? English words or phrases-or a feature of grammar, spelling, or pronunciation-that originated in the United States and/or are used primarily by Americans.

3. Why did they emerge? - 1 Noah Websters Dissertations on the English Language (1789) Stated that an American standard needed to be established Spelling reform but not too radical (No great change should be made at once)

4. Why did they emerge? - 2 Websters A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) contained 28,000 words Attack on Johnsons dictionary, e.g. on its difficult words, vulgarisms etc. Some were suspicious of recommended spellings and pronunciations, e.g. why does actor have no u, but flavour does?

5. Why did they emerge? - 3 Throughout America in the 19th century, thousands of new words were being coined But the new words werent reaching a wide public

6. New American vocabulary 19th century new vocab came from many sources, e.g. Spanish and native American words New vocab included: cattle town, chaps, dude, lasso, ranch, range, roundup and six shooter

7. Websters Blue-Backed Speller First published in 783 but had revisions, e.g. in 1804 and 1806. 1804 version contained proposals, e.g. Deleting u from words ending in -our e.g. favor Deleting k from words ending in ick e.g. music Replacing re with er, e.g. theater Replacing ce with se, e.g. defense Dropping the final e, e.g. examin, definit Dropping silent letters, e.g. fether

8. Examples today - 1 24/7 instead of 24 hours, 7 days a week Were going to deplane soon (i.e. getting off an aircraft) It is what it is. Transportation why not just transport? Birthdays turning 21, 40 etc. gotten take-out why not take-away?

9. Examples today - 2 my bad after you make a mistake Math instead of Maths regular instead of medium Period instead of full stop Season for a TV series Issue instead of problem Turn that off already

10. Examples today - 3 color instead of colour, etc wasting time spell checking on Word.

11. Are Americanisms taking over the British language? Who decides what is good or correct English when the way it is spoken differs from country to country?

12. An example I found.

13. Video