Americanisms are words or phrases current in the United States of America, but not in Britain, at least at present. They occur more frequently in speech than in writing; indeed, classical American authors seldom employ any but pure literary English words or constructions, though some of the novelists, of course, admit colloquialisms and local dialect freely into the dialogue portion of their romances or narratives.
Americanisms are of three sorts. The first consists of absolutely new words introduced into the English language in America. This class is comparatively small. Instances are caucus, a secret political assembly; ranch, a prairie cattle-farm; boss, a master or employer; drummer, a commercial traveller; and skedaddle, to run away headlong. The second consists of words or phrases current also in England, but to which a new meaning has been attached beyond the Atlantic. Such are clever, in the sense of amiable or even foolish; smart for clever; store for shop; ugly for ill-natured; saloon for bar-room; and creek for small stream or river. The third consists of obsolete words, or words used in senses once more or less familiar in England, but now discontinued, as chore for errand, sick for ill, cunning for pretty, and friends for relations. Professor Schele de Vere, whose work, The English of the New World (1873), is the best on the subject, believes, indeed, that the larger number of so-called Americanisms are good old English words, which have become obsolete or provincial in the mother-country. This claim, however, is hardly correct at the present day, owing to the immense number of Americanisms which have recently sprung up in the Far West or elsewhere, and have been too generally adopted through the influence of Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and other popular writers in dialect.
As regards origin, some few Americanisms have been borrowed from the languages of other European nations settled in parts of the United States, as for example, from the Dutch in New York (boss, loafer), the Spaniards in California (ranch, cañon), and to a less extent the French in Louisiana (bayou, levee). A far larger number of words and phrases has been more or less adopted from the German settlers in the western and middle states, and these have largely been popularised by Mr Leland's Breitmann Ballads. But the vast mass of Americanisms are of truly native origin, consisting of flash or slang usages applied to combinations of existing English words. Some of them are Americanisms only by virtue of the relatively greater frequency with which they are employed. Such are I guess, I reckon, I presume, I calculate, originally said to have been Puritan attempts to avoid the possibility of too definite a misstatement. To this class also belong to fix as the verb universal (fix a meeting = arrange; fix myself up for dinner = dress); to run, in the sense of to manage ('run a hotel,' 'run a railway,' 'Who runs this concern?' &c.); right in the sense of quite or just ('right comfortable,' 'right here'); and pretty used perpetually for 'rather,' as pretty bad, pretty nice, and even sometimes pretty ugly. 'Is that so?' in the sense of 'Indeed!' or 'Really!' and the frequent use of 'sir' and 'ma'am' in addressing equals are also Americanisms. Other phrases more redolent of the soil are 'not a red cent,' 'you bet your bottom dollar,' 'prospecting around,' 'toting a derring,' and so forth. 'You bet,' as a strong affirmation, recalls the common gambling habits of the west. 'To hand in one's checks,' 'to go one's pile,' 'to hold the right bower,' belong also to the western gaming phraseology. To say that a business speculation 'pans out well' or 'strikes it rich,' is obviously derived from the mining slang of California. Candy for every kind of sweetmeat, is common to the entire Union. Rooster for cock, lumber for timber, fall for autumn, back of for behind, lot for field or paddock, form similar elements of the general language. Cracker means biscuit, while biscuit is the name of a light roll. Many phrases are evidently due to the direct influence of French ideas, and the love of the travelled American for Paris. Baggage for luggage, valise for small trunk, dépôt for railway station, bureau for office (and domestically for chest of drawers), exposition for exhibition, are cases in point. In many instances, Americanisms proceed from the desire for brevity, as pants for trousers (pantaloons), cars for railway carriages, and to wire for to telegraph, the last now widely naturalised in England. On the other hand, where we say a lift, the Americans say an elevator; and generally speaking, long words of Latin origin, which in England are mostly confined to serious writing, in America form part of the current vocabulary of every-day life. Such are to operate for to work, to locate for to place; institution, lyceum, or academy for school or college; recitation for lesson, proclivities for tastes, section for district, eminence for hill, residence for house, elegant for pretty, vacation for holidays, and prominent citizens for well-known men.
From a slightly different point of view it may be said that the speech and writing of cultivated Americans are fairly free from noteworthy Americanisms, save those which consist in the excessive use of a Latinised vocabulary, and those which are necessitated by the intercourse of ordinary life, such as horse-cars for trams, side-walk for pavement, and railroad for railway. Whoever wants pop-corn or squash must needs ask for them. But the speech and writing of the uncultivated classes diverge increasingly from the pure literary English standard, and are likely to diverge increasingly in future. New slang arises rapidly, and is widely diffused with extraordinary speed. At one time the cant phrases of the western miners overran the country like wildfire; at present, the dialect of the cowboys who 'paint the town red,' reverberates from state to state of the Union. The language of the rural papers is often almost incomprehensible to an English reader: it abounds in graphic details about the latest boom, narrates how the high-toned students at the Eclectic Institute excursed in wagons to the annual grove-meeting, observes that Chicago crooks were shadowed at the theatre, or laments that the elegant paragraph in a contemporary's columns should turn out to be nothing but a fish story. Nevertheless, by slow degrees, most of these Americanisms, however odious, are at last imported into Britain itself. Go-ahead and posted-up are now practically parts of the English language; to boom is rapidly being acclimatised amongst us; canned meats are almost as well known in England as tinned peaches; and maskers are as familiar in London as in New York or Boston. The tendency to take our slang in particular from American sources is largely on the increase, and has been strengthened partly by the diffusion of works like Mark Twain's and Frank Stockton's, partly by the increased intercourse between the two countries, and partly by the influence of the cosmopolitan Americans who throng the Continent.
In the New England states, the Americanisms in use are chiefly those of the older crop—that is to say, the English words now obsolete or provincial, and the words evolved on the soil for new objects or recent inventions. In the south, among the white population, almost pure English is generally spoken. But in the middle states, and still more in the west, slang is rife, and startling Americanisms form the mass of the colloquial language. All over America, including Canada, the spoken tongue tends to be far less correct than the written. People who write is not, say ain't; people who write almost always, say most allus; people who write very ordinary, say pretty or'nery. In a few cases the American pronunciation is even crystallised in the accepted spelling: thus toffee is always written taffy, and halloo is beginning to be written hello. The comic papers go so far as to print popper for papa, jest for just, and ruther for rather.
Americanisms in spelling are chiefly due to the influence of Noah Webster's dictionary, which in many cases adopts an orthography not sanctioned by British authorities. Illustrative cases are practiced, offenses, labor, theater, traveler, traveled, mold, and fulfillment.
See The English Language in America, in the Cambridge Essays for 1855; Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1858); R. A. Proctor in Knowledge for 1886; Lowell's prefaces to Biglow Papers; Farmer's Americanisms (1888).