http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
an inquiry into the development of English in the United States
Fourth edition, corrected, enlarged and rewritten.
Traces the origin and development of the American language as it has been adapted from English and illustrates the Americanization of Icelandic, Czechoslovakian, Lithuanian, Armenian, Chinese, Hungarian, Finnish and Arabic. Primary emphasis is on the language as it stands today including development of technological terms and slang.
I. The two streams of English. The earliest alarms -- The English attack -- American "barbarisms" -- The English attitude today -- The position of the learned -- The views of writing men -- The political front -- Foreign observers -- II. The materials of the inquiry. The hallmarks of American -- What is an Americanism? -- III. The beginnings of American. The first loan-words -- New words of English material -- Changed meanings -- Archaic English words -- IV. The period of growth. A new nation in the making -- The expanding vocabulary -- Loan-words and non-English influences -- V. The language today. After the Civil War -- The making of new nouns -- Verbs -- Other parts of speech -- Foreign influences today -- VI. American and English. The infiltration of English by Americanisms -- Surviving differences -- English difficulties with American -- Briticisms in the United States -- Honorifics -- Euphemisms -- Forbidden words -- Expletives -- VII. The pronunciation of American. Its general characters -- The vowels -- The consonants -- Dialects -- VIII. American spelling. The influence of Noah Webster -- The advance of American spelling -- The simplified spelling movement -- The treatment of loan-words -- Punctuation, capitalization, and abbreviation -- IX. The common speech. Outlines of its grammar -- The verb -- The pronoun -- The noun -- The adjective -- The adverb -- The double negative -- Other syntactical peculiarities -- X. Proper names in America. Surnames -- Given-names -- Place-names -- Other proper names -- XI. American slang. The nature of slang -- Cant and argot -- XII. The future of the language. The spread of English -- English or American? -- Appendix : Non-English dialects in America : Germanic -- Latin -- Slavic -- Finno-Ugrian -- Celtic -- Semitic -- Greek -- Asiatic -- Miscellaneous.
Includes bibliographical footnotes and index.