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for moderately, as in right well, right smart, right good and right often, and in place of precisely, as in right there. Some time ago, in an article on Americanisms, an English critic called it “that most distinctively American word,” and concocted the following dialogue to instruct the English in its use:

How do I get to —?

Go right along, and take the first turning (sic) on the right, and you are right there.

Right?

Right.

Right! 28

But this Englishman failed in his attempt to write correct American, despite his fine pedagogical passion. No American would ever say “take the first turning”; he would say “turn at the first corner.” As for right away, R. O. Williams argues that “so far as analogy can make good English, it is as good as one could choose.” Nevertheless, the Concise Oxford Dictionary admits it only as an Americanism, and avoids all mention of the other American uses of right. Good is almost as protean. It is not only used as a general synonym for all adjectives and adverbs connoting satisfaction, as in to feel good, to be treated good, to sleep good, but also as a reinforcement to other adjectives and adverbs as in “I hit him good and hard” and “I am good and tired.” Of late some has come into wide use as an adjective-adverb of all work, indicating special excellence or high degree, as in some girl, some sick, going some, etc. It is still below the salt, but threatens to reach a more respectable position. One encounters it in the newspapers constantly and in the Congressional Record, and not long ago a writer in the Atlantic Monthly 29 hymned it ecstatically as “some word—a true super-word, in fact” and argued that it could be used “in a sense for which there is absolutely no synonym in the dictionary.” It was used by the prim Emily Dickinson forty or more years ago. 30 It will concern us again in Chapter IX. It would be easy to pile up words and phrases that are used in both America and England, but with different meanings. I have

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