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H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.

Page 137

already alluded to tariff-reform. Open-shop is another. It means, in England, what an American union man (English: trades-unionist) calls a closed-shop. And closed-shop, in England, means what an American calls an open-shop! Finally, there is the verb-phrase, to carry on. In the United States it means to make a great pother; in England it means to persevere.… But the record must have an end.
 

3. Honorifics
 
  Among the honorifics in everyday use in England and the United States one finds many notable divergences between the two languages. On the one hand the English are almost as diligent as the Germans in bestowing titles of honor upon their men of mark, and on the other hand they are very careful to withhold such titles from men who do not legally bear them. In America every practitioner of any branch of the healing art, even a chiropodist or an osteopath, is a doctor ipso facto, but in England a good many surgeons lack the title and it is not common in the lesser ranks. Even physicians may not have it, but here there is a yielding of a usual meticulous exactness, and it is customary to address a physician in the second person as Doctor, though his card may show that he is only Medicinœ Baccalaureus, a degree quite unknown in America. Thus an Englishman, when he is ill, always sends for the doctor, as we do. But a surgeon is usually plain Mr., 31 and prefers to be so called, even when he is an M. D. An English veterinarian or dentist or druggist or masseur is never Dr.
  Nor Professor. In all save a few large cities of America every male pedagogue is a professor, and so is every band leader, dancing master and medical consultant. But in England the title is very