Contents -SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

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syllable; speciality, in England, on the third. The result is two distinct words, though their meaning is identical. How aluminium, in America, lost its fourth syllable I have been unable to determine, but all American authorities now make it aluminium and all English authorities stick to aluminium. Perhaps the boric-boracic pair also belongs here. In American boric is now almost universally preferred, but it is also making progress in England. How the difference between the English behove and the American behoove arose I do not know. Equally mysterious is the origin of the American snicker, apparently a decadent form of the English snigger.