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syllable of Ohio with tea, and to sound the second c in Connecticut. In Maryland the name of Calvert county is given a broad a, whereas the name of Calvert street, in Baltimore, has a flat a. This curious distinction is almost always kept up. A Scotchman, coming to America, would give the ch in such names as Loch Raven and Lochvale the guttural Scotch (and German) sound, but locally it is always pronounced as if it were k.

Finally, there is a curious difference between English and American usage in the use of the word river. The English invariably put it before the proper name, whereas we almost as invariably put it after. The Thames River would seem quite as strange to an Englishman as the river Chicago would seem to us. This difference arose more than a century ago and was noticed by Pickering. But in his day the American usage was still somewhat uncertain, and such forms as the river Mississippi were yet in use. Today river almost always goes after the proper name.

4. Street Names

‘‘Such a locality as ‘the corner of Avenue H and Twenty-third street,’ ’’ says W. W. Crane, ‘‘is about as distinctly American as Algonquin and Iroquois names like Mississippi and Saratoga.’’ 72 Kipling, in his ‘‘American Notes,’’ 73 gives testimony to the strangeness with which the number-names, the phrase ‘‘the corner of,’’ and the custom of omitting street fall upon the ear of a Britisher. He quotes with amazement certain directions given to him on his arrival in San Francisco from India: ‘‘Go six blocks north to [the] corner of Geary and Markey [Market?]; then walk around till you strike [the] corner of Sutter and Sixteenth.’’ The English always add the word street (or road or place or avenue) when speaking of a thoroughfare; such a phrase as ‘‘Oxford and New Bond’’ would strike them as incongruous.

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