The United States of English: The American Language from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century

by Rosemarie Ostler

The story of how English became American -- and how it became Southern, Bostonian, Californian, African-American, Chicano, elite, working-class, urban, rural, and everything in between

By the time of the Revolution, the English that Americans spoke was recognizably different from the British variety. Americans added dozens of new words to the language, either borrowed from Native Americans ( raccoon, persimmon, caucus ) or created from repurposed English ( backwoods, cane brake, salt lick ). Americans had their own pronunciations ( bath rhymed with hat , not hot ) and their own spelling ( honor , not honour ), not to mention a host of new expressions that grew out of the American landscape and culture ( blaze a trail, back track, pull up stakes ). Americans even invented their own slang, like stiff as a ringbolt to mean drunk. American English has continued to grow and change ever since.

The United States of English tells the engrossing tale of how the American language evolved over four hundred years, explaining both how and why it changed and which parts of the "mother tongue" it preserved ( I guess was heard in the British countryside long before it became a typical Americanism). Rosemarie Ostler approaches American English as part of the larger story of American history and culture, starting with what we know about the first colonists and their speech. Drawing on the latest research, she explores the roots of regional dialects, the differences between British and American language use, the sources of American slang, the development of African American English, current trends in political language, and much more. Plentiful examples of the American vernacular, past and present, bring the language to life and make for an engaging as well as enlightening read.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Language

304 pages, Hardcover

Published August 29, 2023

About the author

Linguist and freelance writer Rosemarie Ostler loves exploring the rich record of American language use. Her latest book, The United States of English, tells the story of how the language of the colonists grew into the multiple Englishes that Americans speak today. Earlier books cover such diverse topics as the origins of our most common expressions and the centuries-long fight over what counts as proper grammar. Rosemarie lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Reviews

[Gee · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars

leftists just can't help themselves; their need to gratuitously sprinkle wokeisms throughout sections on aave and lqbtq neologisms is a real turn off. reads like a word dump until the final third of the book where it veers into moral crusading.

[John Kinkade · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5. I feel bad saying it, as I very much want to like this book, but even for someone who is desperately interested in language and who really, really loves popular linguistics, this book is a pretty boring walk through American English. It depends too much on the traditional stories (Webster's Third, Ebonics controversy) without adding much of an angle as to why these are interesting moments in the history of the language. There were some really valuable moments for thinking about my teaching (quotative all, quotative go, quotative like all set up against each other; the section on words that come out of ME with an s ending and get analyzed as plurals--the explanation for "wages of sin is death" in the KJV). The kinds of summary statements that are undoubtedly true (things like, language will continue to change in response to technology) are just maddeningly uninteresting at the moments when you hope a chapter will close out with a cool insight. And one other minor irritation: she really hits on how Americans don't always recognize how much modern English comes from AAVE and hints that we are insufficiently sensitive to race, but the point in a lot of this book is that we are not conscious of where a lot of our English comes from. We don't think about Nordic influences in sky or shirt or Norman French in, well, a huge portion of English.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well collected information. Truly interesting in some spots, while a bit dry in others. The info on some of the more modern terms had me questioning some of the okay research, as the author proclaimed a few terms as new that I'd heard used long before that. (Though perhaps I'm misremembering?) Still, an overall interesting compilation on American English. I wanted to give 4 stars, but I found myself skimming the later chapters. (I guess because I was here for those developments.) I thoroughly enjoyed the historical pieces though.

[Josh Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid introduction both to the development of American English(es) in particular and the study of linguistics in general.

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crediting this to last year which is when I read most of it. Interesting review of the development of American English, with the earlier chapters being more interesting than the later ones.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dnf