The American Language

Besides being a real-life curmudgeon and the actual person on whom the cynical newspaperman in INHERIT THE WIND is based, Mencken was a devout student of regional dialects and other provincialisms, and THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE (1919) ably defends American English from the snobbish pundits who dismissed the way we speak as the patois of ignoramuses. I read it decades ago and was...more

Besides being a real-life curmudgeon and the actual person on whom the cynical newspaperman in INHERIT THE WIND is based, Mencken was a devout student of regional dialects and other provincialisms, and THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE (1919) ably defends American English from the snobbish pundits who dismissed the way we speak as the patois of ignoramuses. I read it decades ago and was impressed with Mencken's ear for accents and eye for detail.   hide