“(H.L.)Mencken set out to describe and account for the differences, obvious and subtle, between English and American vocabulary, pronunciation, syntax, intonation, idiom, grammar, slang, euphemism and much more. The job entailed his becoming an etymologist, lexicographer and field worker generally among the native speakers in his own country. Along the way, Mencken, being Mencken, attacked British linguistic pedantry, stodginess and snobbish superiority, while never neglecting American pretentiousness, comic aspiration, and hospitality to foreign words—Spanish, German, Yiddish, Chinese prominent among them.”
Masterpiece Column
client: The Wall Street Journal