The Story of American English: Afterword +

When I first picked up this book by chance and started reading it casually, the first thing that surprised me was the passage stating that the first Native Americans encountered by the Puritans who crossed the ocean on the Mayflower spoke English. I couldn't help but call out to my spouse, who was ironing in the next room, 'Hey, did you know this?' As the author notes, history books might not write about this in much detail. (Recently, I went to a nearby library and picked out two books from the American history section that seemed likely to cover this era, and when I flipped through them, both contained clear explanations that English-speaking Native Americans helped the immigrants. Perhaps it is American history books that prefer to keep things vague. However...) Looking at the fact that a review in the British newspaper The Guardian (July 5, 1994) also starts by asking readers, 'Have you ever considered how the ill-prepared Pilgrim Fathers managed to talk to the locals and get them to teach them the tricks of growing crops so they could survive?', it seems this is not well known in Britain either.
As the subtitle 'A History of Everyday American English' suggests, this book records how the English that Americans speak and write today was formed, tracing it back to the time of the Founding Fathers and carefully unraveling its connection to people's lives. One of the book's features is that it is packed with episodes—some that make you think, 'Wow, did that really happen?', and others that make you think, 'I suspected as much, but it's true'—so many that it's hard to count, and I was impressed by how well they were collected. Thanks to this, it seems likely to be enjoyed as an accessible history book even by readers who are not particularly interested in the transition of English itself after crossing the Atlantic.
For example, Benjamin Franklin, famous as a great man, was involved in drafting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but he also wrote essays on how to choose a mistress and how to avoid passing gas. He also left behind many practical and simple maxims, such as 'An empty sack cannot stand upright' and 'After a discussion, neither a fortress nor a hymen lasts long.' Knowing these things not only increases one's affinity for the country of America, but perhaps also has the effect of making one feel nostalgic for humanity itself.
Regarding Lincoln, there are also episodes that would be unthinkable today, such as how he was deeply discouraged after delivering his famous speech ending with 'government of the people, by the people, for the people,' saying, 'I failed, I failed,' and how the speech was so short that the President sat down before the official photographer was ready.
Among them, the one that was exceptionally funny and made me laugh out loud while translating was the verb 'to Westinghouse,' which Edison, the inventor of direct current, supposedly thought up to try to disparage Westinghouse, the father of alternating current. If I introduce the details, you won't be able to stop laughing, so I will omit them here, but if you started reading from the afterword, please open page XX of the first volume. See, isn't it funny?
It was also surprising that Los Angeles, which is now inconvenient without a car, was once the city with the most developed public transportation in America. It is shocking to hear that while boss politicians influenced by the automobile industry controlled the budget allocation, the streetcars failed and only roads were built. In our country, too, similar outrageous situations are surely happening in many places without our knowledge, but the past and present of Los Angeles seem to show the wretchedness of humans driven by the temptation of money on an extraordinary scale, making me feel complicated, as if it's terrifying and something must be done before it gets to that point.
The author's uniqueness also seems to lie in revealing the sloppiness of historical facts that ordinary Americans take for granted while being steeped in standard school education and common sense. There are plenty of stories like: the Declaration of Independence was read in Philadelphia on July 2nd, and John Adams thought this day was the one to be commemorated for America; or that the telegraph was invented not by Morse, but by his teacher, Joseph Henry. You probably think so too, but the truth is this. Of course, for us Japanese, since it's a story from across the distant sea, we often don't even have that knowledge, so the reaction tends to be 'I see, I didn't know that' rather than the surprise of 'Wow, what I believed until now wasn't a fact,' but well, it's interesting nonetheless.
Also, for example, like baseball terms, understanding the origins of words that have now become firmly established as loanwords in Japanese is one of the pleasures of this book. We call a left-handed pitcher a 'southpaw,' but since 'south' should be south, it's strange if you think about why it's called that, but if you read this book, that question will be solved immediately.
It is also interesting that basketball, which has been rapidly gaining popularity recently due to the spillover of NBA popularity, was born in 1891, the score of the first game was 1-0, a peach basket was used for the goal, and a soccer ball was used for the ball. It is also heartwarming that although the basket was soon replaced by a net, no one thought to open a hole in the bottom until 1912, so every time a shot went in, they had to set up a ladder to retrieve the ball. There was a critic who used the catchphrase 'Movies are interesting, aren't they?', but reading this book, I feel that it would work just as well if you replaced 'movies' with 'history' or 'English'.

Even so, looking at the English used in America and the history of the people who use it, I am overwhelmed by its dynamism, and I am so impressed by the strength of its vitality that I almost want to sigh. As the author notes, one of the sources of this vitality is likely that it is a melting pot of races. It is natural for the first generation who went out of their way to abandon their hometowns and cross to a distant, unknown country to be highly motivated, and the second generation who grew up watching such parents also seems to be quite energetic. Just recently, when I was listening to FEN radio, a professor at some university was talking about the outlook for the American economy, and I was surprised by his heavy accent. There is talk that in big cities, there are many taxi drivers and waiters who cannot speak English-like English, but there are such people among university professors as well. I heard a story that when a classmate from my university days studied abroad in Los Angeles, his advisor was a first-generation immigrant, and he couldn't understand the content of the class—not because he was bad at listening, but because even the American students said that if they didn't read the textbook written by the professor in advance, they wouldn't understand what was going on. The fact that even such a person can become a professor is likely the source of America's vitality. In Japan, it seems quite difficult for someone who is not even good at Japanese to become a university professor. Of course, there is a follow-up to this story: by the time my friend successfully earned his doctorate and started looking for a job, being able to speak English well had become a condition for becoming a university faculty member, and my friend, who was naturally quiet and not good at speaking, not just in English, struggled quite a bit. Even so, he was hired somehow, and now he has obtained tenure and is living a fine life in a city in the Midwest.

Even though it is the same English, the fact that British English and American English are quite different can be realized immediately just by listening to the news from overseas broadcasting stations, which have recently become easily accessible on television. The tone of the announcers on the BBC and CNN is completely different; to exaggerate, it's as if they are different languages. Although it should have been a country created by people who originally crossed the sea from Britain, when and why did such a difference arise? The historical background is detailed in this book, but I also have two personal experiences.
First, an incident in junior high school when I started learning English. Perhaps it was a school enthusiastic about English education, but there was a class once a week with a teacher whose native language was English. However, despite the enthusiasm, looking back now, there was a lack of consideration, and for some reason, the homeroom teacher in the first year was American, and the second year was British. Perhaps it was because we could finally experience real English, or perhaps there was nothing else to do when dealing with children who didn't know English at all, but the class was just about getting used to English pronunciation, and we spent the whole time repeating words and simple sentences pronounced by the teacher like parrots. A year passed, the teacher changed, and it became a British person. The American teacher in the first year usually wore casual clothes, and even when he occasionally wore a tie, he wore a tweed jacket with elbow patches, but the teacher in the second year wore a proper suit and a bow tie. And this person started working hard on correcting the students' sloppy pronunciation from the very first class. What I still can't forget is that all 41 students in the class had their pronunciation of 'apple' corrected one by one. Perhaps he couldn't stand the American-style sound that sounded like a squashed frog's croak, with the mouth spread wide horizontally for the 'a'. I was thoroughly drilled until I could say 'ah' a little longer, with my mouth slightly longer vertically, as if I were being prim. In the end, that day's class was spent just for this one word.
So, I learned deep in my bones that English pronunciation is different between America and Britain, but about ten years later, when I lived in London for about half a year, there was an incident that impressed upon me that not only the pronunciation but also the words themselves are not the same. I don't remember well whether I thought I should do as the Romans do, but anyway, since I was living in Britain, I thought I would try wearing suspenders and a waistcoat. The place I immediately went to was Oxford Street, which saw the light of day thanks to Mr. Selfridge, who was also active in Chapter 12. However, the store I entered was Marks & Spencer, which had many cheaper products than Selfridge's department store. I looked around the sales floor, but I couldn't find anything that looked like suspenders, so I had no choice but to call out to a young male clerk who looked friendly. 'Where are the suspenders kept?' Then the clerk made a puzzled face and answered with a question, 'Did you say suspenders?' Feeling anxious that my pronunciation might be hard to understand when asked back, and having a habit of looking for other words, I rephrased it, 'It's that thing you use instead of a belt so your trousers don't fall down.' Then the clerk smiled as if to say 'I see,' and said, 'Hey, you shouldn't say suspenders. That's the rubber thing women use to hold up their stockings. We also call them garters. If you're not careful, you'll be misunderstood.' I was shocked by this. I was told that if I was looking for suspenders, I had to look for 'braces,' and I left that day without buying the essential item. The waistcoat was a bit better, but 'vest' didn't get through either, and I learned that I couldn't get the desired product unless I said 'waistcoat'.

Now, the essential author introduction has come to the end. Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. After living in Britain for more than 20 years since the early 1970s, he returned to America and currently lives in New Hampshire with his family. He also has long experience working for a newspaper company in Britain. His books include the following.

・A Dictionary of Troublesome Words
・The Lost Continent (1992)
・The Mother Tongue (1992)
・Neither Here Nor There (1992)
・Notes from a Small Island (1995)

Looking at it this way, the number of travelogues and books written about English is exactly three each, half and half. The Lost Continent, which has his native American Midwest as its theme in Britain and America, Neither Here Nor There, a record of his travels rushing around various parts of Europe, and Notes from a Small Island, which he wrote while slowly touring the island and weaving in memories before leaving Britain where he lived for many years, are all bestsellers. A review in The Sunday Times also points out that the two books by Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent and Neither Here Nor There, were the funniest books born from the travelogue boom that occurred in the mid-1970s, triggered by Paul Theroux's 'The Great Railway Bazaar,' and that the two Provence books by Peter Mayle put an end to it (September 24, 1995). It seems he also contributes frequently to National Geographic Magazine, but judging by the nature of the magazine, this is probably also a travelogue.

As for books about English, The Mother Tongue, which has the history of English itself as its theme, is well known.

Just as I finished the translation, a short article with the headline 'Fowler relaxes regulation of slang' was published in the November 10th issue of the weekly digest version of the British newspaper The Guardian. It says that Fowler's English Usage, published by Oxford University Press, which has been the standard for English usage, has been revised for the first time in about 70 years, and has become quite tolerant of slang expressions in both vocabulary and grammar. Among the examples cited there, there was one that said 'Nobody told me I would feel like I do,' which uses 'like' as a conjunction, has been criticized as an error until now, but the revised edition also recognizes this. It is the same use of 'like' as in the cigarette advertisement slogan quoted in Chapter 14, 'Winston tastes good like a cigarette should,' and the author also seemed to be writing with dissatisfaction about such disorder, but it seems that the time has finally come when it is recognized even by the guide considered the highest authority in that field. Of course, it is also important that there are people who are enthusiastic that they will not change so easily in a world where everything, not just language usage, changes in a great hurry.

In addition, Made in America was first published by Secker and Warburg in Britain in 1994, and was published by Morrow in America the following year. I mainly used the British version for the translation, and incorporated what was newly added in the American version here and there. However, only for Chapter 21, the front and back are completely swapped between the British and American versions, and since the structure of the American version seems to fit better, and for the convenience of dealing with the latest circumstances, I thought it was desirable to use the new version, even if it was only one year, so I decided to use the American version. Towards the end, there are parts that seem to be encouraging that the American education level is not that low and the economy is also fine, but the British version does not have that. It is a bit self-praise, but I also thought that American readers might need this kind of encouragement.

I supplemented the meanings of English words, idioms, etc., in Japanese in parentheses as translation notes. However, if there is more than one meaning, I have prioritized the ones that seem interesting, so there are not a few that are hard to say are perfect. Especially for those interested in English, I recommend that you consult your dictionary.

As I mentioned earlier, although I studied English happily in junior high school, the high school classes were just boring, and I never attended a class in university, and I even had a classmate who had returned from abroad take the exams for me, so my knowledge of English is very unreliable. For the translation of this book, I lined up various dictionaries at hand and looked them up while pulling them back and forth, but there were still many words, idioms, expressions, etc., that were not in the dictionary. I would like to thank Robert Wargo and Terry Sherwin, who I asked for guidance each time. I would also like to thank Jiro Morikuni, who looked up the titles of Hollywood movies when they were released in Japan, and Toko Sakamoto, who carefully edited the complex sentences that were intertwined vertically and horizontally. Thank you very much.

December 8, 1996

Made in America

Table of Contents
1. The Mayflower and the Era Before It
2. Becoming an American
3. 'The Fever of Democracy' - America in the Revolutionary War Era
4. Nation Building
5. By the Dawn's Early Light... - Fabrication of National Character
6. Getting Rich Together... - The Age of Invention
7. Names
8. 'Manifest Destiny'... - Taming the Shrew 'West'
9. Melting Pot... - Immigration to America10. 'While the Feet are Bright'... - Travel in America11. 'What Kind of Cooking Can You Do?'... - Food in America12. Luxury Within Everyone's Reach... - Shopping in America13. In Daily Life14. Hard Selling... - Advertising in America15. Movies16. In Search of Pleasure... - Sports and Play17. Bombs and Bragging... - Politics and War18. Sex and Various Pleasures19. The Road from Kitty Hawk20. Welcome to the Space Age... - Since the 1950s21. Contemporary American English

Introduction

In the 1940s, a British traveler visited the island of Anholt, which floats 80 kilometers offshore in the Kattegat Strait separating Denmark and Sweden, and pricked up his ears at the strange phrases shouted by the island's children. The words, which were gibberish even to the children singing them, were,

Jeg og Jill
Vent op de hillOg Jell kom tombling after

Upon closer investigation, it was discovered that this short poem was brought by British soldiers who occupied the island during the Napoleonic Wars, and for the 130 years since, children had passed it down by word of mouth for generations without knowing its meaning.
A couple living in London heard this little piece of news and were intrigued. They were Peter Opie and Iona Opie, who had devoted their lives to the study of nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes are something that have been part of children's play since ancient times, but they hadn't seen much light of day until then, and it was the Opies who had devoted more energy than anyone else to studying their origins and distribution. However, the two had long been troubled by the mysterious fate of a song called 'Frown.' It was as popular as 'Humpty Dumpty' and 'Hickory Dickory Dock,' and until the latter half of the 18th century, it was usually included in collections of nursery rhymes, but it disappeared before anyone knew it, without any particular reason. Since 1788, there has not been a single songbook that has recorded this poem. But one night, a nursery rhyme sung by a nanny to put children to sleep could be heard faintly. As you might have guessed, it was 'Frown.' It was exactly the same as the 1788 edition of the songbook, and with a five-line bonus that had not been known until now.
Now, having read this far, some of you may have doubts about what connection there is between this book, which is supposed to trace the transition of English in America, and nursery rhymes. There are two reasons why I brought up this story. One is that I wanted to point out that the history and characteristics of language are often revealed through trivial matters that are easily overlooked. For example, nursery rhymes have a very strong power to resist change. Even when the meaning is completely unknown, it is common for them to be passed down like important spells, without changing a single word or phrase for generations, as in the case of 'Jack and Jill' and the children living on an isolated island off the coast of Denmark. Because of that, it is not rare for nursery rhymes to retain the characteristics of old times, regardless of the language of the country. 'Eeny, meeny, miny, moe' is based on a way of counting before Britain was occupied by the Roman Empire, and there is a theory that it predates the arrival of the Celts. If so, this song is one of the valuable remnants that connects me to a very old era. It not only gives us a glimpse of how children played when Stonehenge was built, but also provides clues about how adults counted, thought, and spoke. In other words, even trivial things are worth looking at closely.
Secondly, I wanted to say that anything that forms a part of language, such as songs, words, idioms, and chants, will survive even if no one pays special attention to it, as can be seen from the meeting between the Opies and 'Frown.' Even if a word or idiom is not recorded in literature, it just means that there was no one to record it, and it does not mean that the language did not exist. People living in Britain in the same era as Chaucer often used the phrase 'be in hide and hair' to mean 'lost' or 'cannot be found.' However, after this expression disappeared from literature for 400 years, it suddenly reappeared in America in 1857 in the form of 'neither hide nor hair.' It is hard to think that this idiom had been suffering from aphasia for four centuries. Then who kept this phrase secretly for 400 years, and why did it return to the center stage without any warning in a foreign land more than 3,000 kilometers away after the middle of the 19th century?Thinking about it, why did Americans carefully protect old-fashioned, British-style words like 'skedaddle' (to run away in a hurry), 'chitterling' (small intestine of a pig for cooking), and 'chore' (odd job), while turning their backs on 'fortnight' (two weeks) and 'heath' (wasteland)? Why did they keep the irregular British pronunciation for words like 'colonel' and 'hearth' (hearth), but go their own way for 'lieutenant,' 'schedule,' and 'clerk' (the way of opening the mouth for 'a' is different)? In a word, how did American English become what it is today?These questions seem very significant and interesting to me, but it seems that no one even thought about them until quite recently. Even after a considerable amount of time had passed in this century, serious research on American English was almost entirely left to amateurs. One such amateur was Richard H. Thornton, a British-born lawyer who spent many years in his spare time reading books, magazines, and drafts from the early days of the colonies, and identified the first appearances of hundreds of expressions unique to American English. Thornton wrote the two-volume 'American Glossary' in 1912. However, no American publisher would take up this work, which is truly valuable academically. In the end, this book was published in London, leaving a permanent stain on American academia.In the 1920s and 1930s, H.L. Mencken's immortal masterpiece 'The American Language,' George Philip Krapp's 'The English Language in America,' and the 'Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles' co-authored by Sir William Craigie and James R. Hulbert were published one after another, and America finally encountered books that seriously tried to answer questions about its own language. However, by that time, there was no way to explore the triggers of ideas and states of mind hidden behind hundreds and thousands of American expressions, so now no one knows why Americans 'paint the town red' (meaning to go bar-hopping and make a fuss), 'talk turkey' (meaning to speak frankly), 'take a powder' (meaning to run away quickly), or why they call the bat used to hit a fly a 'fungo bat'.This book is a modest attempt to think about how American English came to be and why it took the form it does today. It will be different from the conventional history of American English, and I hope it will be. I am sure I will repeatedly digress shamelessly here and there. If you are suspicious about how Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish running over her servants three times in a row has anything to do with the development of English in America, or how James Gordon Bennett's habit of pulling tablecloths off passing tables every time he went to a restaurant until he died is connected to the linguistic development of the American people, it is not at all rude to the author. What I want to say is that unless you understand the social background that produces language—unless you realize how much a person who saw an automobile for the first time in their life was shaken by its novelty, and how the capitalists who built vast fortunes from the end of the last century to the beginning of this century spent their days in reckless luxury and lived lives far removed from the masses—you will not be able to feel the richness and brilliance of the words and phrases that form American English.Oh, there was one more reason why I brought up nursery rhymes. I thought I would be interested myself, and that the readers would enjoy it too. When I intend to write a book like this and do various research, it is not rare to be troubled by small things. One of them is encountering stories that are very interesting but have nothing to do with the main subject, so I have no choice but to leave them as they are. I decided to call those the 'Ray Buduck Story.' I encountered Ray Buduck when I was looking at the back numbers of Time magazine for 1941, looking for something completely different. Early one Sunday morning that year, Buduck suddenly felt like taking a walk in the sky by driving his own light aircraft. It was common for Buduck to feel that way. There is nothing unusual up to this point, but the situation changes when you consider that Buduck lived in Honolulu and that early morning happened to be December 7, 1941. When he pointed the nose of his plane toward Pearl Harbor, he saw a swarm of Zero fighters like clouds in the western sky, and to make matters worse, he saw them rushing straight at him, so Buduck was, to put it mildly, shocked. After being strafed by the Japanese military, Buduck, I suppose, uttered a line to the effect of 'I'm surprised,' and immediately tilted his wings and fled. And surprisingly, not only did he land his beloved plane safely in the midst of the greatest air raid operation in history and pass on his rare experience to future generations, but he also became the first American to unexpectedly enter into a state of combat against the Japanese military.Of course, this has nothing to do with American English. But everything I am about to write has something to do with it. Really.

1. The Mayflower and the Era Before It

It is hard to imagine a group less suited for life in an undeveloped land. Even looking at their travel preparations, it seems as if they misunderstood the purpose of their trip. They seemed to have had the leeway to pack a sundial, candle wick trimmers, drums, trumpets, and even the entire history of Turkey. A person named William Mullins brought 126 pairs of short boots and 13 pairs of long boots. However, not a single person among the passengers brought cows, horses, hoes, or fishing lines. Looking at the occupations of the people who boarded the Mayflower, there were two tailors, one printer, several merchants, a silk worker, a shopkeeper, and a hatter, one each. When trying to survive in a harsh environment, I have no idea in what situation they could demonstrate their trained skills. Mr. Myles Standish, who was supposed to be in command of military aspects, was so short that he was affectionately known as the 'Shrimp General,' so it was unlikely that he could intimidate the savage natives that everyone was prepared to confront in the new land. Apart from this tiny general, and even that is a bit uncertain, it seems that not a single person in the group had ever pointed a gun at a wild animal. In 17th-century Europe, hunting was the business of the nobility. Even among those who called themselves 'farmers,' it was rare for them to be familiar with taking care of livestock. This is because in the 17th century, and for some time after, 'farmer' meant the owner of a farm, not the person who worked there.In a word, the group was ill-prepared for the dangerously harsh future, and they demonstrated their obvious incompetence quite dramatically. They built a mountain of corpses one after another. Six people died in the first two weeks, eight in the following month, another 17 in February, and 13 in March traveled to the other world. Only 54 people survived until April, when the Mayflower was about to return to Britain, and nearly half of them were children. With this many people, they were about to start the grand task of turning the uncertain footing they had just reached into a self-sufficient colony......For two months, the group tried to talk to the natives somehow, but as soon as they saw them, the Indians would run away immediately. However, one day in February, a young man with a friendly demeanor approached a group of settlers loitering on the beach. This young man, who called himself Samoset, was also an outsider, but he had a friend named Tisquantum among the local Wampanoag tribe, and he introduced the group to this friend. Samoset and Tisquantum became very reliable friends for the immigrants. They taught them how to plant corn and catch wild birds, and arranged for them to get along with the chiefs of the local tribes. Soon, as any good child who goes to school knows, the immigrants prospered and were able to enjoy a nutritious Thanksgiving feast with the Indians. No one could complain about a life like this.Here, the question naturally arises: how on earth were the immigrants able to do this? The language of the tribes living in the east is called Algonquian, a terrifyingly complex language (or rather a language family consisting of several languages) where several words stick together like dumplings, and consonant strings that are hard for beginners to pronounce appear frequently. The difficulty of it would be obvious if you look at the first guide to the Algonquian language compiled by Mr. Roger Williams in Connecticut about 20 years later (by the way, Mr. Williams' academic achievements should be applauded more grandly). If you try to pronounce the following sentences, you can realize the difficulty.Nquitpausuckowashâwmen - We are 100 people.Chénock wonck cuppee-yeâumen? - When will you return?Tasûckqunne cummauchenaûmis - Since when have you been sick?Ntannetéimmin - Excuse me.It is by no means a language that can be learned on the side, and it seems that there was no one in the immigrant group who was good at foreign languages. They couldn't even call Tisquantum's name properly, and they were allowed to call him Squanto. Now, the answer is, surprisingly, something that most history books manage to evade, but since Samoset and Squanto fortunately spoke English, the immigrants did not have to learn the Algonquian language. Samoset was only at the level of broken English, but Squanto was quite fluent (and he even spoke Spanish).It seems almost a miracle that the stray British immigrants crossed that vast ocean in 1620 and were greeted by two Indians who could speak English in the New World they reached. In any case, there is no doubt that they were lucky—without the two, the immigrant group would probably not have survived, and it would not be strange at all if they had been massacred—but in fact, it was not such an impossible story. The 'New World' of 1620 was not that new anymore.2. 'The Fever of Democracy' - America in the Revolutionary War Era

In the summer of 1776, when the representatives gathered in Philadelphia felt the need for a document to clarify the grounds for their dissatisfaction with Great Britain, the task was entrusted to Thomas Jefferson. To us, it seems only natural that Jefferson would be the one chosen. However, that was not the case.
In 1776, Jefferson was nearly unknown, with his name barely recognized even in his home state of Virginia. At 33, he was the second youngest among the representatives, and he could not shake the impression of being an inexperienced newcomer. For Jefferson, the Second Continental Congress was his first opportunity to experience events in the wider world beyond the colony where he was born and raised. He had missed being selected as a representative for the First Continental Congress, and he had not been scheduled to attend the second one either. However, when one of the representatives, Peyton Randolph, was called back to Virginia at the last minute and could not attend, Jefferson was appointed as his replacement. Jefferson's reputation rested almost entirely on his "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," which he had written two years earlier. With this piece, which was perhaps a bit presumptuous and bold for a young man, he explained to the British how they should behave in their major overseas colonies, and he gained some attention as a skilled writer. Among the Virginia delegation, he was known as a dilettante (a term that did not yet carry a derogatory meaning at the time; derived from the Italian 'dilettare,' it referred to someone who found joy in everything), and he was highly regarded for being well-read. In that era, being well-read truly held great significance (Jefferson was fluent in seven languages).
Even so, it is hard to say that Jefferson had achieved national fame. Furthermore, there is no evidence that he even desired it. It was obvious that he did not want to go to Philadelphia; he dawdled on the way, looking for books or buying horses, and even when he finally appeared at the conference, he barely spoke. John Adams later wondered, "I have sat next to him for a very long time, and I have never heard him speak more than three sentences in a row." Moreover, in December 1775, when the debates were at their peak, he returned to his home in Virginia and did not return to the conference for nearly five months. If he could have, he surely would have skipped the conference and left the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to someone else, preferring to participate in writing the new constitution for Virginia. That was far more important to Jefferson.
Nevertheless, because he had what John Adams called a "peculiar felicity of expression," he was chosen as one of the five to draft the Declaration of Independence. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston were the other members, and this Committee of Five decided to entrust the drafting of the original text to Jefferson. In Jefferson's view, the purpose of the declaration was "not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent."
However, the Declaration of Independence is, of course, something more than that. As Garry Wills noted, it holds a distinguished position as "perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also a great piece of literature." Look at the opening sentence.

(Opening of the Declaration of Independence)

Using simple, easy-to-understand language that anyone could grasp, Jefferson not only smoothly presented the main points of the ideas he would later write about, but he also provided momentum here with an inflection that gradually invites the reader into a state of intoxication. The preamble of the Declaration of Independence can be read by listening only to its rhythm. As Stephen E. Lucas pointed out, in just 202 words, it covers "what John Locke spent thousands of words on in his Second Treatise of Government." "By condensing complex ideas into short, easy-to-understand sentences, the preamble became the norm for 18th-century prose."
It is not widely known, but the text of the declaration is not entirely Jefferson's own. The recently published draft of George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights contains content that cannot simply be dismissed as having given Jefferson inspiration. Let's look at perhaps the most famous passage in the Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Comparing this to Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights:

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights... of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
One might say that "the pursuit of happiness" is much cleaner than "pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety," but this moving phrasing was not actually Jefferson's own idea. "The pursuit of happiness" was first used by John Locke nearly a century earlier, and since then, it had been an expression frequently used in political writings.
The many words that color the famous text that has inspired so many people were also not from Jefferson's own pen. Jefferson's draft was somewhat lacking in elegance and had a tendency toward verbosity.

We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This text gained the resonant sound found in the final version only after being revised by the Committee of Five, and it was subsequently presented to Congress, where it became the target of intense debate. Congress did not hesitate to make changes to the text Jefferson had painstakingly written. A total of 40 corrections were requested. About 630 words, or roughly one-quarter of the total word count, were deleted, and 146 new words were added. Like many writers who have had their work edited by others, Jefferson felt that the revised version was sadly inferior to his own draft, but like many writers, Jefferson's judgment was wrong. It is rare to see a text so brilliantly polished by editing. The parts that were written so well they couldn't be improved—especially the opening passage—were kept exactly as they were, and the parts that were off-target or trivial were meticulously removed.
This preamble, which is now counted among the most famous pieces of English political writing, did not stand out much when it was first published. What surprised and caught the attention of the people of that time was the part that made up 60% of the entire declaration, which listed the various grievances against the King.
Many of the 27 accusations against the King were—sometimes unreasonably—nothing more than exaggerations...
Let's examine the tenth one: "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." In reality, the "swarms" amounted to at most about 50 people, and most of their assigned tasks were, for example, the prevention of smuggling (incidentally, John Hancock became the wealthiest man in New England by accumulating wealth through this smuggling), which was reasonable by any standard...

6. Getting Rich Together—The Age of Invention

On the morning of July 2, 1881, President James Garfield was walking alongside Secretary of State James G. Blaine at the central station in Washington, D.C., intending to spend the Independence Day holiday in the seaside town in New Jersey where his family was waiting. Since his wife had just recovered from a critical state caused by a malaria attack, it was natural that the President wanted to be by her side. The Secret Service, which protects the President, did not exist at the time. In such cases, therefore, the President was literally a public figure in the truest sense of the word. Anyone could get close to him, and on this morning, there was indeed such a man—a lawyer named Charles Guiteau, who looked normal but had a screw loose somewhere, approached the President, aimed his .44 caliber revolver, fired twice, and then stepped aside to wait to be arrested. He was a man who had been pestering the President, demanding to be appointed as the chief consul in Paris despite having no qualifications.
The whole country held its breath, listening to the news, worried about the President's condition. Newspapers across the country continuously posted extras in front of their headquarters with terrifyingly candid phrasing. "The President's sleep is shallow, and he vomited several times in the early evening. His life is being maintained thanks to the success of an enema to deliver nutrients." This extra, posted on the wall of the New York Herald building, is a typical example.
While the President was losing and regaining consciousness, the nation's leading intellectuals were gathered in his bedroom, racking their brains to see if there was any other way to help his symptoms recover besides delivering nutrients directly to his rectum. Alexander Graham Bell, who was at the height of his fame at the time, brought a portable metal detector he had made using the newly invented telephone, which he named an "induction balance," into the sickroom. The plan was to locate the bullet still embedded in the President's body. However, a reaction occurred that made Bell flinch. It seemed as if the bullet was scattered throughout the President's body. But soon, it was discovered that the machine was reacting to the springs in the bed.

11. "What can you cook?"

Americans, who were not yet wealthy, gradually became familiar with various vegetables and fruits. However, if we look at the situation at the time through the lens of language, it seems they didn't always know how to eat them. Taking potatoes as an example, the 19th-century section of the "Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles" records the names of some very strange creative dishes, such as potato custard, potato chowder, potato pone (bread), potato pudding, and potato coffee. Most of these dishes were likely made in a spirit of experimentation or swallowed without a second thought due to extreme hunger, and one can imagine that they did not leave their names in the history of American cuisine.

13. In Daily Life

The British not only disliked the way Americans used English, but they also seemed unable to tolerate American habits. In the 19th century, a succession of books were published in England that exposed an almost bizarrely stinging prejudice against the American way of life and their habits. William Cobbett's "A Year's Residence in the United States of America," Harriet Martineau's "Society in America," Dickens's "American Notes," Frances Trollope's "Domestic Manners of the Americans," Frances Wright's "Views of Society and Manners in America," and Thomas Hamilton's "Men and Manners in America" are just a few examples.
The tone of Thomas Hamilton's writing, which begins with the words "As for the passengers," is perhaps a typical example. "It is the truth, so I cannot avoid saying it, but I have never encountered such disgusting behavior by human beings. Both their conduct and manners are beyond hatred." In William Cobbett's view, "the locals are naturally lazy and intend to live by deceiving people." As for Frances Trollope, she seemed to dislike everything.

The thorough lack of even the most basic table manners, the terrifying speed and ferocity with which they snatch and devour food, the strange and clumsy phrasing and pronunciation, the indiscriminate spitting (there is no way to protect one's clothes from the contamination), the disgusting habit of eating with a knife (it is frightening because they put the entire blade into their mouths), and even more unsettling, the bad habit of picking their teeth with a pocketknife after a meal. Seeing all this, one is made to realize that the people around them have no connection to the generals, colonels, or majors of the traditional world, and that enjoying mealtime in this land is a dream within a dream.

To summarize Mrs. Trollope's impression in one word, Americans were suffering from "a deficiency of good manners and elegant behavior, without a single exception."

15. Movies

If the stars hadn't already changed their names, the studios came up with names that were perfect for the comfortable heaven where like-minded people gathered: Hollywood. There were almost countless reasons to change a name. It was uninteresting, too strange, too common, too long, too short, too strongly tied to an ethnicity, or it revealed at a glance that they were Jewish, and so on. However, looking at the whole, it seems the studio bosses' judgments were not wrong. After all, you can't imagine John Wayne being Marion Morrison, Judy Garland being Frances Gumm, or Mary Pickford being the dowdy Gladys Smith, can you? A name like Spangler Arlington Brugh sounds like nothing more than a middle school industrial arts teacher. But if you change it to Robert Taylor, you've already climbed halfway up the ladder to stardom. Even if Archie Leach is perfect for a child running errands for a grocer, if he is to be a worldly, handsome man, he must be Cary Grant. Doris Kappelhoff would be a chocolate-obsessed chubby girl who could at best babysit your younger brother, but as Doris Day, she can date a popular quarterback. Even little Mortimer Mouse changed his name to Mickey Mouse four years after he appeared in the world in 1923.