middle of the eighteenth century shop continued to designate a retail establishment in America, as it does in England to this day. Store was applied only to a large establishment one showing, in some measure, the character of a warehouse. But in 1774 a Boston young man was advertising in the Massachusetts Spy for "a place as a clerk in a store" (three Americanisms in a row!). Soon afterward shop began to acquire its special American meaning as a factory, e. g., machine–shop. Meanwhile store completely displaced shop in the English sense, and it remained for a late flowering of Anglomania, as in the case of boot and shoe, to restore, in a measure, the status quo ante. Lumber, in eighteenth century English, meant disused furniture, and this is its common meaning in England today. But the colonists early employed it to designate timber, and that use of it is now universal in America. Its familiar derivatives, e. g., lumber–yard, lumberman, lumberjack, greatly reinforce this usage. Pie, in English, means a meat–pie; in American it means a fruit–pie. The English call a fruit-pie a tart; the Americans call a meat–pie a pot–pie. Dry–goods, in England, means " non-liquid goods, as corn" (i.e., wheat); in the United States the term means "textile fabrics or wares." [1] The difference had appeared before 1725. Rock, in English, always means a large mass; in America it may mean a small stone, as in rock–pile and to throw a rock. The Puritans were putting rocks into the foundations of their meeting–houses so early as 1712. [2] Cracker began to be used for biscuit before the Revolution. Tavern displaced inn at the same time. As for partridge, it is cited by a late authority [3] as a salient example of changed meaning, along with corn and store. In England the term is applied only to the true partridge (Perdix perdix) and its nearly related varieties, but in the United States it is also used to designate the ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), the common quail (Colinus virginianus) and various
- ↑ The definitions are from the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1914) and the Standard Dictionary (1906), respectively.
- ↑ S. Sewall: Diary, April 14, 1712: "I lay'd a Rock in the North–east corner of the Foundation of the Meeting-house."
- ↑ The Americana,…art . Americanisms : New York, 1903-6.
