societies whose official titles begin with the word American, see names of subjects in which such organizations are interested. Example: For the American Academy of Political and Social Science, see Political and Social Sciemce, American Academy of.
AMERICAN BAP'TIST MIS'SIONA'RY UNION. See Missions.
AMERICAN BLIGHT. A terra used in Australia and elsewhere abroad for the injurious effects upon trees or plants of tlie presence of plant-lice of the cosmopolitan genus Schizoneura, especially Schizoneura lanigera. Consult Bulletin Xo. IS, Division of Entomology, United
States Department of Asriculture (Washington,
18981.
AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMIS'SIONERS FOR FOR'EIGN MIS'SIONS. See Missions.
AMERICAN COUS'IN, Ore. One of the
best known plays of the English dramatist, Tom
Taylor (18.58), very popular a generation ago.
The unimportant character, Lord Dundreary,
became in the clever creation of E. A. Sothern a
great part. For Americans, however, the drama
must always possess melancholy associations, for
it was while enjoying its presentation that Lin-
coln was assassinated.
AMERICAN FLAG. The. See Flag.
AMERICAN IN'STITUTE of the City of
New York. An organization to promote, by means of exhibitions and fairs, the interests of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and arts in the State and country. The institute was founded in 1828, and its fairs attracted wide attention from investors and capitalists. Among the inventions which received early recognition from the institute were the McCormick reaper, the sewing machine, Colt's fire-arms, the type revolving and double power printing press machines, the first anthracite coal burning stove, the Morse telegraph, the stocking loom, the telephone, and the Francis metallic lifeboat and lifesaving appliances. The American Institute now embraces in its organization five sections: The Farmers' Club, the Henry Electrical Society, the Horticultural Section, the Photographic Section, and the Polytechnic Section. It has a valuable scientific library of over 15,000 volumes.
AMERICAN IP'ECAC. See Gillexia.
AMERICANISMS. Words and phrases
peculiar to the United States. They are classified
by one writer on this subject (Bartlett) as follows:
(1) Archaisms, obsolete, or nearly so, in
Great Britain. (2) English words used in a
different sense. (3) Words used in the original
sense in the United States, although not in Great
Britain. (4) English provincialisms adopted into
general use in America. (5) Newly-coined words
owing their origin to productions or circumstances
of the country. (6) Words derived from
European languages, especially the French, Spanish,
and Dutch. (7) Indian words. (8) Negroisms.
(9) Peculiarities of pronunciation. Accepting for
the present this arrangement, we may cite as
examples of archaisms, fall, for autumn, freshet,
to lam, in the sense of to beat, to squelch, and
to tarry. These are only a few; for an American
philologist has stated that of the words, phrases,
and constructions found in the Bible and Book
of Common Prayer, “about one-sixth, which are
no longer used in England in ordinary
prose-writing,
would apparently be used without thought or hesitation by an American author.” Among the many English words used in a different or perverted sense are barn for stable; boards, for deals; buggy, a four-wheeled vehicle — in England, two-wheeled; calico, printed cotton, in England means unprinted; clever, for good-natured — in England, generally, intelligent or skillful; corn, for maize, whereas in England it means wheat, in Scotland, oats, and in Ireland, barley; cracker, for biscuit; depot, for station; dress, for gown; forehanded, well-to-do — in England, means timely, early; hack, a hackney coach — in England, a hired horse; homely, plain-featured — in England, homelike or unadorned; to jew, to haggle — in England, to cheat; likely, for promising; lumber, for timber; to mail, for to post; notify, to give notice — in England, to make known; pond, a natural pool of water — in England, artificial; reliable, for trustworthy; saloon, for tap-room; smart, for talented; smudge, a smouldering fire used to
drive away insects — in England, simply an
overpowering smoke; store, for shop; tavern, for inn (a tavern in Great Britain provides no lodgings);
temper, with us meaning passion, is in
England control of passion; ugly, for ill-natured;
venison, deer's flesh — in England, meat of any
wild animal; track, for line; vest, for waistcoat. We use also, in large number, different words for the same thing, as conductor, for guard;
editorial, for leader; elevator, for lift; horse-car, for tram, and sleeper, for tie.
Examples of words retaining here their old meaning are: Fleshy, in the sense of stout; offal, the parts of a butchered animal not worth salting; sick, in the sense of ill; and wilt, in the sense of wither. On the other hand, to heft, meaning with us, to weigh by lifting, keeps, in England, its original meaning, to lift. Many words called archaic or provincial by English writers are widely current among Americans in both speech and literature — among them adze, affectation, angry (wound), andiron, bay-window, bearer (at a funeral), to blaze (a tree), burly, cesspool, clodhopper, counterfeit money, cross-purposes, deft, din, hasp, loophole, ornate, ragamuffin, shingle, stand (speaker's), stock (cattle), thill, toady, tramp, truck, and underpinning. Among newly-coined words and expressions are these, showing plainly their origin on the frontier or in the forest: backwoods, cache, clearing, to draw a bead, to fight fire, a gone coon, hogwallow, logging camp, prairie schooner, raft (of dead trees), squatter, squaw-man, the timber, and trapper. Ranch life has given us such words as corral, cowboy, roundup, and stampede; the mining regions, bed-rock, diggings, to pan out, to prospect, and to stake a claim. From the farm and plantation we have obtained among others, bagasse, broom-corn, Hessian fly, Indian meal, and truck-patch; while trade has supplied us with bogus, drummer, posted up, and to settle (a bill). Many others might be added from the language of Wall Street. Our political terms and phrases include the following, most of which are the subject of special articles in this Encyclopædia: Agricultural wheel, barnburner, bloody shirt, boodle, buncombe, carpet-bagger, caucus, copperhead, to eat crow, dark horse, doughface, favorite sons, fence-riding, F. F. V.'s, filibuster, fire-eater, gerrymander, half breed, stalwart, hunker, jayhawker, Ku-Klux-Klan, loco-foco, log-rolling, Lynch law, Mugwump, omnibus bill,
