ABSTRACT
However, the Tu Quoque argument is unconvincing and unsatisfactory at best; and it is admittedly impracticable to institute any very instructive comparison between either the fashionable or the literary language of the two countries. It is not quite so difficult to compare what after all ,counts for most, and what was probably in the Saturday Reviewer's mind, the average speech 'Of our British cousins and 'Of our own people. Is the former superior to the latter? I have the authority of the Ameri'can ambassad'Or referred to, Mr. Page, for saying that his only allusion to the matter was in a single sentence which he meant as a pleasantry and which was so understood by his hearers. But there is a proverb about true words spoken in jest; and I believe it will be found, on weighing the evidence, not only that the well known
, dramatic critic, Mr. William Archer, is right in declaring ("America To-day," page 253) that "the idea that the English language is degenerating in America is an absolutely groundless illusion," but also that the ambassador was quite justified in making" if he
