ABSTRACT
TEN IMP 0 R TAN T T REA TIS E S 57 think, more than about 450 genuine and distinct Americanisms now in respectable use-less than onetwelfth of the whole number of articles. Of the remainder, nearly four hundred words and phrases are set down by the author himself as of British origin, some being used in this country in exactly the same manner as on their native soil, while others have been slightly altered in meaning, application or sound. At least 750 more are also certainly British, though Mr. Bartlett was not aware of it. The rest of the dictionary-say three quarters-is made up, partly of expressions never in general use, or long since antiquated; partly of mere mispronunciations, grammatical errors and unauthorized contractions; partly of vulgar slang; and partly of wearisome repetitions. Yet I by no means desire to be understood as setting down the work for a mass of rubbish. On the contrary, it ,contains a vast :fund of interesting information, which any man devoted to the study of English dialects might well be proud to have brought together; and it is still indubitably, forty years after the last edition appeared, the standard work on the subject, for ,certainly neIther F'armer nor elapin could seriously be regarded as having displaced it, and Thornton and Mencken worked on an entirely different principle. Only it is a pity that the diligent compiler, in his anxiety to make a big book, allowed himself such extreme latitude in his conception of what constitutes an Americanism in speech, and con-
