ABSTRACT
TEN IMP 0 R TAN T T REA TIS E S 59 think, believe or suppose; reliable; rooster; no great shakes; sophomore; spell of weather; spry; spunk; starvation; stricken, for struck; sundown; swap; to take on; talented; teetotaller; ugly, for ill-tempered; to wallop, and to whale; whapper; to whittle, and to wilt. In many cases no reason whatever is assigned for including these words in a list of Americanisms; very seldom is any better cause mentioned than that they are provincial or antiquated in Great Britain; and sometimes the pretext is of the most trivial character, as in the case of the word whittle, which is put in, forsooth, because both the verb and the practice are thought to be more common in America than in England! But the most surprising instance among this class of words has yet to be mentioned-the use of the ,adverb "immediately," in place of the phrase "as soon as"-"the deer fell dead immediately they shot him." This wretched expression, Mr. Bartlett writes, is creeping into use from England. What possible sense there can be in counting as an Americanism a villainously ungrammatical construction which is "'creeping into use in this country from England," it would puzzle Fitzedward Hall himself to explain.
