Introduction To A Survey Of Missouri Place Names

Edited By H. M. Belden, Jesse H. Coursault, Frederick A. Middlebush And Others.

This bulletin is one in a series published by the College of Arts and Science in which pertinent and interesting information that has been collected and analyzed in the research activities of regular departments of the College is made available to the public. The study of Missouri place names has been a project of Professor Robert L. Ramsay of the Department of English for a number of years. He has directed a series of eighteen masters theses in the field, and as a result of the research conducted by his students and through his own activities, a master file of Missouri place names has been prepared. This bulletin is only a sample of the information that has been collected and classified. The College of Arts and Science is making it available to the citizens of the State at a nominal price so that the public can have some knowledge and appreciation of this interesting and worthwhile study. The bulletin records a very significant part of our history and culture.

"The present volume is intended as an interim report of the study of Missouri place-names which has been carried on by students in the English department of the Graduate School of the University of Missouri for the past six years ... An account of the inception and progress of the undertaking is given first. This is followed by a copy of the detailed directions which are put in the hands of our workers. Next are given some specimens of Missouri names that present problems of peculiar interest and difficulty. Then comes a general bibliography of our library sources, compiled by Mr. Allen Walker Read. Finally, as a specimen of the actual work accomplished ... Pike County"--Preface

Provides short biographies on notable men and women from Missouri from a variety of areas including politics, business, agriculture, entertainment, sports, social reform, science and religion.

The DEFINITIVE EDITION OF The American Language was published in 1936. Since then it has been recognized as a classic. It is that rarest of literary accomplishments—a book that is authoritative and scientific and is at the same time very diverting reading. But after 1936 HLM continued to gather new materials diligently. In 1945 those which related to the first six chapters of The American Language were published as Supplement I; the present volume contains those new materials which relate to the other chapters. The ground thus covered in Supplement II is as follows: 1. American Pronunciation. Its history. Its divergence from English usage. The regional and racial dialects. 2. American Spelling. The influence of Noah Webster upon it. Its characters today. The simplified spelling movement. The treatment of loan words. Punctuation, capitalization, and abbreviation. 3. The Common Speech. Outlines of its grammar. Its verbs, pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. The double negative. Other peculiarities. 4. Proper Names in America. Surnames. Given-names. Place-names. Other names. 5. American Slang. Its origin and history. The argot of various racial and occupational groups. Although the text of Supplement II is related to that of The American Language, it is an independent work that may be read profitably by persons who do not know either The American Language or Supplement I.

The American Language, first published in 1919, is H. L. Mencken's book about the English language as spoken in the United States. Mencken was inspired by "the argot of the colored waiters" in Washington, as well as one of his favorite authors, Mark Twain, and his experiences on the streets of Baltimore. In 1902, Mencken remarked on the "queer words which go into the making of 'United States.'" The book was preceded by several columns in The Evening Sun. Mencken eventually asked "Why doesn't some painstaking pundit attempt a grammar of the American language... English, that is, as spoken by the great masses of the plain people of this fair land?" It would appear that he answered his own question. In the tradition of Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary, Mencken wanted to defend "Americanisms" against a steady stream of English critics, who usually isolated Americanisms as borderline barbarous perversions of the mother tongue. Mencken assaulted the prescriptive grammar of these critics and American "schoolmarms", arguing, like Samuel Johnson in the preface to his dictionary, that language evolves independently of textbooks. The book discusses the beginnings of "American" variations from "English", the spread of these variations, American names and slang over the course of its 374 pages. According to Mencken, American English was more colorful, vivid, and creative than its British counterpart.