American borrowings
which reflect
the political and historical contacts of the Americans with other nations living on the
American continent.
Among such there are, for instance, Spanish borrowings (e.g.
sombrero, ranch,
canyon),
words taken over from the black people (e.g.
banjo
) and, American Indian
borrowings. The latter are rather numerous and have an exotic colouring of their own:
wigwam, squaw, canoe, moccasin, tomahawk.
There are also some translation loans
that are due to the Indian origin:
war path, war paint, pale-face
(the name American
Indians gave to all white people),
pipe of peace, fire-water.
Many of the names of places, rivers, lakes, and even states, are of the Indian
origin. E.g.
Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky.
American shortenings
is one more group of Americanisms. Shortening as the
type of word-building seems to be especially popular in the American word-building
system. Many shortenings created on the American soil are used now both in
American English and British English. Among American shortenings we find:
movies
(originally
moving pictures
),
mo (
for
moment
, e.g.
Just a mo!), circs (
for
circumstances), gym (
for
gymnasium), dorm (
for
dormitory), n.g. (
for
no good), b.f.
(
for
boyfriend), okay.
Almost all these words belong to the informal stylistic strata of
the vocabulary.
Currently, due to the wide use of television and Internet, many Americanisms
penetrate easily into the British speech, and some of the distinctive characteristics of
American English are getting erased.
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