The Complex History of Have Gotten in American English

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
Lieselotte Anderwald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
Perfect Form ◽  
Text Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
Corpus Data

This article challenges the accepted opinion that the American English perfect form HAVE gotten is a straightforward historical retention of an earlier British English form. Although HAVE gotten was presumably part of the settler input in North America, it (almost) died out in American English as well, but was then revived in the nineteenth century, as historical corpus data show. Contrary to expectations, this revival was not an innovation from below. Instead, the rise of HAVE gotten was promoted by careful writers who deliberately avoided the highly stigmatized stative HAVE got. This explains why perfect HAVE gotten appears in more formal text types first, and how it became specialized to dynamic contexts only. The morphological Americanism HAVE gotten is thus a curious case of an (unintended) side-effect of marginally successful prescriptivism.1

Prescott's History Of The Conquest And Calderon de la Barca's Life In Mexico: Mexican Reaction, 1843-1844

1991 ◽  
Vol 47 (03) ◽  
pp. 337-348
Author(s):  
Michael P. Costeloe
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Mexican History ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
The Subject ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Conquest Of Mexico

In 1843, two friends, one Scottish and one American, published books about Mexico which were to become essential reading for students of Mexican history. Much the better known of the two is William Hickling Prescott whose History of the Conquest of Mexico became an instant best-seller and remains to this day one of the classics of Mexican historiography. Less well-known but equally valuable to historians of nineteenth-century Mexico is Frances Calderón de la Barca's vivid account of Life in Mexico based on her experiences during the two years from 1840-1841 when she lived in the country as the wife of the first Spanish ambassador. By coincidence, Prescott and Sra. Calderón were close personal friends and regular correspondents and they gave each other much assistance in preparing their respective books for publication. Both their works were greeted with critical and public acclaim in the English-speaking world of Europe and North America but reactions in Mexico were markedly different. While Prescott's book was received with qualified enthusiasm, Life in Mexico was the subject of hostile reviews and its author much vitriolic, personal abuse.

The Modal Auxiliaries have to and must in the Corpus of Early Ontario English: Gradient Change and Colonial Lag

2006 ◽  
Vol 51 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 287-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Dollinger
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
American English ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
British English ◽  
Modal Auxiliaries ◽  
Individual Variables ◽  
Epistemic Function ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Gradient Change

AbstractThe notion ‘drift’ plays an important role in the development of the modals have to and must in early Canadian English in relation to British and American English during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Have to is first found in texts that reflect informal usage, and for the period in question (1750–1849), have to is only attested with deontic readings; the data suggest that its rise was not exclusively conditioned by the defective paradigm of must. Must maintains its epistemic function in relation to its Late Modern English competitors. In early Canadian English, changes progress gradually, with individual variables following different directions. Canadian English epistemic must lags behind, while deontic have to has spread more quickly in North America, with Canadian English more progressive than British English varieties, but less so than American English. Within a more general drift towards have to, Canadian English shows independent development in successive periods.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Frank Towers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
North American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Nation State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The U.S

Today’s political map of North America took its basic shape in a continental crisis in the 1860s, marked by Canadian Confederation (1867), the end of the U.S. Civil War (1865), the restoration of the Mexican Republic (1867), and numerous wars and treaty regimes conducted between these states and indigenous peoples through the 1870s. This volume explores the tumultuous history of North American state-making in the mid-nineteenth century from a continental perspective that seeks to look across and beyond the traditional nation-centered approach. This introduction orients readers by first exploring the meaning of key terms—in particular sovereignty and its historical attachment to the concept of the nation state—and then previewing how contributors interrogate different themes of the mid-century struggles that remade the continent’s political order. Those themes fall into three main categories: the character of the states made and remade in the mid-1800s; the question of sovereignty for indigenous polities that confronted the European-settler descended governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States; and the interaction between capitalist expansion and North American politics, and the concomitant implications of state making for sovereignty’s more diffuse meaning at the level of individual and group autonomy.

Icelandic Cake Fight: History of an Immigrant Recipe

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
Laurie K. Bertram
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
North American ◽  
English Language ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Heritage ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Culinary Traditions ◽  
Oral History Interviews

This article explores the history of vínarterta, a striped fruit torte imported by Icelandic immigrants to North America in the late nineteenth century and obsessively preserved by their descendants today. When roughly 20–25 percent of the population of Iceland relocated to North America between 1870 and 1914, they brought with them a host of culinary traditions, the most popular and enduring of which is this labor-intensive, spiced, layered dessert. Considered an essential fixture at any important gathering, including weddings, holidays, and funerals, vínarterta looms large in Icelandic–North American popular culture. Family recipes are often closely guarded, and any alterations to the “correct recipe,” including number of layers, inclusion or exclusion of cardamom or frosting, and the use of almond extract, are still hotly debated by community members who see changes to “original” recipes as a controversial, even offensive sign of cultural degeneration. In spite of this dedication to authenticity, this torte is an unusual ethnic symbol with a complex past. The first recipes for “Vienna torte” were Danish imports via Austria, originally popular with the Icelandic immigrant generation in the late nineteenth century because of their glamorous connections to continental Europe. Moreover, the dessert fell out of fashion in Iceland roughly at the same time as it ascended as an ethnic symbol in wartime and postwar North American heritage spectacles. Proceeding from recipe books, oral history interviews, memoirs, and Icelandic and English language newspapers, this article examines the complex history of this particular dessert.

scholarly journals Perceptions of Pakistani Learners of English about Standard British and American English: An Exploratory Approach

sjesr ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
Dr. Syed Shujaat Ali ◽  
Muhammad Ishtiaq ◽  
Muhammad Shahid
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
American Variety ◽  
The People ◽  
Exploratory Approach ◽  
National University ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Single Variety

Pakistani learners of English are exposed to the same degree to both the British and the American variety of English language. There is no state policy or direction regarding the preference of one variety over the other in being used for getting education. Overall society and educational institutes are free to adopt or promote any variety that they deem proper. Both the varieties are used extensively, are quite popular, and enjoy sufficient means and reasons to be effective in society. The lack of uniformity in adopting a particular variety leads to multiple problems, including an English variety having features of both American and British English in different degrees, depending on each user’s different degree of exposure to both the varieties. For ensuring uniformity and avoiding confusion, the researcher thought it compulsory to make a recommendation for the adoption of a single variety out of the two, based on its suitability and utility. However, the researcher feels it urgent that before making recommendations to the government for the adoption of a single variety, the wishes and predilections of the people of Pakistan have to be considered and the reasons why some prefer British variety and some the American variety have to be identified and assessed. If they preferred a feature of English, then did they know which variety it belonged to and if they knew then why did they like it. In the process, the researcher also strove to find out as to what extent the knowledge of literature and history of the country of the variety, contributed to affecting the preference of the Pakistani people. Data was gathered from sixty-six participants from two universities of Pakistan, namely Kohat University of Science and Technology (KUST) Kohat from the KP Province on the provincial level, and National University of Modern Languages (NUML) Islamabad from the Federal capital, Islamabad, on the federal level; participants were enquired about their approaches, attitudes, and feelings towards the variety of English they preferred and to explain reasons and motives behind the selection/rejection of one or other of the two varieties, through a questionnaire having seven close-ended and three open-ended items.

scholarly journals “Nearer to the Exercises of Heaven”: Nineteenth-Century Maritime Presbyterians and The Choir (pp 49-87)

2016 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Creighton Barrett ◽  
Bertrum MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Sacred Music ◽  
British North America ◽  
Oral Transmission ◽  
Christian Churches ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Singing Style ◽  
History Of ◽  
Printed Music

Singing, particularly psalm singing, has enjoyed a lengthy tradition among Christian churches. “Singing God’s praises brings us nearer to the exercises of Heaven than any other service we can engage on earth” proclaimed one nineteenth-century advertisement. Churches as well as singing schools frequently relied on tunes that circulated across countries and oceans through oral transmission and increasingly through printed tune books, as the capacity of printing technologies expanded in the nineteenth century and pricing of books became affordable to larger numbers of citizens. Singing instructions, tunes, and hymns were printed, reprinted, and modified to meet local demand. Music styles that lost favour in some countries continued to flourish in other settings. The first printed music in Nova Scotia, The Harmonicon, was produced in a Presbyterian context in 1838. Three decades later, demand for a new tune book prompted the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America to publish The Choir, a compilation designed to satisfy “a healthy taste for sacred music.” First published in Halifax in 1871, this volume was the mainstay of Maritime Presbyterian congregations for the remainder of the century. This paper traces the history of the production of The Choir, compiled by the church’s Committee on Psalmody. Details about the editions and reprinting of the tune book are provided. The paper concludes with an examination of the contents of the volume, where particular attention is given to elements of the book that illustrate the compilers’ attention to the local audience for which it was intended, including the use of local place names for tune titles, and the inclusion of locally composed tunes and fuging tunes, which were written for an antiquated singing style that persisted in the Maritimes long after it faded from church music in other parts of North America and the United Kingdom.

On the Origin of the Grammarians' Rules for the Use of Shall and Will

PMLA ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 1178-1182
Author(s):  
J. R. Hulbert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
American English ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Important Study ◽  
English Usage ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The most important study of the future with shall and will in Modern English is the article by Professor Fries published twenty years ago. In Part One, “The origin and development of the conventional rules,” Professor Fries presents a remarkably concise and thorough survey of the treatment of shall and will by English grammarians from 1530 to the early nineteenth century. In Part Two he summarizes the results of an analysis of the use of shall and will in English plays from 1557 to 1915, compares American with English usage, considers the theory of ‘glimmering through’ of ‘primitive meanings,‘ and states his conclusions. Professor Fries reverts to the subject in his recent book, American English Grammar. Here he says:The conventional rules for shall and will did not arise from any attempt to describe the practice of the language as it actually was either before the eighteenth century or at the time the grammar was written in which these rules first appeared. The authors of these grammars (Lowth and Ward) definitely repudiated usage…. That the general usage of shall and will did not at any time during the history of Modern English agree with the conventional rules is a conclusion that can be reasonably drawn from the facts revealed in the following charts.

English in North America: Accounting for its Evolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 228-250
Author(s):  
Edgar W. Schneider
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Dynamic Model ◽  
American English ◽  
Developmental Phase ◽  
Canadian English ◽  
History Of ◽  
Five Phases ◽  
Early Developmental

This chapter surveys the history of American English through the lenses of the Dynamic Model (DM) of the evolution of Postcolonial Englishes and the Extra- and Intra-territorial Forces (EIF) Model. Proceeding chronologically through the five phases of the Dynamic Model as described in Schneider (2007), it identifies the most important forces which affected the evolution of the variety in each phase. Canadian English is also covered briefly. A summary section compares the two approaches. It finds that while the DM works well, the EIF Model highlights causes of developments. The paper suggests that socio-psychological forces (notably, identities and attitudes) need to be considered prominently and that apparently extra-territorial forces operate more strongly in early developmental phase while intra-territorial forces gain in importance in later phases.

Discovering the birds of Europe, I

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry A. McGhie
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Great Book ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Northern Asia ◽  
History Of

This chapter introduces the ‘History of the Birds of Europe’, a great book project initiated by Richard Bowdler Sharpe, in partnership with Dresser. The chapter discusses scientific travellers and fieldwork, and the growth of formal and informal scientific travel through the nineteenth century. It describes the collecting manuals and instructions for collectors that were issued to encourage collectors to produce good-quality specimens that could enter into exchanging networks and museum collections. The chapter explores Dresser’s collecting network by discussing the activities of those who provided him with specimens from Europe, Northern Asia, North America and the Arctic. It emphasises and explores his personal relationships with field collectors.

Zen Art before Nothingness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory P. A. Levine
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Intercultural Encounters ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Chapter One describes the uncertain beginnings of Zen and Zen art within modern intercultural encounters between Japan and Europe and North America. The representations and perceptions of Zen in the West arising from initial contacts in the sixteenth century and thereafter from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth were not uniform with what we discover from the 1920s and 1930s onward, and certainly not identical to those of the postwar Zen boom. As a genealogical sketch, this history of Zen art before “Zen art,” suggests a sensibility of ambivalence or nascent interest during the mid-to-late nineteenth century leading to one of infatuation in the early twentieth, at which time there emerged a range of geo-political conditions and a group of active Zen campaigners promoting the formation of a specifically differentiated and instrumentalized Zen and Zen art.

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