All 37 Uses
denounce
in
The American Language, by Mencken
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- The pioneer dictionary of Americanisms, published in 1816 by John Pickering, a Massachusetts lawyer,[11] was not only criticized unkindly; it was roundly denounced as something subtly impertinent and corrupting, and even Noah Webster took a formidable fling at it.†
denounced = strongly criticized or accused publicly OR (more rarely) informed against someone
- For a long while, as we shall see, they sought to stem its differentiation by heavy denunciations of its vagaries, and so late as the period of the Civil War they attached to it that quality of abhorrent barbarism which they saw as the chief mark of the American people.†
denunciations = criticisms or accusations
- [24] Chesterton, however, refrained from denouncing this lack of identity; on the contrary, he allowed certain merits to American†
*denouncing = strongly criticizing or accusing publicly OR (more rarely) informing against someone
- In place of the old loose-footedness there is set up a preciosity which, in one direction, takes the form of unyielding affectations in the spoken language, and in another form shows itself in the heavy Johnsonese of current English writing—the Jargon denounced by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in his Cambridge lectures.†
denounced = strongly criticized or accused publicly OR (more rarely) informed against someone
- They denounced it in Marshall, Cooper, Mark Twain, Poe, Lossing, Lowell and Holmes, and even in Hawthorne and Thoreau; and it was no less academic a work than W. C. Brownell's "French Traits" which brought forth, in a London literary journal, the dictum that "the language most depressing to the cultured Englishman is the language of the cultured American."†
- The colonial pedants denounced /to advocate/ as bitterly as they ever denounced /to compromit/ or /to happify/, and all the English authorities gave them aid, but it forced itself into the American language despite them, and today it is even accepted as English and has got into the Oxford Dictionary.†
- The colonial pedants denounced /to advocate/ as bitterly as they ever denounced /to compromit/ or /to happify/, and all the English authorities gave them aid, but it forced itself into the American language despite them, and today it is even accepted as English and has got into the Oxford Dictionary.†
- So recently as 1890 it was denounced by the /London Daily News/ as "an ignoble Americanism," and according to William Archer it was finally accepted by the English only "at the point of the bayonet."†
- After the opening of the new century all the British reviews maintained an eager watchfulness for these abhorrent inventions, and denounced them, when found, with the utmost vehemence.†
- In his letter to Webster in 1789, Franklin denounced /to advocate/, /to progress/, and /to oppose/—a vain enterprise, for all of them are now in perfectly good usage.†
- Even so useful a verb as /to locate/, now in perfectly good usage, [Pg050] was denounced in the third volume of the /North American Review/, and other purists of the times tried to put down /to legislate/.†
- /Influential/ was denounced by the Rev. Jonathan Boucher and by George Canning, who argued that /influent/ was better, but it was ardently defended by William Pinkney, of Maryland, and gradually made its way.†
- All of them are to be found in Bryant's /Index Expurgatorius/[24] (/circa/ 1870), and /reliable/ was denounced by Bishop Coxe as "that abominable barbarism" so late as 1886.†
- It was so widespread by 1790 that on November 17 of that year Webster solemnly denounced it in the /American Mercury/.†
- Webster denounced both of these barbarisms.†
- But the avalanche of denunciation kept up, and even down to a few years ago it was very uncommon for an Englishman to write of American politics, or manners, or literature without betraying his dislike.†
denunciation = strong criticism or public accusation OR (more rarely) reporting someone to the authorities
- On the contrary, it joined the crowd, and Bartlett denounces it specifically for its bad example, and cites, among its crimes against the language, such inventions as /to doxologize/ and /to funeralize/.†
denounces = criticizes strongly or accuses publicly OR (more rarely) informs against someone
- Witherspoon noticed it and denounced it in 1781, and in 1816 Pickering called it "low" and said that it was not used "except in very familiar conversation."†
denounced = strongly criticized or accused publicly OR (more rarely) informed against someone
- A quarter of a century later Richard Grant White distinguished between the two, and denounced the former as "a British peculiarity."†
- Thus, in that to "The Elementary Spelling [Pg096] Book," dated 1829, he denounced the "affectation" of inserting a /y/-sound before the /u/ in such words as /gradual/ and /nature/, with its compensatory change of /d/ into a French /j/ and of /t/ into /ch/.†
- William Kenrick, in 1773, seems to have been the first English lexicographer to denounce this pronunciation.†
- [41] Richard Meade Bache denounced it, in /Lafayette/, during the 60's†
denounced = strongly criticized or accused publicly OR (more rarely) informed against someone
- The venerable Frederic Harrison, writing in the /Fortnightly Review/ in the Spring of 1918, denounced this tendency with a vigor recalling the classical anathemas of Dean Alford and Sydney Smith.†
- It is curious, reading the fulminations of American purists of the last generation, to note how many of the Americanisms they denounced have not only got into perfectly good usage at home but even broken down all guards across the ocean.†
- No ordinary American, save after the most laborious reflection, would detect anything wrong in this sentence from the /London Times/, denounced as corrupt by the Fowlers: "We must reconcile what we would like to do with what we can do."†
- Noah Webster, always the pragmatic reformer, denounced it so long ago as 1783.†
- Gould, in the 50's, noted its appearance at the end of such words as /somewhere/ and /anyway/, and denounced it as vulgar and illogical.†
- [85] Today, extinct, it is mourned by English purists, and the Poet Laureate denounces the clergy of the Established Church for saying "the /sawed/ of the /Laud/" instead of "the sword of the Lord.†
denounces = criticizes strongly or accuses publicly OR (more rarely) informs against someone
- Henry James denounces this "flatly-drawling group" in "The Question of Our Speech,"[95] and cites /gawd/, /dawg/, /sawft/, /lawft/, /gawne/, /lawst/ and /frawst/ as horrible examples.†
- During the Cuban revolution of March, 1917, the newspapers of Havana, objecting to the dispatches sent out by American correspondents, denounced the latter as /los blofistas/.†
denounced = strongly criticized or accused publicly OR (more rarely) informed against someone
- [6] Of late his ideas have begun to gain a certain acceptance, and as the literature of denunciation has grown[7] the grammarians have been constrained to overhaul their texts†
denunciation = strong criticism or public accusation OR (more rarely) reporting someone to the authorities
- The teacher of any branch of applied mathematics, for example, has practical engineers at his elbow and they quickly expose and denounce his defects; the college teacher of chemistry, however limited his equipment, at least has the aid of text-books written by actual chemists.†
- "As such expressions," he says, "are still denounced by the grammars, many people try to avoid them in speech as well as in writing.†
denounced = strongly criticized or accused publicly OR (more rarely) informed against someone
- Webster, in one of his earlier books, denounced the /k/ in /skeptic/ as "a mere pedantry," but later on he adopted it.†
- Edward S. Gould, in a once famous essay,[9] denounced the whole Websterian orthography with the utmost fury, and Bryant, reprinting this philippic in the /Evening Post/, said that on account of Webster "the English language has been undergoing a process of corruption for the last quarter of a century," and offered to contribute to a fund to have Gould's denunciation "read twice a year in every school-house in the United States, until every trace of Websterian spelling disappears from the land."†
- Edward S. Gould, in a once famous essay,[9] denounced the whole Websterian orthography with the utmost fury, and Bryant, reprinting this philippic in the /Evening Post/, said that on account of Webster "the English language has been undergoing a process of corruption for the last quarter of a century," and offered to contribute to a fund to have Gould's denunciation "read twice a year in every school-house in the United States, until every trace of Websterian spelling disappears from the land."†
denunciation = strong criticism or public accusation OR (more rarely) reporting someone to the authorities
- Schele de Vere, during the same year, denounced the publishers of the Webster dictionaries for applying "immense capital and a large stock of energy and perseverance" to the propagation of his "new and arbitrarily imposed orthography."†
denounced = strongly criticized or accused publicly OR (more rarely) informed against someone
Definitions:
-
(1)
(denounce) to strongly criticize or accuse publicly
or more rarely: to inform against someone (turn someone into the authorities) -
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Much more rarely, denounce can indicate the termination of a treaty or other formal agreement.