All 14 Uses
affectation
in
The American Language, by Mencken
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- 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.†
affectations = things done in an artificial way to make an impression
- This distinction between English and American usage still prevails, despite the affectation which has lately sought to revive /boot/, and with it its derivatives, /boot-shop/ and /bootmaker/.†
affectation = behaving in an artificial way to make an impression
- But it was as much an affectation in those [Pg060] days as it is today, and Webster indicated the fact pretty plainly in his "Dissertations."†
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- "To most people in this country," he adds, "the English pronunciation appears like affectation."†
- § 5 /Pronunciation/—Noah Webster, as we saw in the last chapter, sneered at the broad /a/, in 1789, as an Anglomaniac affectation.†
- 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/.†
- The English lexicographer, John Walker, had argued for this "affectation" in 1791, but Webster's prestige, while he lived, remained so high in some quarters that he carried the day, and the older professors at Yale, it is said, continued to use /natur/ down to 1839.†
- Toward the middle of the following century, however, there arose a fashion of an /ai/-sound, and this affectation was borrowed by certain Americans.†
- The use of /eye-ther/, says White, is no more than "a copy of a second-rate British affectation."†
- To the average American, indeed, the broad /a/ is a banner of affectation, and he associates it unpleasantly with spats, Harvard, male tea-drinking, wrist watches and all the other objects of his social suspicion.†
- "/Us/ fellers" is so far established in the language that "/we/ fellers," from the mouth of a car conductor, would seem almost an affectation.†
- Such phrases as "I see nobody" or "I know nothing about it" are heard so seldom that they appear to be affectations when encountered; the well-nigh universal forms are "I /don't/ see nobody" and "I /don't/ know nothing about it."†
affectations = things done in an artificial way to make an impression
- First, there is the colonial spirit, the desire to pass as English—in brief, mere affectation.†
affectation = behaving in an artificial way to make an impression
- /Banditti/, in place of /bandits/, would seem an affectation in America, and so would /soprani/ for /sopranos/ [Pg266] and /soli/ for /solos/.†
Definitions:
-
(1)
(affectation) behaving in an artificial way to make an impression
- (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)