Englishman would not feel that we had taken a sort of liberty with his
mother-tongue. A deep point lies here: for most English the world is
divided into three peoples, English, foreigners, and Americans; and for
most of us likewise it is divided into Americans, foreigners, and Eng-
lish. Now a "foreigner" can call molasses whatever he pleases; we do not
feel that he has taken any liberty with our mother-tongue; his tongue has
a different mother; he can't help that; he's not to be criticized for
that. But we and the English speak a tongue that has the same mother.
This identity in pedigree has led and still leads to countless family
discords. I've not a doubt that divergences in vocabulary and in accent
were the fount and origin of some swollen noses, some battered eyes, when
our Yankees mixed with the Tommies. Each would be certain to think that
the other couldn't "talk straight"--and each would be certain to say so.
I shall not here spin out a list of different names for the same things
now current in English and American usage: molasses and treacle will
suffice for an example; you will be able easily to think of others, and
there are many such that occur in everyday speech. Almost more tricky are
those words which both peoples use alike, but with different meanings. I
shall spin no list of these either; one example there is which I cannot
name, of two words constantly used in both countries, each word quite
proper in one country, while in the other it is more than improper.
Thirty years ago I explained this one evening to a young Englishman who
was here for a while. Two or three days later, he thanked me fervently
for the warning: it had saved him, during a game of tennis, from a
frightful shock, when his partner, a charming girl, meaning to tell him
to cheer up, had used the word that is so harmless with us and in England
so far beyond the pale of polite society.

Quite as much as words, accent also leads to dissension. I have heard
many an American speak of the English accent as "affected"; and our