us and changed the meanings of many old ones.
English people talk through their noses; we do not. We say know, English
people say nao; we say cow, the Briton says kaow; we--"

"Oh, come! that is pure Yankee; everybody knows that."

"Yes, it is pure Yankee; that is true. One cannot hear it in America
outside of the little corner called New England, which is Yankee land.
The English themselves planted it there, two hundred and fifty years
ago, and there it remains; it has never spread. But England talks
through her nose yet; the Londoner and the backwoods New-Englander
pronounce 'know' and 'cow' alike, and then the Briton unconsciously
satirizes himself by making fun of the Yankee's pronunciation."

We argued this point at some length; nobody won; but no matter, the fact
remains Englishmen say nao and kaow for "know" and "cow," and that is
what the rustic inhabitant of a very small section of America does.

"You conferred your 'a' upon New England, too, and there it remains; it
has not traveled out of the narrow limits of those six little states
in all these two hundred and fifty years. All England uses it, New
England's small population--say four millions--use it, but we have
forty-five millions who do not use it. You say 'glahs of wawtah,' so
does New England; at least, New England says 'glahs.' America at large
flattens the 'a', and says 'glass of water.' These sounds are pleasanter
than yours; you may think they are not right--well, in English they are
not right, but in 'American' they are. You say 'flahsk' and 'bahsket,' and
'jackahss'; we say 'flask,' 'basket,' 'jackass'--sounding the 'a' as it
is in 'tallow,' 'fallow,' and so on. Up to as late as 1847 Mr. Webster's
Dictionary had the impudence to still pronounce 'basket' bahsket, when
he knew that outside of his little New England all America shortened the
'a' and paid no attention to his English broadening of it. However, it
called itself an English Dictionary, so it was proper enough that it
should stick to English forms, perhaps. It still calls itself an English
Dictionary today, but it has quietly ceased to pronounce 'basket' as if
it were spelt 'bahsket.' In the American language the 'h' is respected;
the 'h' is not dropped or added improperly."

"The same is the case in England--I mean among the educated classes, of
course."

"Yes, that is true; but a nation's language is a very large matter. It
is not simply a manner of speech obtaining among the educat