a heavy
punishment.

It may lift a little of its load, however, if we look at it more
closely; we shall then find that though it is very much on top of us, it
is only on top. In that sense such Americanisation as there is is very
superficial. For instance, there is a certain amount of American slang
picked up at random; it appears in certain pushing types of journalism
and drama. But we may easily dwell too much on this tragedy; of people
who have never spoken English beginning to speak American. I am far from
suggesting that American, like any other foreign language, may not
frequently contribute to the common culture of the world phrases for
which there is no substitute; there are French phrases so used in
England and English phrases in France. The word 'high-brow,' for
instance, is a real discovery and revelation, a new and necessary name
for something that walked nameless but enormous in the modern world, a
shaft of light and a stroke of lightning. That comes from America and
belongs to the world, as much as 'The Raven' or _The Scarlet Letter_ or
the novels of Henry James belong to the world. In fact, I can imagine
Henry James originating it in the throes of self-expression, and
bringing out a word like 'high-browed,' with a sort of gentle jerk, at
the end of searching sentences which groped sensitively until they found
the phrase. But most of the American slang that is borrowed seems to be
borrowed for no particular reason. It either has no point or the point
is lost by translation into another context and culture. It is either
something which does not need any grotesque and exaggerative
description, or of which there already exists a grotesque and
exaggerative description more native to our tongue and soil. For
instance, I cannot see that the strong and simple expression 'Now it is
for you to pull the police magistrate's nose' is in any way strengthened
by saying, 'Now it is up to you to pull the police magistrate's nose.'
When Tennyson says of the men of the Light Brigade 'Theirs but to do and
die,' the expression seems to me perfectly lucid. 'Up to them to do and
die' would alter the metre without especially clarifying the meaning.
This is an example of ordinary language being quite adequate; but there
is a further difficulty that even wild slang comes to sound like
ordinary language. Very often the English have already as humorous and
fanciful idiom of their own, only that through habit it has lost its
humour