Americanism
pronunciation
How to pronounce Americanism in British English:
UK [əˈmerɪkənɪzəm]
How to pronounce Americanism in American English:
US [əˈmɛrɪkəˌnɪzəm]
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- Noun:
- loyalty to the USA and its institutions
- an expression that is characteristic of English as spoken by Americans
- a custom that is peculiar to the United States or its citizens
Word Origin
- Americanism (n.)
- 1781, in reference to words or phrases distinct from British use, coined by John Witherspoon (1723-1794), president of Princeton College, from American + -ism. (American English "English language as spoken in the United States" is first recorded 1806, in Webster.) Americanism in the patriotic sense "attachment to the U.S." is attested from 1797, first found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. I have been not a little disappointed, and made suspicious of my own judgment, on seeing the Edinburgh Reviews, the ablest critics of the age, set their faces against the introduction of new words into the English language; they are particularly apprehensive that the writers of the United States will adulterate it. Certainly so great growing a population, spread over such an extent of country, with such a variety of climates, of productions, of arts, must enlarge their language, to make it answer its purpose of expressing all ideas, the new as well as the old. [Jefferson to John Waldo, Aug. 16, 1813]
Example
- 1. Communism is the americanism of the twentieth century .
- 2. You want to let the child experience the pure americanism pronunciation ?
- 3. At first , this method was common throughout europe , but it later came to be seen as an americanism , because the english devised a still more refined approach .
- 4. Cather understood the coming change between cultures ; she saw the immigrant children , like ntonia , moving away from the culture of their parents and into a kind of uneasy americanism .
- 5. As none of the contestants spoke english with british accent and it 's americanism that dominated the contest , so the contest should be renamed american speaking contest .