ind, Mr. Mencken does not protest. It is the use of the word
"consummated" in a phrase like "the marriage was consummated in the
First Baptist Church at high noon"!

In spite of democratic disapproval, some will still hold that "lift" is
better than "elevator," and "station" better than "d['e]pot." Though these
are departures from the current vernacular. We speak English often when
our critical friends in England imagine that we are speaking American. I
have known a gentleman in New Jersey who has cultivated English
traditions of speech, to shrink in horror at the mention of "flap-jack"
and "ice-cream." He could never find a substitute in _real_ English for
"flap-jack," but he always substituted "ices" for "ice-cream." On one
occasion I heard him inveigh against the horror of the word "pies," for
those "detestable messy things sold by the ton to the uncivilized"; and
he spent the time of lunch in pointing out that no such composition
really existed in polite society; but when his "cook general" was seen
approaching with an unmistakable "pie," the kind supposed by the readers
of advertisements to be made by "mothers," and ordered hastily because
of the coming of the unexpected guest, he was cast down. The guest tried
to save the situation by speaking of the obnoxious pastry as "a tart."
The host shook his head--"a tart," in English, could never be covered!

Mr. Mencken shows us that "flap-jack," "molasses," "home-spun,"
"ice-cream" are old English; that "Bub," which used to shock London
visitors to Old Philadelphia, is a bit of provincial English; and that
"muss" is found in "Antony and Cleopatra." I wish I had known that when
I was young; it would have saved me a bad mark for paraphrasing
"Menelaus and Paris got into a muss over Helen." But probably the use of
"row" to express that little difficulty would not have saved me!

The best judge of Madeira in Philadelphia always said "cheer" for
"chair" and "sasser" for "saucer" and "tay" for "tea" and "obleged" for
"obliged"; and he drank from his saucer, too; and his table was always
provided with little dishes, like butter plates, for the discarded cups.
His example gave me a profound contempt for those newly rich in learning
who laugh without understanding, who are the slaves of the dictionary,
and who are so "vastly" meticulous. This old gentleman was an education
in himself; he had lived at the "English court"--or near it--and when he
came to visit us once a year, we l