Chapter 1.3 Summary

Pointedly referring to Dr. Matthews' probable disdain, Mencken says that writers appear to "delight" in localisms. While Americans have adapted to British-English and the British find it more difficult to do the opposite, seeing an indignity in differentiation, both sides have come to admit there is a separation of British-English and American-English. This distinction is clearest in the ways of writers who, he says, are 1) increasingly focusing on the "growing difficulties of intercommunication;" and 2) find like Sydney Low does that the teaching of formal languages in both England and America should also include American-English.

American plays become a matter of confusion and contention, he writes. When a "racier" American play runs in England, writers like the London Daily Mail's W. G. Faulkner make great efforts to understand and explain. Faulkner proceeds with a review and discussion by defining American-English words, such as...