Americanisms in the Novels of Sinclair Lewis

S INCLAIR LEWIS will be remembered, among other things, for his authentic transcriptions of American speech rhythms. He had a keen ear for the nuances of popular language, and recorded not only the scenes but also the sounds of middle-class society in the 1920zos. Carl Van Doren, in his biographical sketch of the author, emphasizes a certain 'seismographic' quality in Lewis, a sensitiveness to 'the ground swell of American popular thinking and feeling.' In some respects, the novels of Sinclair Lewis document the social theories of H. L. Mencken. Henry Steele Commager has suggested that 'Lewis' novels were an extended gloss on those American Creeds that drag their dreary way through the pages of the old American Mercury.'2 Concomitantly, it can be argued that Lewis documented Mencken's The American Language and its supplements by supplying literary contexts for the verbal novelties which H.L.M. brought to light. Strangely enough, Mencken made slight acknowledgment of Lewis' unusual gift of capturing the vibrations of American colloquial speech. Sinclair Lewis was a clever and artful word-spinner himself, as these striking improvisations attest: disgusticulus, excellentus, wronderlust, dinglebat, sagashitiferousness (sagacity), Yahooville-on-the-Hudson (a sobriquet for New York City), and Czech-Slovenski-Magyar-Godknos'wheria. Other of his lingovations, which demonstrate familiar patterns of word formation discussed by Mencken in his chapter on 'The Hallmarks of American,' include cornfieldish, good intentioner, hobohemia, meterologicomania, philanthrobber, religiocentric, rich widowitis, and teetotalitarianism

Art · Linguistics and language evolution · Themes in Literature Analysis · History

• American Lexicology, 1942-1973

  James B Mcmillan•American Speech•1978

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