mav, speaking of the Mencken, I just yesterday came into possession of this tome, and it is fascinating. he writes of the early squabbles over "Americanisms" in a chapter called The Two Streams of English. one interesting fact he throws out is that John Adams (with the support of Webster) pushed the idea of setting up an academy for ""correcting, improving and ascertaining the English language." There were such academies, he said, in France, Spain and Italy, but the English had neglected to establish one, and the way was open for the United States."[!]

just think how different things would be if we had a committee keeping the language "pure"!?!