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117-471: Kate Chopin ( / ˈ ʃ oʊ p æ n / , also US : / ʃ oʊ ˈ p æ n , ˈ ʃ oʊ p ən / ; born Katherine O'Flaherty ; February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald , and she

234-698: A cot–caught merger , which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked , as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee ( talk and coffee ), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal : [oə] . A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes , using different

351-701: A Louisiana creole of French Canadian descent. Some of Chopin's ancestors were among the early European (French) inhabitants of Dauphin Island, Alabama . Kate was the third of five children, but her sisters died in infancy and her half-brothers (from her father's first marriage) died in their early 20s. They were raised Roman Catholic in the French and Irish traditions . She became an avid reader of fairy tales, poetry, religious allegories, and classic and contemporary novels. She graduated from Sacred Heart Convent in St. Louis in 1868. At

468-520: A pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə] , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents. Most Americans preserve all historical /r/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent . The only traditional r -dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England , New York City , and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across

585-430: A "voice covert", and women who mimic patriarchal discourse. In 1893, she wrote "Madame Célestin's Divorce", and 13 of her stories were published. In 1894, " The Story of an Hour " and "A Respectable woman" were published by Vogue . Bayou Folk , a collection of 23 of Chopin's stories, was a success to Kate Chopin in 1894, published by Houghton Mifflin . It was the first of her works to gain national attention, and it

702-511: A beginning and an end. Because unlike some plot-driven entertainments, there is no closure in real life. Not really." American English American English , sometimes called United States English or U.S. English , is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States ; an official language in 32 of

819-681: A book once thought of as a literary dead end in terms of influence on the next generation of feminist writers. Textual comparisons between specific texts in Kelly's Weeds and The Awakening point toward an argument for its wider influence. By the 1950s, Kate Chopin was all but forgotten. Her books were all out of print, only her story "Désirée's Baby" was in print in numerous American short story anthologies. That started to change in 1962, when noted literary critic Edmund Wilson included her as one of 30 authors discussed in Patriotic Gore: Studies in

936-616: A complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling , while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another. Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England ,

1053-447: A consonant, such as in pearl , car and fort . Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some accents of Eastern New England , New York City , and African-Americans , and a specific few (often older ones) spoken by Southerners , are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived as sounding especially ethnic, regional, or antiquated. Rhoticity

1170-541: A couple in a completely fulfilled marriage. While Doudouce is hoping otherwise, he sees ample evidence that Mentine and Jules' marriage is a happy and fulfilling one, despite the poverty-stricken circumstances in which they live. In contrast, "Desiree's Baby", which is much more controversial due to the topic of interracial relationships, portrays a marriage in trouble. The other contrasts to "A Visit to Avoyelles" are clear, but some are more subtle than others. Unlike Mentine and Jules, Armand and Desiree are rich and own slaves and

1287-573: A direct and simple way, told us what he saw... Kate Chopin is an example of a revisionist myth-maker because she revises myth more realistically about marriage and female sexuality of her time. The biggest myth Chopin focused on was the "Victorian notion of women's somewhat anemic sexuality" and "The Storm" is the best example of Kate Chopin using that myth through a character set on fulfilling her complete sexual potential. For instance, in "The Storm" , portraits of women were revised by Kate Chopin to obtain consummation in roles other than marriage to evince

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1404-464: A documentary on Chopin's life. In the penultimate episode of the first season of HBO 's Treme , set in New Orleans, the teacher Creighton (played by John Goodman ) assigns Chopin's The Awakening to his freshman class at Tulane University in New Orleans, and warns them: "I want you to take your time with it," he cautions. "Pay attention to the language itself. The ideas. Don't think in terms of

1521-574: A kind of autobiography and described her societies; she had grown up in a time when her surroundings included the abolitionist movements before the American Civil War , and their influence on freedmen education and rights afterward, as well as the emergence of feminism. Her ideas and descriptions were not reporting, but her stories expressed the reality of her world. Chopin took strong interest in her surroundings and wrote about many of her observations. Jane Le Marquand assesses Chopin's writings as

1638-412: A kind of common-law marriage. There and in the country, she lived with a society based on the history of slavery and the continuation of plantation life to a great extent. Mixed-race people were numerous in New Orleans and the South. This story addresses the racism of 19th century America; persons who were visibly European-American could be threatened by the revelation of also having African ancestry. Chopin

1755-586: A merger with the THOUGHT ( caught ) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/ , /θ/ , and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong ), and variably by region or speaker in gone , on , and certain other words. Unlike American accents,

1872-540: A mess of things and working out her own damnation as she did. If I had had the slightest intimation of such a thing I would have excluded her from the company. But when I found out what she was up to, the play was half over and it was then too late. According to Bender, Chopin was intrigued by Darwin's The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex . Although she agreed with the processes of evolution , Chopin however disagreed with Darwin's theory of sexual selection and

1989-472: A new feminist voice, while other intellectuals recognize it as the voice of an individual who happens to be a woman. Marquand writes, "Chopin undermines patriarchy by endowing the Other, the woman, with an individual identity and a sense of self, a sense of self to which the letters she leaves behind give voice. The 'official' version of her life, that constructed by the men around her, is challenged and overthrown by

2106-636: A nice day , for sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey , boost, bulldoze and jazz , originated as American slang. American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs . Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation , major, and many others. Compounds coined in

2223-468: A number of short stories such as "A Point at Issue!", "A No-Account Creole", "Beyond the Bayou", which were published in various magazines. In 1890, her first novel, At Fault , about a young widow and the sexual constraints of women, was published privately. The protagonist demonstrates the initial theme of Kate Chopin's works when she began writing. In 1892, Chopin produced " Désirée's Baby ", "Ripe Figs", and "At

2340-614: A passionate nature considered inappropriate by conventional, patriarchal standards of Victorian America. Chopin went beyond Maupassant's technique and style to give her writing its own flavor. She had an ability to perceive life and creatively express it. She concentrated on women's lives and their continual struggles to create an identity of their own within the Southern society of the late nineteenth century. For instance, in " The Story of an Hour ", Mrs. Mallard allows herself time to reflect after learning of her husband's death. Instead of dreading

2457-523: A plantation. Mentine and Jules' marriage has weathered many hard times, while Armand and Desiree's falls apart at the first sign of trouble. Kate Chopin was talented at showing various sides of marriages and local people and their lives, making her writing very broad and sweeping in topic, even as she had many common themes in her work. Martha Cutter argues that Kate Chopin demonstrates feminine resistance to patriarchal society through her short stories. Cutter claims that Chopin's resistance can be traced through

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2574-475: A process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to

2691-461: A recent Chopin biography, Kate Chopin's work rose in popularity and recognition during the 1970s due to themes of women venturing outside of the constraints set upon them by society, which appealed to people participating in feminist activism and the sexual revolution . She also argues that the works appealed to women in the 1960s, "a time when American women yearned to know about our feisty foremothers". Academics and scholars began to put Chopin in

2808-565: A region where she lived. Within a decade of her death, Chopin was widely recognized as one of the leading writers of her time. In 1915, Fred Lewis Pattee wrote "some of [Chopin's] work is equal to the best that has been produced in France or even in America. [She displayed] what may be described as a native aptitude for narration amounting almost to genius." She was not related to famous Polish composer Frederic Chopin as some may believe but she did have

2925-411: A review calling Choppn, "A St. Louis Woman Who Has Turned Fame Into Literature". The majority of the early reviews for The Awakening were largely negative. Emily Toth , one of Chopin's most well known biographers, thought she had gone too far with this novel. She argued that the protagonist Edna's blatant sensuality was too much for the male gatekeepers. So much so that publication of her next novel

3042-657: A series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the " Inland North ". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents ) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u] ) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ] ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker

3159-419: A son named Frederick Chopin, who was probably named after the composer. Chopin was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Thomas O'Flaherty, was a successful businessman who had immigrated to the United States from Galway, Ireland . Her mother, Eliza Faris, was his second wife, and a well-connected member of the ethnic French community in St. Louis as the daughter of Athénaïse Charleville,

3276-458: A survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink , you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in

3393-736: A tale of an interracial relationship in antebellum Louisiana, " The Story of an Hour " (1894), and " The Storm " (written 1898, first published 1969). ("The Storm" is a sequel to her " At the 'Cadian Ball " (1892), which appeared in Bayou Folk , her first collection of short stories.) Chopin also wrote two novels: At Fault (1890) and The Awakening (1899), which are set in New Orleans and Grand Isle , respectively. The characters in her stories are usually residents of Louisiana, and many are Creoles of various ethnic or racial backgrounds. Many of her works are set in Natchitoches in north-central Louisiana,

3510-477: A three-member house council: Mother Mary O'Meara, Kitty Garesché and Elise Miltenberger; Garesché became Mistress General (headmistress). In 1900, Chopin wrote a poem for Kitty Garesche's 50th birthday: There are several letters of Garesché in Kate Chopin and Her Creole Stories by Daniel S. Rankin . Written in her old age, the letters tell of the friendship with Chopin, their school days and life in St. Louis in

3627-453: A variation of American English in these islands. In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people. The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called

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3744-446: A while the widow Kate ran his [Oscar's] business and flirted outrageously with local men; (she even engaged in a relationship with a married farmer)." Although Chopin worked to make her late husband's plantation and general store succeed, she sold her Louisiana business two years later. Chopin's mother had implored her to move back to St. Louis, which she did, with her mother's financial support. Her children gradually settled into life in

3861-642: Is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South. American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT ) have instead retained a LOT – CLOTH split : a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set ) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into

3978-637: Is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin , and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English , beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands ; Thomasites first established

4095-1056: Is among the most frequently read and recognized writers of Louisiana Creole heritage. She is best known today for her 1899 novel The Awakening . Of maternal French and paternal Irish descent, Chopin was born in St. Louis, Missouri . She married and moved with her husband to New Orleans . They later lived in the country in Cloutierville, Louisiana . From 1892 to 1895, Chopin wrote short stories for both children and adults that were published in national magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly , Vogue , The Century Magazine , and The Youth's Companion . Her stories aroused controversy because of her subjects and her approach; they were condemned as immoral by some critics. Her major works were two short story collections and two novels. The collections are Bayou Folk (1894) and A Night in Acadie (1897). Her important short stories included " Désirée's Baby " (1893),

4212-526: Is common in most American accents despite being now rare in England because, during the 17th-century British colonization, nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during

4329-420: Is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality : [aː] , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a " Southern drawl " that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels . The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE , GOAT , MOUTH , and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as

4446-586: Is the common language at home, in public, and in government. Kitty Garesche Katherine Milligan “Kitty” Garesché was born on August 24, 1850, in St. Louis , Missouri , the daughter of Peter Bauduy Garesché (1822–1868) and Juliette McLane (1826–1885). She was the oldest daughter, and after her came Lilly, Virginia and John. She attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grosse Pointe, Michigan . While at

4563-522: Is the story of a woman trapped within the confines of an oppressive society. Out of print for several decades, it was rediscovered in the 1970s, when there was a wave of new studies and appreciation of women's writings. The novel has been reprinted and now is widely available. It has been critically acclaimed for its writing quality and importance as an example of early feminist literature of the South. Critics suggest that such works as The Awakening were scandalous and therefore not socially embraced. Chopin

4680-463: Is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/ , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard . Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston , Pittsburgh , Upper Midwestern , and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ( /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ , respectively):

4797-543: Is uncanny, nothing else . . . A masterpiece.' Linda Wolfe, The New York Times ". Within a few years, all of the major mass-market paperback publishers had editions of The Awakening in print, making it widely available for anyone to buy. Per Seyersted 's rediscovery of Chopin caused her work to be seen as essential feminist and Southern literature from the 19th century. Seyersted wrote that she "broke new ground in American Literature". According to Emily Toth, author of

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4914-476: The English-only movement , have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English. Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.) Puerto Rico is the largest example of a United States territory in which another language – Spanish –

5031-608: The Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent ), and the South . As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area , Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə] . These sound changes have triggered

5148-544: The Native American languages . Examples of such names are opossum , raccoon , squash , moose (from Algonquian ), wigwam , and moccasin . American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse , from French ; cookie , from Dutch ; kindergarten from German , and rodeo from Spanish . Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and

5265-462: The St. Louis World's Fair on August 20, 1904, Chopin suffered a brain hemorrhage . She died two days later, at the age of 54. She was interred in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. Kate Chopin lived in a variety of locations, based on different economies and societies. These were sources of insights and observations from which she analyzed and expressed her ideas about late 19th-century society in

5382-714: The francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program , manoeuvre for maneuver , cheque for check , etc.). AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize . BrE prefers -ise , but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling ). There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences , called " comma splices " in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors

5499-656: The 'Cadian Ball", which appeared in Two Tales that year, and eight of her other stories were published. The short story "Désirée's Baby" focuses on Chopin's experience with interracial relationships and communities of the Creoles of color in Louisiana. She came of age when slavery was institutionalized in St. Louis and the South. In Louisiana, there had been communities established of free people of color , especially in New Orleans, where formal arrangements were made between white men and free women of color or enslaved women for plaçage ,

5616-759: The 18th century; apartment , shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium , townhouse , mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof ( driveway , breezeway, backyard ) . Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology ) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ( dirt roads , freeways ) to infrastructure ( parking lot , overpass , rest area ), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as store , shop , lumber —underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in

5733-534: The 20th century. The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas . The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing

5850-429: The 50 U.S. states ; and the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce throughout the nation. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide. Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around

5967-718: The American Civil War came to St. Louis . During the war, Kate's half-brother died of fever, and her great-grandmother died as well. After the war ended, Kitty and her family were banished from St. Louis for supporting the Confederacy . In St. Louis, Missouri on June 8, 1870, she married Oscar Chopin and settled with him in his home town of New Orleans. The Chopins had six children between 1871 and 1879: in order of birth, Jean Baptiste, Oscar Charles , George Francis, Frederick, Felix Andrew, and Lélia (baptized Marie Laïza). In 1879, Oscar Chopin's cotton brokerage failed. The family left

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6084-622: The British form is a back-formation , such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar ). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems. While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions. The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in

6201-413: The East Coast (perhaps in imitation of 19th-century London speech), even the East Coast has gradually begun to restore rhoticity, due to it becoming nationally prestigious in the 20th century. The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ ɹ̠ ] or retroflex approximant [ ɻ ] , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound

6318-565: The Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity , the father–bother merger , Mary–marry–merry merger , pre-nasal "short a " tensing , and other particular vowel sounds . General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in

6435-505: The Literature of the American Civil War . Unhappy that he had to read some of her works on microfilm at the Library of Congress, Wilson urged Per Seyersted, a Norwegian who had written an article on her and who was studying in America, to focus his studies on her. Seven years later, in 1969, Seyersted published The Complete Works of Kate Chopin and a full-length biography. These two books formed

6552-536: The Sacred Heart, but later her sister Lily and her mother Juliette (after she remained a widow), followed her. Her mother brought with her the household furnishings, some of which are still in use today at the campus of Maryville College . Juliette McLane Garesché was born a Protestant but had become interested in Catholicism and during a winter spent in New York she was instructed and baptized by Archbishop Hughes. After

6669-560: The South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods. American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language , known as Webster's Dictionary ,

6786-552: The Southern United States. She was brought up by women who were primarily ethnic French. Living in areas influenced by the Louisiana Creole and Cajun cultures after she joined her husband in Louisiana, she based many of her stories and sketches on her life in Louisiana. They expressed her unusual portrayals of women as individuals with separate wants and needs. Chopin's writing style was influenced by her admiration of

6903-528: The U.S. Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize , etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae , skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in

7020-563: The U.S. are for instance foothill , landslide (in all senses), backdrop , teenager , brainstorm , bandwagon , hitchhike , smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English). Some are euphemistic ( human resources , affirmative action , correctional facility ). Many compound nouns have

7137-662: The U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky . A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots . Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in

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7254-530: The U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ( merger , downsize , bottom line ), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball . The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ( elevator [except in

7371-427: The U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet , eyeglasses , and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." Gotten ( past participle of get ) is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from

7488-592: The U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler ), baggage , hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket , originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English. Linguist Bert Vaux created

7605-531: The United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-century British English has since lost. Full rhoticity (or "R-fulness") is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩ ) in all environments, including in syllable-final position or before

7722-596: The West and Midwest, and New York Latino English , spoken in the New York metropolitan area . Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and " Yinglish " are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews , Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana , and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii , though primarily English-speaking,

7839-488: The academy, she became best friend of Kate Chopin. They were separated in 1863, when the Garesché's were banished from St. Louis for their Confederate sympathies. Garesché attended school in New York and graduated in 1868. She was expected to make her debut when her father suddenly died. She entered the novitiate at Maryville, St Louis , and took her vows on February 2, 1872. She was the first of her family to enter Order of

7956-547: The accents spoken in the " Midland ": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum. Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since

8073-505: The aeronautical sense ], gasoline ) as did certain automotive terms ( truck , trunk ). New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish ( chutzpah , schmooze, bupkis, glitch ) and German ( hamburger , wiener ). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7 ), while others have not ( have

8190-456: The age of five, she was sent to Sacred Heart Academy, where she learned how to handle her own money and make her own decisions. Upon her father's death, she was brought home to live with her grandmother and great-grandmother, comprising three generations of women who were widowed young and never remarried. For two years, she was tutored at home by her great-grandmother, Victoria (or Victoire) Charleville, who taught French, music, history, gossip, and

8307-413: The bustling city, but Chopin's mother died the following year. Chopin struggled with depression after the successive loss of her husband, her business, and her mother. Chopin's obstetrician and family friend Dr. Frederick Kolbenheyer suggested that she start writing, believing that it could be therapeutic for her. He believed that writing could be a focus for her energy as well as a source of income. By

8424-399: The city and moved to Cloutierville in south Natchitoches Parish to manage several small plantations and a general store. They became active in the community, where Chopin found, in the local creole culture, much material for her future writing. When Oscar Chopin died in 1882, he left Kate $ 42,000 in debt (approximately $ 1.33 million in 2024). The scholar Emily Toth noted that "for

8541-489: The contemporary French writer Guy de Maupassant , known for his short stories: ...I read his stories and marveled at them. Here was life, not fiction; for where were the plots, the old fashioned mechanism and stage trapping that in a vague, unthinkable way I had fancied were essential to the art of story making. Here was a man who had escaped from tradition and authority, who had entered into himself and looked out upon life through his own being and with his own eyes; and who, in

8658-406: The country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r -dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from

8775-509: The death of her husband and in rapid succession those of her daughter Virginia, and son, John Peter, she decided to enter the convent in 1878. She made her vows at the old City House on Broadway, St. Louis, Bishop Ryan, an intimate friend of the family officiating, and her two daughters being present. She was sent to Timaru , New Zealand, to assist in starting a convent and school there, and in 1881 made her profession in Paris. Returning to St. Louis she

8892-614: The diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages. Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in

9009-742: The double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here'). Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation. AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where

9126-492: The early 1890s, Chopin's short stories, articles, and translations appeared in periodicals, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , and in various literary magazines. During a period of considerable publishing of folk tales, works in dialect, and other elements of Southern folk life, she was considered a regional writer who provided local color . Her literary qualities were largely overlooked. In 1899, The Awakening , her second novel,

9243-583: The examples of Edna Pontellier in The Awakening , Mrs. Baroda in "A Respectable Woman", and Mrs. Mallard in "The Story of an Hour". Martha Cutter's article "The Search for a Feminine Voice in the Works of Kate Chopin" analyzes the female characters in many of Chopin's stories. Cutter argues that Chopin's opinion of women as being "the invisible and unheard sex" is exemplified through the characterization of Edna in The Awakening . Cutter argues that Chopin's writing

9360-453: The female characters take on a different voice of resistance, one that is more "covert" and works to undermine patriarchal discourse from within. Cutter exemplifies this idea through the presentation of Chopin's works written after 1894. Cutter claims that Chopin wanted to "disrupt patriarchal discourse, without being censored by it". And to do this, Chopin tried different strategies in her writings: silent women, overly resistant women, women with

9477-436: The female's role, which can be exemplified in The Awakening , in which Bender argues that Chopin references The Descent of Man . In his essay, Darwin suggests female inferiority and says that males had "gained the power of selection". Bender argues that in her writing, Chopin presented women characters that had selective power based on their own sexual desires, not the want of reproduction or love. Bender argues this idea through

9594-510: The following two centuries) when this ethnic group eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North, and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. While non-rhoticity spread on

9711-889: The hospital , BrE to hospital ; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor , BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor ). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects. Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour , fiber for fibre , defense for defence , analyze for analyse , license for licence , catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling . Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to

9828-656: The influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish ) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers. Any phonologically unmarked North American accent falls under an umbrella known as General American. This section mostly refers to such General American features. Studies on historical usage of English in both

9945-438: The late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce . New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas,

10062-493: The late 20th and early 21st centuries, just as she had been in her own time to have it described as immoral. Critics tend to regard writers as individuals with larger points of view addressed to factions in society. Kate Chopin began her writing career with her first story published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . By the early 1890s, Chopin forged a successful writing career, contributing short stories and articles to local publications and literary journals. She also initially wrote

10179-427: The lonely years ahead, she stumbles upon another realization: She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. Not many writers during

10296-411: The magic of a whole chapter in his life." "...[C]redible evidence exists that Johns shared his positive views of Chopin with his literary peers, a tight-knit group that included feminist writers Susan Glaspell and Edith Summers Kelley ..." Through Johns's personal friendship with Kelley and his fierce advocacy for The Awakening , it has been argued that Kelley read and was influenced by The Awakening ,

10413-411: The majority of her short stories and novels from 1889 to 1904. Altogether, Chopin wrote about 100 short stories or novels during her time as a fiction writer; her short stories were published in a number of local newspapers including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch . A large number of her short stories were published in national magazines,such as Youth's Companion and Harper's Young People . Bayou Folk

10530-464: The mid- to late 19th century were bold enough to address subjects that Chopin addressed. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese of Emory University wrote that "Kate was neither a feminist nor a suffragist , she said so. She was nonetheless a woman who took women extremely seriously. She never doubted women's ability to be strong." Kate Chopin's sympathies lay with the individual in the context of his and her personal life and society. Through her stories, Chopin wrote

10647-427: The mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in

10764-617: The most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents. Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English , which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans , has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture . Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English , spoken in

10881-474: The need to look on life without fear. After those two years, Kate went back to Sacred Heart Academy, which her best friend and neighbor, Kitty Garesche , also attended, and where her mentor, Mary O'Meara, taught. A gifted writer of both verse and prose, O'Meara guided her student to write regularly, to judge herself critically, and to conduct herself valiantly. Nine days after Kate and Kitty's first communions in May 1861,

10998-448: The novel to general awareness happened almost immediately. Before the year was out, a major mass-market paperback publisher, Avon Books , had the first mass-market paperback publication of the book heading to drug stores, supermarkets, and bookstores. A blurb from Wolfe's comments was featured prominently below the title and author's name at the top of the cover: "'Speaks to me as pertinently as any fiction published this year or last. It

11115-402: The past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned / learnt , burned / burnt , snuck/sneaked , dove/dived ) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school ); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to

11232-421: The same feminist categories as Louisa May Alcott , Susan Warner , and Emily Dickinson . Parallels between Alcott and Chopin have been drawn to point out how both authors wrote about women who departed from their traditional roles by dreaming of or striving for independence and individual freedoms, also described as a dramatization of a woman's struggle for selfhood. A reviewer for Choice Reviews stated that it

11349-504: The scholarly support for a rediscovery of Chopin. It took a brief commentary by novelist Linda Wolfe in the September 22, 1972, issue of The New York Times to kickstart the rediscovery of Chopin by the general public. In "There's Someone You Should Know – Kate Chopin", she described how she encouraged friends disappointed with contemporary fiction to discover Chopin and how The Awakening spoke to her today. The last step required to bring

11466-471: The time. The protagonist has sexual desires and questions the sanctity of motherhood. The novel explores the theme of marital infidelity from the perspective of a married woman. The book was widely banned, and it fell out of print for several decades, then was republished in the 1970s. It now is considered a classic of feminist fiction. Chopin reacted to the negative events happening to her by commenting ironically: I never dreamt of Mrs. Pontellier making such

11583-469: The timeline of her work, with Chopin becoming more and more understanding of how women can fight back suppression as time progresses. To demonstrate this, Cutter claims that Chopin's earlier stories, such as "At the 'Cadian Ball", "Wiser than a God", and "Mrs. Mobry's Reason" present women who are outright resisting, and are therefore not taken seriously, erased, or called insane. However, in Chopin's later stories,

11700-570: The traditional standard accent of (southern) England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved a trap–bath split . Moreover, American accents preserve /h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping , particularly in informal contexts. However, General American is also innovative in a number of its own ways: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from

11817-417: The verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout , holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover , and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ( win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others). Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in

11934-422: The view with which ethical and conventional standards have draped it". "Desiree's Baby" was first published in an 1893 issue of Vogue , alongside "A Visit to Avoyelles", another of Chopin's short stories, under the heading "Character Studies: The Father of Desiree's Baby – The Lover of Mentine". "A Visit to Avoyelles" typifies the local color writing that Chopin was known, and it is one of her stories that shows

12051-487: The woman of the story." Chopin appeared to express her belief in the strength of women. Marquand draws from theories about creative nonfiction in terms of her work. In order for a story to be autobiographical, or even biographical, Marquand writes, there has to be a nonfictional element, but more often than not the author exaggerates the truth to spark and hold interest for the readers. Kate Chopin might have been surprised to know her work has been characterized as feminist in

12168-772: The word corn , used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S. Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 , with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style ). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms ( lot , waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin , adobe in

12285-609: The world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American ; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent . The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in

12402-532: Was cancelled. The poet Orrick Johns was at least one strong advocate of Chopin and The Awakening , calling her "an influential modernist poet and progressive journalist originally from St. Louis who was popular in Greenwich Village literary circles". in 1911 he wrote in Reedy's Mirror : "To one who has read her as a boy and come back to her again with powers of appreciation more subtly developed, she breathes

12519-455: Was considered to be immoral due to the overt themes of female sexuality, as well as the female protagonist's constantly rebuking gender roles and norms. There have been rumors that the novel originally was banned, which have been disproved. Local and national newspapers published mixed reviews of Chopin's novel with one calling it "poison" and "unpleasant", going on to say it was "too strong a drink for moral babes", while another newspaper published

12636-451: Was discouraged by the lack of acceptance, but she continued to write, primarily writing short stories. In 1900, she wrote "The Gentleman from New Orleans". That same year she was listed in the first edition of Marquis Who's Who . However, she never earned a significant amount of money from her writing, instead living off of the investments she made locally in Louisiana and St. Louis of the inheritance from her mother's estate. While visiting

12753-421: Was followed by A Night in Acadie (1897), another collection of short stories. Published in 1899, her novel The Awakening is considered ahead of its time, garnering more negative reviews than positive from contemporary sources. Chopin was discouraged by this criticism, and she turned to writing short stories almost exclusively. The female characters in The Awakening went beyond the standards of social norms of

12870-553: Was made superior at the City House, but her health failing she was sent to Louisiana in hopes that a warmer climate would be beneficial. She died at St. Michael's in July, 1885. Lilly Garesche was for years superior at Maryville, at Clifton in Cincinnati ; at Duchesne , Omaha, Nebraska ; and at the City House. She was one of the most beloved nuns St. Louis has ever known. For many years, she

12987-461: Was not afraid to address such issues, which were often suppressed and intentionally ignored by others. Her character Armand tries to deny this reality, when he refuses to believe that he is of partial black descent, as it threatens his ideas about himself and his status in life. R. R. Foy believed that Chopin's story reached the level of great fiction, in which the only true subject is "human existence in its subtle, complex, true meaning, stripped of

13104-420: Was published. While some newspaper critics reviewed the novel favorably, the critical reception was largely negative. The critics considered the behavior of the novel's characters, especially the women, as well as Chopin's general treatment of female sexuality, motherhood, and marital infidelity, to be in conflict with prevailing standards of moral conduct and therefore offensive. This novel, her best-known work,

13221-416: Was shocking due to its sexual identity and articulation of feminine desire. According to Cutter, Chopin's stories disrupt patriarchal norms. Today, The Awakening is said to be one of the five top favorite novels in literature courses all over America. Kate Chopin has been credited by some as a pioneer of the early feminist movement despite not achieving any literary rewards for her works. Kate Chopin wrote

13338-747: Was the directress of the Sodality , and spent much of her time in the convent parlor, listening to women's troubles and comforting them. In 1887, together with another classmate from the Sacred Heart Academy who had become a nun as well, Elise "Liza" Miltenberger (b. 1848), Kitty Garesché opened the Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco. Miltenberger was the daughter of an old St. Louis French family. The new Sacred Heart Academy had

13455-493: Was ultimately a struggle doomed to failure because the patriarchal conventions of her society restricted her freedom. Karen Simons felt that this failed struggle was perfectly captured by the ending of the novel, where Edna Pontellier ends her life due to her realization that she cannot truly be both the traditional mother and have a sense of herself as an individual at the same time. Louisiana Public Broadcasting , under president Beth Courtney, produced Kate Chopin: A Reawakening ,

13572-511: Was well-reviewed, with Chopin's writing about how she had seen 100 press notices about it. Those stories were published in The New York Times and The Atlantic . Readers particularly liked how she used local dialects to give her characters a more authentic and relatable feel. She also published two novels: At Fault and The Awakening . Her novels were not well-received initially, compared to her short stories. Her 1899 novel The Awakening

13689-469: Was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings. Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick / he ran quickly ; different use of some auxiliary verbs ; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns ; different preferences for

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