The American Declaration of Independence in Ancient and Modern English
Abstract
H L Mencken, explaining the American vernacular to his readers, rendered the Declaration of Independence into everyday US English, circa 1920. John o’London, a British pundit on English language and literature did not enjoy it. He preferred Jefferson’s version.
When things get so balled up that the people of a country have to cut loose from some other country and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see that they are on the level, and not trying to put nothing over on nobody. All we got to say on this proposition is this. You and me is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better. Second, nobody ain’t got no right to take away none of our rights. Third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time however he likes, so long as he don’t interfere with nobody else. That any government that don’t give a man these rights ain’t worth a damn. Also, people ought to choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter.
H L Mencken, The American Language, 1921
John o’London, also writing in the twenties, did not like Mencken’s modern American version. He preferred the version written in English, no doubt considering that, at that time, the men like Jefferson who drafted the Declaration of Independence were still Englishmen, even though they did not like the kings George. Of course, plenty of the insular English didn’t like them either. After all, they were Germans. Anyway, Mencken’s take on 1920s American English is pretty much how plenty of Brits now talk. Is it decadence, or US cultural hegemony? Maybe both! Here are Jefferson’s words.
In Eighteenth Century English
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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An absent-minded minister was seen walking along High Street with one foot continually in the gutter and the other on the sidewalk. A member of his flock met him, stopped to talk, and asked how he was. “Not at all bad until just the last few minutes,” he said, “when for some odd reason I suddenly started to limp.”
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