American journalist, essayist and (language link) author of _The
American Language_.
First edition 1919; 4th edition 1936 "corrected, enlarged, and
rewritten". Two supplements 1945 (on history of English in the USA) and
1948 (on pronunciation, spelling, grammar, names, and slang). (Mencken
died in 1956.)
The copy I have is a 1977 paperback "One Volume Abridged Edition",
containing the 4th ed, the two supplements, with extensive annotations
and new material by Raven I.McDavid Jr. (dialectologist). Though
abridged, still amounting to 777 pages of text and 124 pages of indexes.
Whew.

Mencken was a cantankerous old bugger with strong and often very
quotable opinions on almost everything. Crystal quotes him on the
English of Warren G.Harding, 29th President of the United States:

"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me
of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the
line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs
barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish,
and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and
bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

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Ar an dara lá déag de mí Méan Fómhair, scríobh Ross Clark:

American journalist, essayist and (language link) author of _The American Language_.
First edition 1919; 4th edition 1936 "corrected, enlarged, and rewritten". Two
supplements 1945 (on history of English in the USA) and 1948 (on pronunciation,
spelling, grammar, names, and slang). (Mencken died in 1956.)
The copy I have is a 1977 paperback "One Volume Abridged Edition", containing
the 4th ed, the two supplements, with extensive annotations and new material by
Raven I.McDavid Jr. (dialectologist). Though abridged, still amounting to 777
pages of text and 124 pages of indexes. Whew.

He wasn’t scared of work! Der deutsche Fleiß in der neuen Welt engepflanzt.

Mencken was a cantankerous old bugger with strong and often very quotable opinions on almost everything.

I liked him a lot when I was younger (in my 20s), and then I read enough of it to get a good insight into how downbeat about everything he was. No real solutions, basically complaints and criticism.

--
‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
(C. Moore)

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