Did an Americanism is a borrowed word whose form is changed to make it resemble American English?

Answer 1

Americanisms. American linguistic inventiveness showed itself early. Coined words and extended meanings were necessary and natural developments in a new country whose western edge was a perpetual frontier.

Economic and physical conditions in America were unlike those in England, and Americans were isolated from the refining influence of English society and education. These factors combined with the American tendency to preserve archaic forms to create a distinctly American English.

Among the archaisms retained were allow, guess, and reckon, all used in a sense which had become obsolete in England. Coinages included lightning rod, log cabin, hired hand, and cotton gin. Borrowed words like bossand levee were also Americanisms, as were fork for river branch, spell for time or while, and Thomas Jefferson's 1787 coinage,belittle. A list compiled in 1781 showed mad for angry, to take in and to bamboozle for to swindle, and a heavy use of ain't and other contractions. Common grammatical errors (lay for lie, knowed for knew) and mispronunciations (winderfor window) were also included.