Jon Johanning wrote:

>I'm not sure whether this is just my personal reaction, or that of other
>Americans, but I tend to rate the words in these works much higher than the
>music.  Your point that the librettos have many affinities with modern
>American English is a quite interesting one that I was not aware of.

But not in *Trial by Jury*, where, coming up w/ a rhyme for "Chancellor of
the Exchequer" the defendant replies "Be firm, be firm, my [British slang
expression for "heart" which rhymes and is, in American English, a slang
expression for something else].

Walter Meyer