How did our studies last week change your understanding of our essential question?

To be completely honest, I found the first couple chapters a little challenging to read (ie boring), but there definitely was a great deal of information regarding how the English language has changed over time, along with some other cool history tidbits.
There seem to be two main different aspects of language evolution highlighted in the first couple chapters of Made in America - pronunciation and spelling. Now considering it, it does make a lot of sense that, in our country's early days, we spoke like British people, pronouncing 'banana' like 'banahna' and 'bath' like 'bahth'. However, the mention of words like 'varmint' for 'vermin' is a little bit out-of-line to me, as 'varmint' really does not have that same British sound, at least in my opinion. Here's a speech that Bryson samples as an example of early language in New England (my Grammarly extension is about to go on the fritz):

"Ez fer war, I call it murder,-
There you hev it plain an' flat:
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that;

God hez sed so plump an' fairly
It's ez long ez it is broad,
An' you've gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God." (Bryson 77)

As expected, Grammarly does not accept a lot of the words in that poem - ten, to be exact. I can decipher what words like 'ez' and 'hez' mean, but the spelling (which likely indicates pronunciation more than anything) really is confusing. I think of 'ez' as being something like what Cletus Spuckler of Simpsons fame would say - not something that our famous forefathers would've ever said. Spelling and pronunciation aren't the only things that Bryson mentioned that surprised me.

Something else that Bryson mentions time and time again is the birth of 'Americanisms' - words and expressions that were born in America, not Britain. Granted, I'm not surprised that Americanisms exist, just that there are so many. Phrases such as 'back down', 'underdog', 'even Steven', and especially 'gents' (which I think of as more British-sounding than the longer 'gentlemen') were all born within the first century of our country's existence, along with countless others that range from things I've never heard in my life ('by the great horn spoon') to words that I distinctly remember learning for standardized testing purposes ('highfalutin') to phrases that I use every other week ('fit as a fiddle'). What's not surprising is that Americanisms exist - it's simply the sheer amount of Americanisms that blows me away. Adding on the spelling and pronunciation changes mentioned earlier, that's a lot of info for just five chapters.