Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
American Language Supplement 2 (74 page)
Wentworth gives many examples of the employment of
used to
in his “American Dialect Dictionary” and says that the pronunciation discussed by Hamilton is “probably universal.” He finds
used to could, would
and
was
in all parts of the country. The DAE ignores such forms, but
use- to could
was listed by the Rev. Adiel
Sherwood in the vocabulary accompanying his “Gazetteer of the State of Georgia,” 1827, and in 1850 William C. Fowler put it among “ungrammatical expressions, disapproved by all,” in his chapter on “American Dialects” in “The English Language.”
Another peculiarity of vulgar American speech that has interested philologians is the use of
done
as an auxiliary, especially but by no means exclusively in the South. Oma Stanley
1
gives the following examples from East Texas: “He
done bought
a new hat,” “He
done got
here,” and “He
done done
it,” and Wentworth adds the following from other parts of the country: “He’s
done
in his grave,” “I
done gone
went to town,” “Bennie has
done married
,” and “The chores
done been done
.”
Done
is prefixed to a verb, says D. S. Crumb,
2
“only when action is completed. Most dialect writers stumble on this and use the word in a way it would never be heard in the South. ‘The bread is
done burnt up
.’ Never ‘The bread is
done burning
.’ ” Robley Dunglison, who listed
done gone
and “What have you
done do?
” in the
Virginia Literary Museum
in 1829, called the use of the auxiliary “a prevalent vulgarism in the Southern States,… only heard amongst the lowest classes,” and hazarded the guess that it was “probably obtained from Ireland.” Adiel Sherwood cited
done said it
and
done did it
in his “Gazetteer of the State of Georgia,” 1827, but without comment. The DAE offers no examples earlier than these of Sherwood.
The assimilation of
to
to the preceding verb, noted by Hamilton in the case of
use-to
, is a general process that in the opinion of William Randel may still have far to go.
3
“In the past,” he says, “groups of words have coalesced, in either spelling or use.
Don
and
doff
, originally
do on
and
do off
, represent what verbs are capable of doing. Similar to this pair are various verbs that have absorbed prepositions as prefixes,
e.g., overtake, undermine, inveigh, outplay, dismiss
. Such combinations … represent an important force in vocabulary growth.” Combinations of the
use-to
form are numerous in the vulgar speech,
e.g., gonna, gotta
and
hadda
, and there is reinforcement for them in the combinations with
have, e.g., woulda
and
coulda
, and occasionally, among the nouns, with
of,
e.g., sorta
. The final
a
, in fact, is often assumed to be
of
by the ignorant, and when Ring Lardner’s baseball player takes pen in hand he writes
would of
, not
would have
. The DAE traces this form to 1844 and marks it an Americanism, but it is actually old in unstudied English and is to be found in the Verney Letters of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.
1
When, in 1938, a correspondent of the London
Observer
denounced it as an Americanism
2
he was answered by another who showed that it was common in England among persons “who have been denied more than the rudiments of education.”
3
Vance Randolph, the authority on the Ozark dialect, says that in that speech “
could have
and
might have
are sometimes pronounced in three syllables, something like
could-a-of
and
might-a-of
, but
would have
is usually
would-a
.”
4
Miss Brooke Jones reports hearing, in Oklahoma, the beautiful form, “Even if I
could of
knew I wouldn’t
of
got to gone.”
5
The NED describes this reduction of the OE
habben
(Ger.
haben
) to
a
as the
ne plus ultra
of the wearing-down tendency among English words.
To the discussion of the American use of
shall
and
will
in AL4,
6
and Supplement I
7
there is little to add. Their “so-called improper use,” said Krapp,
8
“has been called the Irish difficulty, but it might as well be called the Scottish and the American and the British difficulty, for nowhere where the English language is spoken does there exist complete harmony between theory and practise in this matter.”
Charles C. Fries has shown
1
that the first serious effort to differentiate between the two words was made by a grammarian named George Mason, whose “Grammaire Angloise,” written in French, was published in 1622. In this forgotten work was the first adumbration of the rules still to be found in grammar-books, though it was not until 1765 that a successor named William Ward brought them up to their present state of muddled refinement. Ward was imitated by the grammarians who began to flourish after the Revolution, and especially by Lindley Murray, but Fries says that it was “only after the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century” that “the complete discussion of the rules for
shall
and
will
in independent-declarative statements, in interrogative sentences, and in subordinate clauses” became “a common feature of text-books of English grammar.” These rules still survive, but the schoolma’am has failed to implant them in her pupils. The Americano, when it comes to the future tense, has abandoned
shall
altogether and even
will:
he has his say, as Sterling Andrus Leonard long ago noted,
2
by using “the much commoner contraction ’
ll
and by the forms
is to go, about to go, is going to
, and the whole range of auxiliary verbs which mean both past and future.” This was borne out by an investigation undertaken in 1933 by John Whyte, professor of German at Brooklyn College.
3
He submitted two German sentences, “Spielen Sie morgen?” and “Werden Sie morgen spielen?,” to 139 colleagues and students, and asked them how they would ask the question in English. Most of them rejected “
Will
you play tomorrow” on the ground that they understood by it, not a simple inquiry, but an invitation, and only 2% admitted ever using “
Shall
you play?” “The first choice of the large majority of both teachers and students, with the students making it their unanimous choice,” reported Whyte, was “
Are you going
to play tomorrow?”
4
444. [The subjunctive … is virtually extinct in the vulgar tongue. One never hears “if I
were
you,” but always “if I
was
you.” In the third person the -
s
is not dropped from the verbs. One hears, not “if she
go
,” but always “if she
goes
.” “If he
be
the man” is never heard; it is always “if he
is
”.] In a few counter-phrases, used now and then by the folk, the old form survives,
e.g., “be
that as it may” and “far
be
it from me,” but they carry an air of conscious sophistication. In ordinary talk the conjugation given in AL4, p. 444, prevails, to wit,
If I am, if I was
and
if I hadda been
. On higher levels, of course, the subjunctive shows more life, and there is ground for questioning the conclusion of Bradley, Krapp, Vizetelly, Fowler and other authorities that it is on its way out. Charles Allen Lloyd has shown
1
that it is still to be encountered plentifully in the newspapers
2
and even on the radio. But Thyra Jane Bevier has produced plenty of evidence
3
that it is by no means as often found in American writing as it was a few generations ago. “It was never actively alive in America,” she concludes, “except about the period from 1855 to 1880.”
1
The Levels of Language,
Educational Method
, March, 1937, p. 291.
2
The Druid, VI, May 23.
3
A Vocabulary or Collection of Words Which Have Been Supposed to be Peculiar to the United States of America; Boston, 1816, p. 171.
4
A Short But Comprehensive Grammar; third edition; Boston, n.d., p. 84. Staniford’s first edition appeared in 1807.
1
Oxford, 1905, pp. 284 and 285. It is also included in Vol. VI of his English Dialect Dictionary; Oxford (reissue), 1923.
2
The Verbs of the Vulgate,
American Speech
, Jan., 1926.
3
Hypercorrect Forms in American English,
American Speech
, Oct., 1937, p. 173.
4
Boston, 1829, p. 207. Kirkman does not include it in his lists of New England, New York, Middle Atlantic, Southern and Irish solecisms. H. A. Shands, in Some Peculiarities of Speech in Mississippi, 1893, says: “The uneducated of Mississippi … use
seen
and
seed
for
saw, seed
for
seen, saw
for
seen
, and sometimes
see
for
saw
.”
5
The Verbs of the Vulgate in Their Historical Relations,
American Speech
, April, 1929, pp. 307–15.
1
John S. Farmer, in his Americanisms Old and New, London, 1889, p. 108, says of this: “Now common in England, but of California origin.”
2
Partridge says that it originated in the United States before 1850 and was naturalized in England
c
. 1858.
3
Supplement I, p. 300.
1
There are examples in
Harper’s Magazine
, April, 1860, p. 710, and July of the same year, p. 277.
2
Vol. III, Part 2, Map 639.
3
pp. 427–36 and 444.
4
Vol. III, Part 2, Map 677.
5
Messrs. Leland O. Hunt and Roger A. Johnson, of New York, call my attention to the fact that
be
is rarely encountered in the United States in the third person singular.
6
In a translation of the First Epistle General of John into the Sussex dialect (
Click
, June, 1938, p. 13) Chapter I opens with: “It
be
about what has been from the beginning.” Richard Paget says in The Nature of Human Speech,
S.P.E. Tract No. XXII
, 1925, p. 31, that the following paradigm also survives in the West Country:
I be, thou be, he be, we be, you be, they be
.
7
Vol. I, pp. 715–18.
1
The negative forms,
ain’t, amn’t, an’t
and
aren’t
are discussed in AL4, pp. 51, 160, 202 and 445, and Supplement I, pp. 404–06. See also
Ain’t I
and
Aren’t I
, by Raven I McDavid, Jr.,
Language
, Jan.-March, 1941, pp. 57–59.
2
Reissue; Oxford, 1923, Vol. 1, p. 90.
3
The Druid, No. VI, May 16.
4
J. O. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words; London, 1847, called it “a common participle,… but more extensively used in America.” Thomas Wright (not to be confused with Joseph) in his Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English; London, 1862, did not mention it.
5
New York, 1937, p. 62.
6
Bobble, by G. M. Beerbower, Dec. 6, 1937.
1
The Druid, No. VI.
2
Published at Bellows Falls, Vt. See New England Provincialisms, 1818, by P. G. Perrin,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. V, Part IX, 1926, pp. 383–4.
3
The Leatherwood God, by W. D. Howells; New York, 1916.
4
For example, Jackdaw, a very popular writer on speech, in
John o’London’s Weekly
, March 25, 1938. E. B. Osborn had written “when the full force of Liberal rancour was
unloosed
against him” in the
London Daily Telegraph and Morning Post
, and a correspondent at Torquay had asked for light upon it. Jackdaw replied: “E. B. O.… might, had he wished, have written
loosed
, but he preferred
unloosed
, rightly I think. But why? Because here
unloosed
describes a slower and more reasoned act than
loosed
. It contemplates a rancour that has been chained up, not held ready on the leash: it had to be
unloosed
before it could be
loosed
, and by so much the more was deliberate.”
5
Loadened
, by J. D., Aug., 1930, p. 495.
6
Traced to 1535 by the NED but described as rare. In the adjectival form of
ill-shapened
it was found in Pills, Petticoats and Plows, by Thomas D. Clark, 1944, by a correspondent of
American Speech
, Oct., 1945, p. 186.
1
The last three, found in the Lawrence (Mass.)
Telegram
, Aug. 13, 1927, by Steven T. Byington, were discussed in
American Speech
, Dec., 1927, p. 163, by Louise Pound.
2
Headline in the Washington
Daily News
, Feb. 17, 1947, p. 9: “AYD’s Aim is to
Pinken
U.S. College Students.” AYD is a Communist-sponsored organization, American Youth for Democracy.
3
“He was found lying by the roadside
soddened
with drink.” Reported in
American Speech
, April, 1928, p. 350.
4
“Let us
safen
your brakes.” Reported in
American Speech
, April, 1931, p. 305. Also in The Changing Word, Minneapolis
Journal
, June 16, 1935.
5
“That diet ought to be
thinnening
.” Reported in
American Speech
, Sept., 1927, p. 515.
6
Reported from Maryland, Illinois, Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, West Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee by Wentworth.
7
Sherwin-Williams Home Painting Handbook and Catalogue, 1943, p. 10.
8
“My team
stalded
on the way to town.” Recorded by Wentworth in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Kentucky.
9
Found by Wentworth in Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama and Georgia.
10
The last two are ascribed to the Middle West by Wentworth.
11
E. J. Harrison, in Verb Wanted, London
Observer
, June 30, 1935, called attention to the curious fact that English has produced no antonym to
to cheapen
. He suggested various possibilities,
e.g., to enhance
, but rejected them all as unsatisfactory.
To dear
was in use in the Fifteenth Century, but is long obsolete and forgotten.
12
New York, 1940, p. 60.
13
An interesting discussion of some of them is in Lost Preterites,
Every Saturday
, Oct. 16, 1869, pp. 481–92.
1
See AL4, p. 430, n. 5. In Hiawatha, VII, Longfellow wrote: “Straight into the water Kwasind
dove
.” For the history of some of these forms in America see The Verbs of the Vulgate in Their Historical Relations, by Henry Alexander,
American Speech
, April, 1929, pp. 307–15.
2
Third edition; Oxford, 1879, pp. 261–64.
3
Molten
, of course, is in use as an adjective.
4
Many of these survive in Wright’s English Dialect Grammar, and some,
e.g., holp
, are listed by Wentworth.
5
Fourth edition; New York, 1870, p. 334.
6
From Public Service Responsibility of Broadcast Licensees, issued by the Federal Communications Commission in 1946: “The commercial program, paid for and in many instances also selected, written,
casted
and produced by advertisers and advertising agencies, is the staple fare of American listening.” I take this from the
Editor & Publisher
, March 23, 1946, p. 8. See AL4, pp. 197 and 439.
7
Accountant Writer, by Giff Cheshire,
Author & Journalist
, Dec., 1945, p. 8: “I was not required to bleed for my country, but I
sweat
.”
8
Joseph William Carr reported
he takened
in A List of Words From Northwest Arkansas,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. III; Párt II, 1906, p. 160.
1
I am indebted to Dr. Raven I. McDavid, Jr., for the addition of
I etten
, common in the South.
2
The New York
Times
, Aug. 29, 1936, p. 23, quoted Fries, lately cited, as saying that “in the past tense it should be agreed that the past tense of
ring
could be either
rang
or
rung;
of
sing
, either
sang
or
sung;
of
sink
, either
sank
or
sunk;
of
shrink
, either
shrank
or
shrunk;
of
spring
, either
sprang
or
sprung;
and for the participle of the verb
show
, either
showed
or
shown
.”
3
In the negative there is no equivalent of
he done;
the form is always
he didn’t
, usually pronounced
di’n’t
or
di’n’
.
4
Caption under a picture in the Oklahoma City
Oklahoman
, July 25, 1924: “Turnbull captured it with his hands … and
drug
it out,”
i.e
., a 46-pound catfish out of a mudhole.
5
I am indebted to Mr. Alexander Kadison for the following from a poem entitled Old Homes, in Verses by the Way: Third Series; New York, 1927, p. 47, by James Henry Darlington (1856–1930), Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Harrisburg, Pa.:
Sidesaddles, clocks, old portraits of fair women and strong men;
Tin candle-molds; sand-shakers, to dry the ink of goose-quill pen;
The pop corn; hams and strings of sage; herbs from the rafters hung;
A flintlock gun; three-cornered hat that from battle grandsire
brung
.
The Rev. Robert Forby says in The Vocabulary of East Anglia; London, 1830, that
I have brung
was used there, during the last twenty years of the Eighteenth Century, as often as
I have brought
. It was from that region, as we have seen in Chapter VII, Section 1, that many of the early American immigrants, especially to New England, came.
6
I am indebted here to Mr. Gilbert Chambers, of Newark, N. J.
7
Vance Randolph, in The Grammar of the Ozark Dialect, Oct., 1927, p. 2, says that the Ozark conjugation of
to take
runs as follows:
| Indicative | Subjunctive | |
| Present | I take | Ef I take |
| Present perfect | I have tuck | |
| Past | I taken | Ef I taken |
| Past perfect | I had tuck | Ef I had of tuck |
| Future | I will take |
1
Robert J. Menner, in Hypercorrect Forms in American English, before cited, p. 173, says that he has also heard
he lied
, apparently another unintended by-product of the schoolma’am’s admonitions. In
American Speech
, June, 1927, p. 408, a correspondent reported finding
underlain
in a book by a professor at Teachers College, Columbia.
2
Reported as prevailing in the Ozarks by Randolph, just cited.
3
See Thornton, Vol. II, pp. 831–32.
4
Usually followed by
up
. I find the following in the London
Observer
, June 21, 1936: “The epidemic of strikes … has threatened to include the concierges, among whose claims is one to the effect that they be no longer liable to be
woken up
at any hour of the night.” I am indebted here to the late F. H. Tyson.
5
Pled
, which is ancient in English, has been creeping back into good usage of late. Pickering, in his Vocabulary of 1816, said that it was then “in the colloquial language of the Bar in New England.” It was denounced as an Americanism in the
Port Folio
, Oct., 1809. But George Bernard Shaw used it in The Sanity of Art; London, 1907. I am indebted here to Mr. H. W. Seaman.
6
Under date of March 2, 1940, Mr. W. C. Thurston, of Salisbury, Md., sent me a clipping from the local
Times
including “Group singing
lended
an atmosphere of good cheer.”
To loan
is now widely used in place of
to lend
in all tenses. Miss Mary Lispenard Ward, of Asheville, N. C., tells me that in Baltimore children coming to borrow books at the Enoch Pratt Free Library branches often say that they want to
lend
them.
7
Dr. Harold Wentworth sends me a clipping of an advertisement in the Morgantown (W. Va.)
Post
, Sept. 14, 1945, p. 7, sponsored by the local W.C.T.U. and containing the following: “Perhaps if one sits down and shuts his eyes and dreams he can make himself believe a glass of beer harmless when
drank
by the father in the home.” Wentworth comments: “The W.C.T.U. won’t use the word
drunk
even when it’s right.”
8
In Pure English of the Soil,
S.P.E. Tract No. LXIV
, 1945, p. 103, Sir William Craigie shows that
drawed
was listed as the preterite of
to draw
in The Modern Husbandman, by William Ellis; London, 1745, along with
casted, growed, rended, rised
and
throwed
.
9
Among American horse fanciers a jumping horse is called a
lepper
.
10
Mr. Robert A. Johnson, of Brooklyn, tells me that in the palmy days of the trolley car the past tense of
to brake
was
broke
in both active and passive voices,
e.g
., “That car
broke
all right yesterday,” “I
broke
her a little coming into the curve.”
