American Language Supplement 2 (79 page)
Read American Language Supplement 2 Online
Authors: H.L. Mencken
In the American common speech such forms are very numerous, and Wentworth lists
betterer
and
more betterer
from Georgia and Alabama,
more beautifuller
from Pennsylvania,
more better
from the Ozarks and South Carolina,
moreder
from Nebraska,
more hotter
from Virginia,
more resteder
from Appalachia,
more righter
from New England,
bestest
from Mississippi,
bestmost
from Arkansas,
mostest
from Indiana, and
leastest
from Massachusetts, Alabama, Georgia and Newfoundland. The ascription of the military maxim, “Git thar
fustest
with the
mostest
men,” to the Confederate general, Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–77), is probably apocryphal, but
mostest
is in everyday use today in his native wildwood. Adjectives not ordinarily subjected to the process are compared freely,
e.g., onliest, fightinest, dancinest, shootinest, loviner, growed-uppest
and
tore-dowdest
. All these are reported from the Ozarks
by Randolph,
1
and Wentworth adds examples from many other regions.
2
From New Jersey a correspondent sends in the following dialogue:
A
. Ain’t State street th’ main street ’n ’is ’ere town?
B
. Sure.
A
. Well, if Ahm comin’ down Warren an’ your’re comin’ through State on my lef’, then which is the
mainer
?
3
The plain people pay no heed to the schoolma’am’s distinction between
healthy
and
healthful
, and prefer
tasty
to
tasteful
.
4
In the phrase
healthy respect
the former is quite respectable. Of late there has been a strong tendency, especially in the field of victualling, to omit the -
ed
ending from adjectives, following the example of
ice-cream
, originally
iced-cream
.
5
Examples:
mash
potatoes,
hash-brown
potatoes,
whip cream
.
6
In Baltimore, in 1946, I saw a sign advertising Frostie, “an
old-fashion
root-beer.”
7
1
English Dialect Grammar, p. 267.
2
p. 326.
3
P. A. Browne sends me a magnificent modern English example: “John is
more taller
than Kate than she is than Jim.”
4
For the transition period immediately preceding see Dr. Louise Pound’s dissertation, The Comparison of Adjectives in English in the XV and the XVI Century; Heidelberg, 1901.
5
The Use of the Superlative Degree for the Comparative,
English Journal
(College Edition), Dec., 1935, pp. 821–29. See also The Grammar of English Grammars, by Goold Brown; New York, 1858, p. 294.
1
The Grammar of the Ozark Dialect,
American Speech
, Oct., 1927, p. 9.
2
Such forms are often used by the literati for humorous effect. In Notes on the Vernacular,
American Mercury
, Oct., 1924, pp. 235–36, Louise Pound offers
allrightest, nicerer, moderatest, far more superior, more outer, high-steppingest, goingest, orphanest, womanishest, outlandishest
and
pathetiker
. In Washington is Like That, by W. M. Kiplinger; New York, 1942, the Capital is described as “the
eatingest, drinkingest, gossipest
place in the world.”
3
My debt here is to Mr. Harry Gwynn Morehouse, of Trenton.
4
The NED traces
healthy
in the sense of conducive to health to 1552, and shows that it was used by John Locke and John Wesley. It traces
tasty
to 1617 and provides examples from Goldsmith, Buckle, Hobhouse and Thackeray.
5
The NED traces
ice-cream
to 1769 and
iced-cream
to 1688.
6
I am indebted here to Mr. Douglas Leechman, of the National Museum of Canada, Ottawa.
7
The prevalence of incomplete comparatives in advertisements,
e.g
., “a
better
department-store” and “dresses for the
older
woman,” is discussed in The Rise of the Incomplete Comparative, by Esther K. Sheldon,
American Speech
, Oct., 1945, pp. 161–67.
“In all the dialects [of English],” says Wright in his “English Dialect Grammar,”
8
“it is common to use the adjectival form for the adverbial, as in ‘you might
easy
fall.’ ” This is certainly true of the American vulgate.
Sure
as an adverb has become one of its chief hallmarks,
9
and
go slow
, often spelled
go slo
, has become official on
road-signs throughout the country.
1
Both have been under fire by the schoolma’am, and the latter was denounced with some violence by a writer in
American Speech
in 1927,
2
but it was defended valiantly by Wallace Rice,
3
who showed that many grammarians above the pedagogical level were in favor of it, and that it was listed as soundly colloquial in accepted dictionaries. Mrs. Charles Archibald, in her unpublished study, “The Doctrine of Correctness in English Usage in the Nineteenth Century,”
4
shows that while adverbs shorn of the terminal -
ly
were countenanced by Noah Webster, it was not until the latter half of the century that the common run of grammarians made the discovery that many of them were etymologically sound.
5
One of the first to see the light was the Rev. Henry Alford, dean of Canterbury, whose “Plea for the Queen’s English,” first published in 1863, is chiefly remembered today for its violent denunciation of Americans and the American language.
6
Alford noted that most adjectives capable of use as adverbs “seem to be of one syllable,” but so long as they qualified in that respect he had nothing against them, and in fact cited
soft, sweet, plain, bright
and
wrong
with approbation. Says S. A. Nock of
go slow:
An important element in the use of
slow
as an adverb is the necessity of emphasis.
Go slowly
means, when you see such a sign, “don’t go too fast,” but
go slow
means to go slow. The spondee and the rhyme are both effective.
7
The use of
real
instead of
really
has been defended persuasively by Robert C. Pooley,
8
who says that its position “is considerably higher than that of
sure
,” and that “it is constantly heard in the professional and social conversation of cultured people.” The same may be said of
bad
, as in “I feel
bad
.” Wentworth offers examples of the former from North, East, South and West, and of the latter from places almost as far apart. He notes that
bad
sometimes precedes the adjective, as in “He was
bad
sick,” cited from central
New York, Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, West Virginia, Kansas and Oklahoma.
Withouten
, which is both an adverb and a preposition, is found by him in the Appalachia area, but apparently nowhere else. The NED traces it as an adverb to
c
. 1000, but indicates that it is obsolete in England. As a preposition, traced to
c
. 1175, it was used by Gower, Byron and Kipling.
Outen
, without
with
-, prevails in the common speech all over the United States. Incidentally, it was used no less than eight times by H. W. Longfellow in his translation of Dante’s “Divina Commedia.”
1
Ramsay and Emberson say in their “Mark Twain Lexicon”
2
that Mark showed “a marked fondness for the old native suffixless or flat adverbs, which are sometimes unjustly stigmatized as ungrammatical uses of the adjective.” They cite
awful, bad, cruel, fair, good, loud, near
(as in “I mighty
near
stepped on a snake”),
real, square, sure
and
tight
, but have to add the hypersophic
illy
, which occurs in “The Gilded Age” and may have been the contribution of Charles Dudley Warner. Wentworth finds it in West Virginia, and
muchly
in Alabama and Georgia, but does not list
thusly
. This last occurs mainly as conscious humor.
3
A correspondent tells me that Socialists and Communists frequently sign their letters
Yours comradely
, and that he has encountered
Yours friendly
at the end of a business letter. E. L. Thorndike, in a statistical study of adverbs in American use,
4
finds that there is an apparent taboo against those in -
lily, e.g., oilily
and
lordlily
. He says: “
Holy, lonely, lordly
and other -
ly
adjectives in my records number over 3,000 occurrences without a single adverb in -
ly
formed from them.”
8
p. 299.
9
Milton wrote “God
sure
esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person,” in the Areopagitica, 1644, but the form has always been rare in England, save as a conscious loan from American.
1
Slow
was thus used by Shakespeare, Byron and Thackeray. The NED traces it to
c
. 1500.
2
Road Signs, by Ottilie Amend, Jan., pp. 191–92.
3
Go Slow – Proceed Slowly, American Speech
, Sept., 1927, pp. 489–91.
4
A University of Wisconsin dissertation, quoted here by Mrs. Archibald’s permission.
5
For the history of -
ly
see AL4, pp. 464–65.
6
It is quoted in AL4, p. 27.
7
Private communication, May 7, 1936.
8
Real
and
Sure
as Adverbs,
American Speech
, Feb., 1933, pp. 60–62. See also
Real
, Adverb?, by Leah Dennis,
Words
, Sept., 1935, pp. 9–10.
1
I am indebted here to Mr. Frederic R. Gunsky, of San Francisco. He reports that it appears in Cantos I, III and XXIV of the Inferno, VI, XI, XVIII and XXVIII of the Purgatorio, and XXIV of the Paradiso.
2
University of Missouri Studies
, Vol. XIII, No. 1, Jan. 1, 1938.
3
But I find “The late Fremont Older penned it
thusly
” in the
Congressional Record
, Dec. 21, 1943, p. 11103, col. 3, apparently used seriously. However, it is often difficult to tell whether a congressman is serious or spoofing.
4
Derivation Ratios,
Language
, Jan.-March, 1943, pp. 27–37.
“Not a single good reason except the tyranny of usage,” says John S. Kenyon, “can be given for not using two or more negatives to strengthen negation. It is wholly in accord with linguistic
principle, being in the best of use in many other languages, as formerly in English, and is extremely effective, as in Chaucer’s famous four-negative sentence.
1
It is still in full vigor in folk speech, where its great value keeps it alive; and it frequently occurs in disguise in cultivated use.”
2
Noah Webster was of the same opinion, and said so in his “Philosophical and Practical Grammar” of 1807. Thus:
The learned, with a view of philosophical correctness, have rejected the use of two negatives for one negation; but the … change has not reached the great mass of the people and probably never will reach them; it being nearly impossible, in my opinion, ever to change a usage which enters into the language of every cottage, every hour and almost every moment.… In this instance the people have the primitive idiom; and if the Greeks, that polished nation, thought fit to retain two negatives for a negation, in the most elegant language ever formed, surely our men of letters might have been less fastidious about retaining them in the English.
Examples of multiple negation swarm in the records of American folk-speech. Vance Randolph says
3
that in the Ozarks “the double negative, as in ‘I
never
done
nothin
’,’ is the rule rather than the exception. Often,” he goes on, “
nohow
is added for greater emphasis, and we have a triple negative. Even the quadruple form, ‘I
ain’t never
done
nothin’ nohow
,’ is not at all uncommon. Occasionally one hears the quintuple, ‘I
ain’t never
done
no
dirt of
no
kind to
nobody
.’ Such sentences as ‘I
don’t
want
but
one’ are used and defended even by educated Ozarkers.” The free and irrational use of
but
, in fact, is almost universal in American English, especially in such forms as “I haven’t any doubt
but that
” (or
but what
), and in AL4 I gave some examples from learned and eminent sources.
4
In the common speech
ain’t
is often combined with
nobody
to give a multiple negative a final polish, as in “
Ain’t nobody never
been there” (No one has ever been there) and
“Ain’t nobody never
told me
nothing
about it.”
Hardly
and
scarcely
are also used for this cosmetic effect, as in “I
don’t
know
nothin’ scarcely
,” “We-all
can’t
get her to eat
nothin’ scarcely
,” “It
didn’t
take
hardly
ten
minutes,” “He
hardly hadn’t never
saw her” and “It
don’t hardly
amount to
nothin
’.” Some miscellaneous specimens from my archives:
