Chapter IX: Miscellanea, 301 (10)

Following /than/ and /as/ the American uses the objective form of the pronoun, as in "he is taller than /me/" and "such as /her/." [Pg224] He also uses it following /like/, but not when, as often happens, he uses the word in place of /as/ or /as if/. Thus he says "do it like /him/," but "do it like /he/ does" and "she looks like /she/ was sick." What appears here is an instinctive feeling that these words, followed by a pronoun only, are not adverbs, but prepositions, and that they should have the same power to put the pronoun into an oblique case that other prepositions have. Just as "the taller of /we/" would sound absurd to all of us, so "taller than /he/," to the unschooled American, sounds absurd. This feeling has a good deal of respectable support. "As /her/" was used by Swift, "than /me/" by Burke, and "than /whom/" by Milton. The brothers Fowler show that, in some cases, "than /him/," is grammatically correct and logically necessary.[69] For example, compare "I love you more than /him/" and "I love you more than /he/." The first means "I love you more than (I love) /him/"; the second, "I love you more than /he/ (loves you)." In the first /him/ does not refer to /I/, which is nominative, but to /you/, which is objective, and so it is properly objective also. But the American, of course, uses /him/ even when the preceding noun is in the nominative, save only when another verb follows the pronoun. Thus, he says, "I love you better than /him/," but "I love you better than /he/ does."

In the matter of the reflexive pronouns the American vulgate exhibits forms which plainly show that it is the spirit of the language to regard /self/, not as an adjective, which it is historically, but as a noun. This confusion goes back to Anglo-Saxon days; it originated at a time when both the adjectives and the nouns were losing their old inflections. Such forms as /Petrussylf/ (=/Peter's self/), /Cristsylf/ (=/Christ's self/) and /Icsylf/ (=/I/, /self/) then came into use, and along with them came combinations of /self/ and the genitive, still surviving in /hisself/ and /theirselves/ (or /theirself/). Down to the sixteenth century these forms remained in perfectly good usage. "Each for /hisself/," for example, was written by Sir Philip Sidney, and is to be found in the dramatists of the time, though modern editors always change it to /himself/. How the dative pronoun got itself [Pg225] fastened upon /self/ in the third person masculine and neuter is one of the mysteries of language, but there it is, and so, against all logic, history and grammatical regularity, /himself/, /themselves/ and /itself/ (not /its-self/) are in favor today. But the American, as usual, inclines against these illogical exceptions to the rule set by /myself/. I constantly hear /hisself/ and /theirselves/, as in "he done it /hisself/" and "they don't know /theirselves/." Sometimes /theirself/ is substituted for theirselves, as in "they all seen it /theirself/." Also, the emphatic /own/ is often inserted between the pronoun and the noun, as in "let every man save his /own/ self."

The American pronoun does not necessarily agree with its noun in number. I find "I can tell each one what /they/ make," "each fellow put /their/ foot on the line," "nobody can do what /they/ like" and "she was one of /these/ kind of people" in Charters, and "I am not the kind of man that is always thinking about /their/ record," "if he was to hit a man in the head ... /they/ would think /their/ nose tickled" in Lardner. At the bottom of this error there is a real difficulty: the lack of a pronoun of the true common gender in English, corresponding to the French /soi/ and /son/. /His/, after a noun or pronoun connoting both sexes, often sounds inept, and /his-or-her/ is intolerably clumsy. Thus the inaccurate plural is often substituted. The brothers Fowler have discovered "anybody else who have only /themselves/ in view" in Richardson and "everybody is discontented with /their/ lot" in Disraeli, and Ruskin once wrote "if a customer wishes you to injure /their/ foot." In spoken American, even the most careful, /they/ and /their/ often appear; I turn to the /Congressional Record/ at random and in two minutes find "if anyone will look at the bank statements /they/ will see."[70] In the lower reaches of the language the plural seems to get into every sentence of any complexity, even when the preceding noun or pronoun is plainly singular. [Pg226]

§ 5

/The Adverb/--All the adverbial endings in English, save /-ly/, have gradually fallen into decay; it is the only one that is ever used to form new adverbs. At earlier stages of the language various other endings were used, and some of them survive in a few old words, though they are no longer employed in making new words. The Anglo-Saxon endings were /-e/ and /-lice/. The latter was, at first, merely an /-e/-ending to adjectives in /-lic/, but after a time it attained to independence and was attached to adjectives not ending in /-lic/. In early Middle English this /-lice/ changes to /-like/, and later on to /-li/ and /-ly/. Meanwhile, the /-e/-ending, following the /-e/-endings of the nouns, adjectives and verbs, ceased to be pronounced, and so it gradually fell away. Thus a good many adverbs came to be indistinguishable from their ancestral adjectives, for example, /hard/ in to /pull hard/, /loud/ in /to speak loud/, and /deep/ in /to bury deep/ (=Anglo-Saxon, /dĕop-e/). Worse, not a few adverbs actually became adjectives, for example, /wide/, which was originally the Anglo-Saxon adjective /wid/ (=/wide/) with the adverbial /-e/-ending, and /late/, which was originally the Anglo-Saxon adjective /laet/ (=/slow/) with the same ending.

The result of this movement toward identity in form was a confusion between the two classes of words, and from the time of Chaucer down to the eighteenth century one finds innumerable instances of the use of the simple adjective as an adverb. "He will answer /trewe/" is in Sir Thomas More; "and /soft/ unto himself he sayd" in Chaucer; "the singers sang /loud/" in the Revised Version of the Bible (Nehemiah xii, 42), and "/indifferent/ well" in Shakespeare. Even after the purists of the eighteenth century began their corrective work this confusion continued. Thus, one finds, "the people are /miserable/ poor" in Hume, "how /unworthy/ you treated mankind" in /The Spectator/, and "/wonderful/ silly" in Joseph Butler. To this day the grammarians battle with the barbarism, still without complete success; every new volume of rules and regulations for those who would speak by the book is full of warnings against it. Among [Pg227] the great masses of the plain people, it goes without saying, it flourishes unimpeded. The cautions of the school-marm, in a matter so subtle and so plainly lacking in logic or necessity, are forgotten as quickly as her prohibition of the double negative, and thereafter the adjective and the adverb tend more and more to coalesce in a part of speech which serves the purposes of both, and is simple and intelligible and satisfying.

Charters gives a number of characteristic examples of its use: "wounded very /bad/," "I /sure/ was stiff," "drank out of a cup /easy/," "he looked up /quick/." Many more are in Lardner: "a chance to see me work /regular/," "I am glad I was lucky enough to marry /happy/," "I beat them /easy/," and so on. And others fall upon the ear every day: "he done it /proper/," "he done himself /proud/," "she was dressed /neat/," "she was /awful/ ugly," "the horse ran /O. K./," "it /near/ finished him," "it sells /quick/," "I like it /fine/," "he et /hoggish/," "she acted /mean/," "they keep company /steady/." The bob-tailed adverb, indeed, enters into a large number of the commonest coins of vulgar speech. /Near-silk/, I daresay, is properly /nearly-silk/. The grammarians protest that "run /slow/" should be "run /slowly/." But /near-silk/ and "run /slow/" remain, and so do "to be in /bad/," "to play it up /strong/" and their brothers. What we have here is simply an incapacity to distinguish any ponderable difference between adverb and adjective, and beneath it, perhaps, is the incapacity, already noticed in dealing with "it is /me/," to distinguish between the common verb of being and any other verb. If "it /is/ bad" is correct, then why should "it /leaks/ bad" be incorrect? It is just this disdain of purely grammatical reasons that is at the bottom of most of the phenomena visible in vulgar American, and the same impulse is observable in all other languages during periods of inflectional decay. During the highly inflected stage of a language the parts of speech are sharply distinct, but when inflections fall off they tend to disappear. The adverb, being at best the step-child of grammar--as the old Latin grammarians used to say, "/Omnis pars orationis migrat in adverbium/"--is one of the chief victims of this anarchy. John Horne Tooke, despairing of bringing it to any [Pg228] order, even in the most careful English, called it, in his "Epea Ptercenta," "the common sink and repository of all heterogeneous and unknown corruptions."

Where an obvious logical or lexical distinction has grown up between an adverb and its primary adjective the unschooled American is very careful to give it its terminal /-ly/. For example, he seldom confuses /hard/ and /hardly/, /scarce/ and /scarcely/, /real/ and /really/. These words convey different ideas. /Hard/ means unyielding; /hardly/ means barely. /Scarce/ means present only in small numbers; /scarcely/ is substantially synonymous with /hardly/. /Real/ means genuine; /really/ is an assurance of veracity. So, again, with /late/ and /lately/. Thus, an American says "I don't know, /scarcely/," not "I don't know, /scarce/"; "he died /lately/," not "he died /late/." But in nearly all such cases syntax is the preservative, not grammar. These adverbs seem to keep their tails largely because they are commonly put before and not after verbs, as in, for example, "I /hardly/ (or /scarcely/) know," and "I /really/ mean it." Many other adverbs that take that position habitually are saved as well, for example, /generally/, /usually/, /surely/, /certainly/. But when they follow verbs they often succumb, as in "I'll do it /sure/" and "I seen him /recent/." And when they modify adjectives they sometimes succumb, too, as in "it was /sure/ hot." Practically all the adverbs made of adjectives in /-y/ lose the terminal /-ly/ and thus become identical with their adjectives. I have never heard /mightily/ used; it is always /mighty/, as in "he hit him /mighty/ hard." So with /filthy/, /dirty/, /nasty/, /lowly/, /naughty/ and their cognates. One hears "he acted /dirty/," "he spoke /nasty/," "the child behaved /naughty/," and so on. Here even standard English has had to make concessions to euphony. /Cleanlily/ is seldom used;, /cleanly/ nearly always takes its place. And the use of /illy/ is confined to pedants.

Vulgar American, like all the higher forms of American and all save the most precise form of written English, has abandoned the old inflections of /here/, /there/ and /where/, to wit, /hither/ and /hence/, /thither/ and /thence/, /whither/ and /whence/. These fossil remains of dead cases are fast disappearing from the language. [Pg229] In the case of /hither/ (=/to here/) even the preposition has been abandoned. One says, not "I came /to here/," but simply "I came /here/." In the case of /hence/, however, /from here/ is still used, and so with /from there/ and /from where/. Finally, it goes without saying that the common American tendency to add /-s/ to such adverbs as /towards/ is carried to full length in the vulgar language. One constantly hears, not only /somewheres/ and /forwards/, but even /noways/ and /anyways/. Here we have but one more example of the movement toward uniformity and simplicity. /Anyways/ is obviously fully supported by /sideways/ and /always/.

§ 6

/The Noun and Adjective/--The only inflections of the noun remaining in English are those for number and for the genitive, and so it is in these two regions that the few variations to be noted in vulgar American occur. The rule that, in forming the plurals of compound nouns or noun-phrases, the /-s/ shall be attached to the principal noun is commonly disregarded, and it goes at the end. Thus, "I have two /sons-in-law/" is never heard; one always hears "I have two /son-in-laws/." So with the genitive. I once overheard this: "that umbrella is /the young lady I go with's/." Often a false singular is formed from a singular ending in /s/, the latter being mistaken for a plural. /Chinee/, /Portugee/ and /Japanee/ are familiar; I have also noted /trapee/, /tactic/ and /summon/ (from /trapeze/, /tactics/ and /summons/). Paradoxically, the word /incidence/ is commonly misused for /incident/, as in "he told an /incidence/." Here /incidence/ (or /incident/) seems to be regarded as a synonym, not for /happening/, but for /story/. I have never heard "he told /of/ an incidence." The /of/ is always omitted. The general disregard of number often shows itself when the noun is used as object. I have already quoted Lardner's "some of the men has brung their /wife/ along"; in a popular magazine I lately encountered "those book ethnologists ... can't see what is before their /nose/." Many similar examples might be brought forward.

The adjectives are inflected only for comparison, and the [Pg230] American commonly uses them correctly, with now and then a double comparative or superlative to ease his soul. /More better/ is the commonest of these. It has a good deal of support in logic. A sick man is reported today to be /better/. Tomorrow he is further improved. Is he to be reported /better/ again, or /best/? The standard language gets around the difficulty by using /still better/. The American vulgate boldly employs /more better/. In the case of /worse/, /worser/ is used, as Charters shows. He also reports /baddest/, /more queerer/ and /beautifulest/. /Littler/, which he notes, is still outlawed from standard English, but it has, with /littlest/, a respectable place in American. The late Richard Harding Davis wrote a play called "The /Littlest/ Girl." The American freely compares adjectives that are incapable of the inflection logically. Charters reports /most principal/, and I myself have heard /uniquer/ and even /more uniquer/, as in "I have never saw nothing /more uniquer/." I have also heard /more ultra/, /more worse/, /idealer/, /liver/ (that is, /more alive/), and /wellest/, as in "he was the /wellest/ man you ever seen." In general, the /-er/ and /-est/ terminations are used instead of the /more/ and /most/ prefixes, as in /beautiful/, /beautifuller/, /beautifullest/. The fact that the comparative relates to two and the superlative to more than two is almost always forgotten. I have never heard "the /better/ of the two," but always "the /best/ of the two." Charters also reports "the /hardest/ of the two" and "my brother and I measured and he was the /tallest/." I have frequently heard "it ain't so /worse/," but here a humorous effect seems to have been intended.

Adjectives are made much less rapidly in American than either substantives or verbs. The only suffix that seems to be in general use for that purpose is /-y/, as in /tony/, /classy/, /daffy/, /nutty/, /dinky/, /leery/, etc. The use of the adjectival prefix /super-/ is confined to the more sophisticated classes; the plain people seem to be unaware of it.[71] This relative paucity of adjectives appears to be common to the more primitive varieties of speech. E. J. [Pg231] Hills, in his elaborate study of the vocabulary of a child of two,[72] found that it contained but 23 descriptive adjectives, of which six were the names of colors, as against 59 verbs and 173 common nouns. Moreover, most of the 23 minus six were adjectives of all work, such as /nasty/, /funny/ and /nice/. Colloquial American uses the same rubber-stamps of speech. /Funny/ connotes the whole range of the unusual; /hard/ indicates every shade of difficulty; /nice/ is everything satisfactory; /bully/ is a superlative of almost limitless scope.

The decay of /one/ to a vague /n/-sound, as in /this'n/, is matched by a decay of /than/ after comparatives. /Earlier than/ is seldom if ever heard; composition reduces the two words to /earlier'n/. So with /better'n/, /faster'n/, /hotter'n/, /deader'n/, etc. Once I overheard the following dialogue: "I like a belt /more looser'n/ what this one is." "Well, then, why don't you unloosen it /more'n/ you got it unloosened?"

§ 7

/The Double Negative/--Syntactically, perhaps the chief characteristic of vulgar American is its sturdy fidelity to the double negative. So freely is it used, indeed, that the simple negative appears to be almost abandoned. Such phrases as "I see nobody" or "I know nothing about it" are heard so seldom that they appear to be affectations when encountered; the well-nigh universal forms are "I /don't/ see nobody" and "I /don't/ know nothing about it." Charters lists some very typical examples, among them, "he ain't /never/ coming back /no/ more," "you /don't/ care for nobody but yourself," "couldn't be /no/ more happier" and "I /can't/ see nothing." In Lardner there are innumerable examples: "they was /not/ no team," "I have /not/ never thought of that," "I can't write /no/ more," "no chance to get /no/ money from /nowhere/," "we /can't/ have nothing to do," and so on. Some of his specimens show a considerable complexity, for [Pg232] example, "Matthewson was /not/ only going as far as the coast," meaning, as the context shows, that he was going as far as the coast and no further. /Only/ gets into many other examples, /e. g./, "he hadn't /only/ the one pass" and "I don't work nights no more, /only/ except Sunday nights." This latter I got from a car conductor. Many other curious specimens are in my collectanea, among them: "one swaller don't make /no/ summer," "I /never/ seen nothing I would of rather saw," and "once a child gets burnt once it /won't/ never stick its hand in /no/ fire /no/ more," and so on. The last embodies a triple negative. In "the more faster you go, the sooner you /don't/ get there" there is an elaborate muddling of negatives that is very characteristic.

Like most other examples of "bad grammar" encountered in American the compound negative is of great antiquity and was once quite respectable. The student of Anglo-Saxon encounters it constantly. In that language the negative of the verb was formed by prefixing a particle, /ne/. Thus, /singan/ (=/to sing/) became /ne singan/ (=/not to sing/). In case the verb began with a vowel the /ne/ dropped its /e/ and was combined with the verb, as in /naefre/ (never), from /ne-aefre/ (=/not ever/). In case the verb began with an /h/ or a /w/ followed by a vowel, the /h/ or /w/ of the verb and the /e/ of /ne/ were both dropped, as in /naefth/ (=/has not/), from /ne-haefth/ (=/not has/), and /nolde/ (=/would not/), from /ne-wolde/. Finally, in case the vowel following a /w/ was an /i/, it changed to /y/, as in /nyste/ (=/knew not/), from /ne-wiste/. But inasmuch as Anglo-Saxon was a fully inflected language the inflections for the negative did not stop with the verbs; the indefinite article, the indefinite pronoun and even some of the nouns were also inflected, and survivors of those forms appear to this day in such words as /none/ and /nothing/. Moreover, when an actual inflection was impossible it was the practise to insert this /ne/ before a word, in the sense of our /no/ or /not/. Still more, it came to be the practise to reinforce /ne/, before a vowel, with /nā/ (=/not/) or /naht/ (=/nothing/), which later degenerated to /nat/ and /not/. As a result, there were fearful and wonderful combinations of negatives, some of them fully matching the best efforts of Lardner's baseball player. Sweet [Pg233] gives several curious examples.[73] "Nān ne dorste nān thing āscian," translated literally, becomes "/no/ one dares /not/ ask /nothing/." "Thaet hus nā ne feoll" becomes "the house did /not/ fall /not/." As for the Middle English "he /never/ nadde /nothing/," it has too modern and familiar a ring to need translating at all. Chaucer, at the beginning of the period of transition to Modern English, used the double negative with the utmost freedom. In "The Knight's Tale" is this:

He /nevere/ yet /no/ vileynye /ne/ sayde In al his lyf unto /no/ maner wight.

By the time of Shakespeare this license was already much restricted, but a good many double negatives are nevertheless to be found in his plays, and he was particularly shaky in the use of /nor/. In "Richard III" one finds "I never was /nor never/ will be"; in "Measure for Measure," "harp not on that /nor/ do /not/ banish treason," and in "Romeo and Juliet," "thou expectedst not, /nor/ I looked not for." This misuse of /nor/ is still very frequent. In other directions, too, the older forms show a tendency to survive all the assaults of grammarians. "/No/ it /doesn't/," heard every day and by no means from the ignorant only, is a sort of double negative. The insertion of /but/ before that, as in "I doubt /but/ that" and "there is no question /but/ that," makes a double negative that is probably full-blown. Nevertheless, as we have seen, it is heard on the floor of Congress every day, and the Fowlers show that it is also common in England.[74] Even worse forms get into the /Congressional Record/. Not long ago, for example, I encountered "without /hardly/ an exception" in a public paper of the utmost importance.[75] There are, indeed, situations in which the double negative leaps to the lips or from the pen almost irresistibly; even such careful writers as Huxley, Robert Louis Stevenson and Leslie Stephen have [Pg234] occasionally dallied with it.[76] It is perfectly allowable in the Romance languages, and, as we have seen, is almost the rule in the American vulgate. Now and then some anarchistic student of the language boldly defends and even advocates it. "The double negative," said a writer in the /London Review/ a long time ago,[77] "has been abandoned to the great injury of strength of expression." Surely "I won't take nothing" is stronger than either "I will take nothing" or "I won't take anything."

"Language begins," says Sayce, "with sentences, not with single words." In a speech in process of rapid development, unrestrained by critical analysis, the tendency to sacrifice the integrity of words to the needs of the complete sentence is especially marked. One finds it clearly in American. Already we have examined various assimilation and composition forms: /that'n/, /use' to/, /would'a/, /them 'ere/ and so on. Many others are observable. /Off'n/ is a good example; it comes from /off of/ and shows a preposition decaying to the form of a mere inflectional particle. One constantly hears "I bought it /off'n/ John." /Sort'a/, /kind'a/ and their like follow in the footsteps of /would'a/. /Usen't/ follows the analogy of /don't/ and /wouldn't/. /Would 've/ and /should 've/ are widely used; Lardner commonly hears them as /would of/ and /should of/. The neutral /a/-particle also appears in other situations, especially before /way/, as in /that'a way/ and /this'a way/. It is found again in /a tall/, a liaison form of /at all/.[78]

§ 8

/Pronunciation/--Before anything approaching a thorough and profitable study of the sounds of the American common speech is possible, there must be a careful assembling of the materials, and this, unfortunately, still awaits a philologist of sufficient enterprise and equipment. Dr. William A. Read, of the State University of Louisiana, has made some excellent examinations [Pg235] of vowel and consonant sounds in the South, Dr. Louise Pound has done capital work of the same sort in the Middle West,[79] and there have been other regional studies of merit. But most of these become misleading by reason of their lack of scope; forms practically universal in the nation are discussed as dialectical variations. This is the central defect in the work of the American Dialect Society, otherwise very industrious and meritorious. It is essaying to study localisms before having first platted the characteristics of the general speech. The dictionaries of Americanisms deal with pronunciation only casually, and often very inaccurately; the remaining literature is meagre and unsatisfactory.[80] Until the matter is gone into at length it will be impossible to discuss any phase of it with exactness. No single investigator can examine the speech of the whole country; for that business a pooling of forces is necessary. But meanwhile it may be of interest to set forth a few provisional ideas.

At the start two streams of influence upon American pronunciation may be noted, the one an inheritance from the English of the colonists and the other arising spontaneously within the country, and apparently much colored by immigration. The first influence, it goes without saying, is gradually dying out. Consider, for example, the pronunciation of the diphthong /oi/. In Middle English it was as in /boy/, but during the early Modern English period it was assimilated with that of the /i/ in /wine/, and this usage prevailed at the time of the settlement of America. The colonists thus brought it with them, and at the same time it lodged in Ireland, where it still prevails. But in England, during the pedantic eighteenth century, this /i/-sound was displaced by the original /oi/-sound, not by historical research but by mere deduction from the spelling, and the new pronunciation soon extended to the polite speech of America. In the common speech, however, the /i/-sound persisted, and down to the time of [Pg236] the Civil War it was constantly heard in such words as /boil/, /hoist/, /oil/, /join/, /poison/ and /roil/, which thus became /bile/, /hist/, /ile/, /jine/, /pisen/ and /rile/. Since then the school-marm has combatted it with such vigor that it has begun to disappear, and such forms as /pisen/, /jine/, /bile/ and /ile/ are now very seldom heard, save as dialectic variations. But in certain other words, perhaps supported by Irish influence, the /i/-sound still persists. Chief among them are /hoist/ and /roil/. An unlearned American, wishing to say that he was enraged, never says that he was /roiled/, but always that he was /riled/. Desiring to examine the hoof of his horse, he never orders the animal to /hoist/ but always to /hist/. In the form of /booze-hister/, the latter is almost in good usage. I have seen /booze-hister/ thus spelled and obviously to be thus pronounced, in an editorial article in the /American Issue/, organ of the Anti-Saloon League of America.[81]

Various similar misplaced vowels were brought from England by the colonists and have persisted in America, while dying out of good England usage. There is, for example, short /i/ in place of long /e/, as in /critter/ for /creature/. /Critter/ is common to almost all the dialects of English, but American has embedded the vowel in a word that is met with nowhere else and has thus become characteristic, to wit, /crick/ for /creek/. Nor does any other dialect make such extensive use of /slick/ for /sleek/. Again, there is the substitution of the flat /a/ for the broad /a/ in /sauce/. England has gone back to the broad /a/, but in America the flat /a/ persists, and many Americans who use /sassy/ every day would scarcely recognize /saucy/ if they heard it. Yet again, there is /quoit/. Originally, the English pronounced it /quate/, but now they pronounce the diphthong as in /doily/. In the United States the /quate/ pronunciation remains. Finally, there is /deaf/. Its proper pronunciation, in the England that the colonists left, was /deef/, but it now rhymes with /Jeff/. That new pronunciation has been adopted by polite American, despite the protests of Noah Webster, but in the common speech the word is still always /deef/.

However, a good many of the vowels of the early days have [Pg237] succumbed to pedagogy. The American proletarian may still use /skeer/ for /scare/, but in most of the other words of that class he now uses the vowel approved by correct English usage. Thus he seldom permits himself such old forms as /dreen/ for /drain/, /keer/ for /care/, /skeerce/ for /scarce/ or even /cheer/ for /chair/. The Irish influence supported them for a while, but now they are fast going out. So, too, are /kivver/ for /cover/, /crap/ for /crop/, and /chist/ for /chest/. But /kittle/ for /kettle/ still shows a certain vitality, /rench/ is still used in place of /rinse/, and /squinch/ in place of /squint/, and a flat /a/ continues to displace various /e/-sounds in such words as /rare/ for /rear/ (/e. g./, as a horse) and /wrassle/ for /wrestle/. Contrariwise, /e/ displaces /a/ in /catch/ and /radish/, which are commonly pronounced /ketch/ and /reddish/. This /e/-sound was once accepted in standard English; when it got into spoken American it was perfectly sound; one still hears it from the most pedantic lips in /any/.[82] There are also certain other ancients that show equally unbroken vitality among us, for example, /stomp/ for /stamp/,[83] /snoot/ for /snout/, /guardeen/ for /guardian/, and /champeen/ for /champion/.

But all these vowels, whether approved or disapproved, have been under the pressure, for the past century, of a movement toward a general vowel neutralization, and in the long run it promises to dispose of many of them. The same movement also affects standard English, as appears by Robert Bridges' "Tract on the Present State of English Pronunciation," but I believe that it is stronger in America, and will go farther, at least with the common speech, if only because of our unparalleled immigration. Standard English has 19 separate vowel sounds. No other living tongue of Europe, save Portuguese, has so many; most of the others have a good many less; Modern Greek has but five. The immigrant, facing all these vowels, finds some of them quite impossible; the Russian Jew, as we have seen, cannot manage /ur/. As a result, he tends to employ a neutralized [Pg238] vowel in all the situations which present difficulties, and this neutralized vowel, supported by the slip-shod speech-habits of the native proletariat, makes steady progress. It appears in many of the forms that we have been examining--in the final /a/ of /would'a/, vaguely before the /n/ in /this'n/ and /off'n/, in place of the original /d/ in /use' to/, and in the common pronunciation of such words as /been/, /come/ and /have/, particularly when they are sacrificed to sentence exigencies, as in "I /b'n/ thinking," "/c'm 'ere/," and "he would /'ve/ saw you."

Here we are upon a wearing down process that shows many other symptoms. One finds, not only vowels disorganized, but also consonants. Some are displaced by other consonants, measurably more facile; others are dropped altogether. /D/ becomes /t/, as in /holt/, or is dropped, as in /tole/, /han'kerchief/, /bran-new/ and /fine/ (for /find/). In /ast/ (for /ask/) /t/ replaces /k/: when the same word is used in place of /asked/, as often happens, /e. g./, in "I /ast/ him his name," it shoulders out /ked/. It is itself lopped off in /bankrup/, /quan'ity/, /crep/, /slep/, /wep/, /kep/, /gris'-mill/ and /les/ (=/let's/ = /let us/), and is replaced by /d/ in /kindergarden/ and /pardner/. /L/ disappears, as in /a'ready/ and /gent'man/. /S/ becomes /tsh/, as in /pincers/. The same /tsh/ replaces /c/, as in /pitcher/ for /picture/, and /t/, as in /amachoor/. /G/ disappears from the ends of words, and sometimes, too, in the middle, as in /stren'th/ and /reco'nize/. /R/, though it is better preserved in American than in English, is also under pressure, as appears by /bust/, /stuck on/ (for /struck on/), /cuss/ (for /curse/), /yestiddy/, /sa's'parella/, /pa'tridge/, /ca'tridge/, /they is/ (for /there is/) and /Sadd'y/ (for /Saturday/). An excrescent /t/ survives in a number of words, /e. g./, /onc't/, /twic't/, /clos't/, /wisht/ (for /wish/) and /chanc't/; it is an heirloom from the English of two centuries ago. So is the final /h/ in /heighth/. An excrescent /b/, as in /chimbley/ and /fambly/, seems to be native. Whole syllables are dropped out of words, paralleling the English butchery of /extraordinary/; for example, in /bound'ry/, /hist'ry/, /lib'ry/ and /prob'ly/. /Ordinary/, like /extraordinary/, is commonly enunciated clearly, but it has bred a degenerated form, /onry/ or /onery/, differentiated in meaning. Consonants are misplaced by metathesis, as in /prespiration/, /hunderd/, [Pg239] /brethern/, /childern/, /interduce/, /apern/, /calvary/, /govrenment/, /modren/ and /wosterd/ (for /worsted/). /Ow/ is changed to /er/, as in /feller/, /swaller/, /yeller/, /beller/, /umbreller/ and /holler/; /ice/ is changed to /ers/ in /jaunders/. Words are given new syllables, as in /ellum/, /mischievious/ and /municipial/.

In the complete sentence, assimilation makes this disorganization much more obvious. Mearns, in a brief article[84] gives many examples of the extent to which it is carried. He hears "wah zee say?" for "what does he say?" "ware zee?" for "where is he?" "ast 'er in" for "ask her in," "itt'm owd" for "hit them out," "sry" for "that is right," and "c'meer" for "come here." He believes that /t/ is gradually succumbing to /d/, and cites "ass bedder" (for "that's better"), "wen juh ged din?" (for "when did you get in?"), and "siddup" (for "sit up"). One hears countless other such decayed forms on the street every day. /Have to/ is almost invariably made /hafta/, with the neutral vowel where I have put the second /a/. /Let's/, already noticed, is /le' 's/. The neutral vowel replaces the /oo/ of /good/ in /g'by/. "What did you say" reduces itself to "wuz ay?" /Maybe/ is /mebby/, /perhaps/ is /p'raps/, /so long/ is /s'long/, /excuse me/ is /skus me/; the common salutation, "How are you?" is so dismembered that it finally emerges as a word almost indistinguishable from /high/. Here there is room for inquiry, and that inquiry deserves the best effort of American phonologists, for the language is undergoing rapid changes under their very eyes, or, perhaps more accurately, under their very ears, and a study of those changes should yield a great deal of interesting matter. How did the word /stint/, on American lips, first convert itself into /stent/ and then into /stunt/? By what process was /baulk/ changed into /buck/? Both /stunt/ and /buck/ are among the commonest words in the everyday American vocabulary, and yet no one, so far, has investigated them scientifically.

A by-way that is yet to be so much as entered is that of naturalized loan-words in the common speech. A very characteristic word of that sort is /sashay/. Its relationship to the French /chassé/ seems to be plain, and yet it has acquired meanings in [Pg240] American that differ very widely from the meaning of /chassé/. How widely it is dispersed may be seen by the fact that it is reported in popular use, as a verb signifying to prance or to walk consciously, in Southeastern Missouri, Nebraska, Northwestern Arkansas, Eastern Alabama and Western Indiana, and, with slightly different meaning, on Cape Cod. The travels of /café/ in America would repay investigation; particularly its variations in pronunciation. I believe that it is fast becoming /kaif/. /Plaza/, /boulevard/, /vaudeville/, /menu/ and /rathskeller/ have entered into the common speech of the land, and are pronounced as American words. Such words, when they come in verbally, by actual contact with immigrants, commonly retain some measure of their correct native pronunciation. /Spiel/, /kosher/, /ganof/ and /matzoh/ are examples; their vowels remain un-American. But words that come in visually, say through street-signs and the newspapers, are immediately overhauled and have thoroughly Americanized vowels and consonants thereafter. School-teachers have been trying to establish various pseudo-French pronunciations of /vase/ for fifty years past, but it still rhymes with /face/ in the vulgate. /Vaudeville/ is /vawd-vill/; /boulevard/ has a hard /d/ at the end; /plaza/ has two flat /a/'s; the first syllable of /menu/ rhymes with /bee/; the first of /rathskeller/ with /cats/; /fiancée/ is /fy-ancé-y/; /née/ rhymes with /see/; /décolleté/ is /de-coll-ty/; /hofbräu/ is /huffbrow/; the German /w/ has lost its /v/-sound and becomes an American /w/. I have, in my day, heard /proteege/ for /protégé/, /habichoo/ for /habitué/, /connisoor/ for /connisseur/, /shirtso/ for /scherzo/, /premeer/ for /première/, /eetood/ for /étude/ and /prelood/ for /prelude/. /Divorcée/ is /divorcey/, and has all the rakishness of the adjectives in /-y/. The first syllable of /mayonnaise/ rhymes with /hay/. /Crème de menthe/ is /cream de mint/. /Schweizer/ is /swite-ser/. /Rochefort/ is /roke-fort/. I have heard /début/ with the last syllable rhyming with /nut/. I have heard /minoot/ for /minuet/. I have heard /tchef doover/ for /chef d'œuvre/. And who doesn't remember

As I walked along the /Boys Boo-long/ With an independent air

and [Pg241]

Say /aw re-vore/, But not good-by!

Charles James Fox, it is said, called the red wine of France /Bordox/ to the end of his days. He had an American heart; his great speeches for the revolting colonies were more than mere oratory.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sweet, perhaps the abbot of the order, makes almost indecent haste to sin. See the second paragraph on the very first page of vol. i of his New English Grammar.

[2] /Yale Review/, April, 1918, p. 548.

[3] /Yale Review/, /op. cit./, p. 560.

[4] The Difficulties Created by Grammarians Are to be Ignored, by W. H. Wilcox, /Atlantic Educational Journal/, Nov., 1912, p. 8. The title of this article is quoted from ministerial instructions of 1909 to the teachers of French /lyceés/.

[5] /Op cit./ p. 7. Mr. Wilcox is an instructor in the Maryland State Normal School.

[6] See especially chapters ix and x of Words and Their Uses and chapters xvii, xviii and xix of Every-Day English; also the preface to the latter, p. xi /et seq./ The study of other languages has been made difficult by the same attempt to force the characters of Greek and Latin grammar upon them. One finds a protest against the process, for example, in E. H. Palmer's Grammar of Hindustani, Persian and Arabic; London, 1906. In all ages, indeed, grammarians appear to have been fatuous. The learned will remember Aristophanes' ridicule of them in The Clouds, 660-690.

[7] The case is well summarized in Simpler English Grammar, by Patterson Wardlaw, /Bull. of the University of S. Carolina/, No. 38, pt. iii, July, 1914.

[8] Cincinnati, 1868; rev. ed., 1878.

[9] New York, 1903; rev. ed., 1915.

[10] Even Sweet, though he bases his New English Grammar upon the spoken language and thus sets the purists at defiance, quickly succumbs to the labelling mania. Thus his classification of tenses includes such fabulous monsters as these: continuous, recurrent, neutral, definite, indefinite, secondary, incomplete, inchoate, short and long.

[11] By W. F. Webster and Alice Woodworth Cooley; Boston, 1903; rev. eds., 1905 and 1909. The authors are Minneapolis teachers.

[12] /Op. cit./ p. 8.

[13] Bulletin No. 2; Washington, 1917.

[14] The Middle American, /American Magazine/, March, 1907.

[15] /Cf./ White: Every-Day English, p. 367 /et seq./

[16] /Cf./ Sweet: New English Grammar, vol. i, p. 5.

[17] Dr. Charters' report appears as Vol. XVI, No. 2, /University of Missouri Bulletin/, Education Series No. 9, Jan., 1915. He was aided in his inquiry by Edith Miller, teacher of English in one of the St. Louis high-schools.

[18] You Know Me Al: New York, 1916.

[19] /Saturday Evening Post/, July 11, 1914.

[20] /Bin/ is the correct American pronunciation. /Bean/, as we have seen, is the English. But I have often found /ben/, rhyming with /pen/, in such phrases as "I /ben/ there."

[21] See p. 209.

[22] Seldom used. /Get/ is used in the place of it, as in "I am /getting/ old" and "he /got/ sick."

[23] /Burned/, with a distinct /d/-sound, is almost unknown in American. See p. 201.

[24] Not used.

[25] /Cotched/ is heard only in the South, and mainly among the negroes. /Catch/, of course, is always pronounced /ketch/.

[26] But "I /drew/ three jacks," in poker.

[27] /Fotch/ is also heard, but it is not general.

[28] /Fit/ and /fitten/, unless my observation errs, are heard only in dialect. /Fit/ is archaic English. /Cf./ Thornton, vol. i, p. 322.

[29] /Glode/ once enjoyed a certain respectability in America. It occurs in the /Knickerbocker Magazine/ for April, 1856.

[30] /Hanged/ is never heard.

[31] /Het/ is incomplete without the addition of /up/. "He was /het up/" is always heard, not "he was /het/."

[32] Always so pronounced. See p. 236.

[33] See pp. 57 and 202.

[34] Always used in place of /rinse/.

[35] Always used in place of /roil/.

[36] /Sot/ is heard as a localism only.

[37] See /set/, which is used almost invariably in place of /sit/.

[38] /Thunk/ is never used seriously; it always shows humorous intent.

[39] See pp. 201 and 211.

[40] /Cf./ Lounsbury: History of the English Language, pp. 309-10.

[41] English As We Speak It In Ireland, p. 77.

[42] The Science of Language, vol. i, p. 166.

[43] The last stand of the distinct /-ed/ was made in Addison's day. He was in favor of retaining it, and in the /Spectator/ for Aug. 4, 1711, he protested against obliterating the syllable in the termination "of our praeter perfect tense, as in these words, /drown'd/, /walk'd/, /arriv'd/, for /drowned/, /walked/, /arrived/, which has very much disfigured the tongue, and turned a tenth part of our smoothest words into so many clusters of consonants."

[44] A New English Grammar, pt. i, p. 380.

[45] History of the English Language, p. 398.

[46] And still more often as an adjective, as in "it was a /boughten/ dress."

[47] You Know Me Al, p. 180; see also p. 122.

[48] /Cf./ Lounsbury: History of the English Language, pp. 393 /et seq./

[49] Remark of a policeman talking to another. What he actually said was "before the Elks was /c'm 'ere/." /Come/ and /here/ were one word, approximately /cmear/. The context showed that he meant to use the past perfect tense.

[50] These examples are from Lardner's story, A New Busher Breaks In, in You Know Me Al, pp. 122 /et seq./

[51] You Know Me Al, /op. cit./, p. 124.

[52] The Making of English, p. 53.

[53] /Cf./ /Dialect Notes/, vol. iii, pt. i, p. 59; /ibid./, vol. III, pt. iv, p. 283.

[54] Henry Bradley, in The Making of English, pp. 54-5: "In the parts of England which were largely inhabited by Danes the native pronouns (/i. e./, /heo/, /his/, /heom/ and /heora/) were supplanted by the Scandinavian pronouns which are represented by the modern /she/, /they/, /them/ and /their/." This substitution, at first dialectical, gradually spread to the whole language.

[55] /Cf./ Sweet: A New English Grammar, pt. i, p. 344, par. 1096.

[56] Before a noun beginning with a vowel /thine/ and /mine/ are commonly substituted for /thy/ and /my/, as in "/thine/ eyes" and "/mine/ infirmity." But this is solely for the sake of euphony. There is no compensatory use of /my/ and /thy/ in the absolute.

[57] The Making of English, p. 58.

[58] /Cf./ The Dialect of Southeastern Missouri, by D. S. Crumb, /Dialect Notes/, vol. ii, pt. iv, 1903, p. 337.

[59] It occurs, too, of course, in other dialects of English, though by no means in all. The Irish influence probably had something to do with its prosperity in vulgar American. At all events, the Irish use it in the American manner. Joyce, in English As We Speak It in Ireland, pp. 34-5, argues that this usage was suggested by Gaelic. In Gaelic the accusative pronouns, /e/, /i/ and /iad/ (=/him/, /her/ and /them/) are often used in place of the nominatives, /sé/, /si/ and /siad/ (=/he/, /she/ and /they/), as in "is /iad/ sin na buachaillidhe" (=/them/ are the boys). This is "good grammar" in Gaelic, and the Irish, when they began to learn English, translated the locution literally. The familiar Irish "John is dead and /him/ always so hearty" shows the same influence.

[60] Pp. 144-50.

[61] Modern English, p. 300.

[62] A New English Grammar, pt. i, p. 339.

[63] History of the English Language, pp. 274-5.

[64] Modern English, p. 288-9.

[65] /Cf./ p. 145n.

[66] A New English Grammar, pt. i, p. 341.

[67] It may be worth noting here that the misuse of /me/ for /my/, as in "I lit /me/ pipe" is quite unknown in American, either standard or vulgar. Even "/me/ own" is seldom heard. This boggling of the cases is very common in spoken English.

[68] A New English Grammar, pt. i, p. 341.

[69] The King's English, p. 63.

[70] "Hon." Edward E. Browne, of Wisconsin, in the House of Representatives, July 18, 1918, p. 9965.

[71] /Cf./ Vogue Affixes in Present-Day Word-Coinage, by Louise Pound, /Dialect Notes/, vol. v, pt. i, 1918.

[72] The Speech of a Child Two Years of Age, /Dialect Notes/, vol. iv, pt. ii, 1914.

[73] A New English Grammar, pt. i, pp. 437-8.

[74] The King's English, p. 322. See especially the quotation from Frederick Greenwood, the distinguished English journalist.

[75] Report of Edward J. Brundage, attorney-general of Illinois, on the East St. Louis massacre, /Congressional Record/, Jan. 7, 1918, p. 661.

[76] The King's English, /op. cit./

[77] Oct. 1, 1864.

[78] /At all/, by the way, is often displaced by /any/ or /none/, as in "he don't lover her /any/" and "it didn't hurt me /none/."

[79] See the bibliography for the publication of Drs. Read and Pound.

[80] The only book that I can find definitely devoted to American sounds is A Handbook of American Speech, by Calvin L. Lewis; Chicago, 1916. It has many demerits. For example, the author gives a /z/-sound to the /s/ in /venison/ (p. 52). This is surely not American.

[81] Maryland edition, July 18, 1914, p. 1.

[82] /Cf./ Lounsbury: The Standard of Pronunciation in English, p. 172 /et seq./

[83] /Stomp/ is used only in the sense of to stamp with the foot. One always /stamps/ a letter. An analogue of /stomp/, accepted in correct English, is /strop/ (/e. g./, /razor-strop/), from /strap/.

[84] Our Own, Our Native Speech, /McClure's Magazine/, Oct., 1916.

[Pg242]

VII

Differences in Spelling

§ 1

/Typical Forms/--Some of the salient differences between American and English spelling are shown in the following list of common words:

/American/ /English/

Anemia anaemia aneurism aneurysm annex (noun) annexe arbor arbour armor armour asphalt asphalte ataxia ataxy ax axe balk (verb) baulk baritone barytone bark (ship) barque behavior behaviour behoove behove buncombe bunkum burden (ship's) burthen cachexia cachexy caliber calibre candor candour center centre check (bank) cheque checkered chequered cider cyder clamor clamour clangor clangour cloture closure[1] color colour connection connexion councilor councillor counselor counsellor cozy cosy curb kerb cyclopedia cyclopaedia defense defence demeanor demeanour diarrhea diarrhoea draft (ship's) draught dreadnaught dreadnought dryly drily ecology oecology ecumenical oecumenical edema oedema encyclopedia encyclopaedia endeavor endeavour eon aeon epaulet epaulette esophagus oesophagus fagot faggot favor favour favorite favourite fervor fervour flavor flavour font (printer's) fount foregather forgather forego forgo form (printer's) forme fuse fuze gantlet (to run the--) gauntlet glamor glamour good-by good-bye gram gramme gray grey harbor harbour honor honour hostler ostler humor humour inclose enclose indorse endorse inflection inflexion inquiry enquiry jail gaol jewelry jewellery jimmy (burglar's) jemmy labor labour laborer labourer liter litre maneuver manoeuvre medieval mediaeval meter metre misdemeanor misdemeanour mold mould mollusk mollusc molt moult mustache moustache neighbor neighbour neighborhood neighbourhood net (adj.) nett odor odour offense offence pajamas pyjamas parlor parlour peas (plu. of pea) pease picket (military) piquet plow plough pretense pretence program programme pudgy podgy pygmy pigmy rancor rancour rigor rigour rumor rumour savory savoury scimitar scimetar septicemia septicaemia show (verb) shew siphon syphon siren syren skeptic sceptic slug (verb) slog slush slosh splendor splendour stanch staunch story (of a house) storey succor succour taffy toffy tire (noun) tyre toilet toilette traveler traveller tumor tumour valor valour vapor vapour veranda verandah vial phial vigor vigour vise (a tool) vice wagon waggon woolen woollen

§ 2

/General Tendencies/--This list is by no means exhaustive. According to a recent writer upon the subject, "there are 812 words in which the prevailing American spelling differs from the English."[2] But enough examples are given to reveal a number of definite tendencies. American, in general, moves toward simplified forms of spelling more rapidly than English, and has got much further along the road. Redundant and unnecessary letters have been dropped from whole groups of words--the /u/ from the group of nouns in /-our/, with the sole exception of /Saviour/, and from such words as /mould/ and /baulk/; the /e/ from /annexe/, /asphalte/, /axe/, /forme/, /pease/, /storey/, etc.; the duplicate consonant from /waggon/, /nett/, /faggot/, /woollen/, /jeweller/, /councillor/, etc., and the silent foreign suffixes from /toilette/, /epaulette/, /programme/, /verandah/, etc. In addition, simple vowels have been substituted for degenerated diphthongs in such words as /anaemia/, [Pg246] /oesophagus/, /diarrhoea/ and /mediaeval/, most of them from the Greek.

Further attempts in the same direction are to be seen in the substitution of simple consonants for compound consonants, as in /plow/, /bark/, /check/, /vial/ and /draft/; in the substitution of /i/ for /y/ to bring words into harmony with analogues, as in /tire/, /cider/ and /baritone/ (/cf./ /wire/, /rider/, /merriment/), and in the general tendency to get rid of the somewhat uneuphonious /y/, as in /ataxia/ and /pajamas/. Clarity and simplicity are also served by substituting /ct/ for /x/ in such words as /connection/ and /inflection/, and /s/ for /c/ in words of the /defense/ group. The superiority of /jail/ to /gaol/ is made manifest by the common mispronunciation of the latter, making it rhyme with /coal/. The substitution of /i/ for /e/ in such words as /indorse/, /inclose/ and /jimmy/ is of less patent utility, but even here there is probably a slight gain in euphony. Of more obscure origin is what seems to be a tendency to avoid the /o/-sound, so that the English /slog/ becomes /slug/, /podgy/ becomes /pudgy/, /nought/ becomes /naught/, /slosh/ becomes /slush/, /toffy/ becomes /taffy/, and so on. Other changes carry their own justification. /Hostler/ is obviously better American than /ostler/, though it may be worse English. /Show/ is more logical than /shew/.[3] /Cozy/ is more nearly phonetic than /cosy/. /Curb/ has analogues in /curtain/, /curdle/, /curfew/, /curl/, /currant/, /curry/, /curve/, /curtsey/, /curse/, /currency/, /cursory/, /curtail/, /cur/, /curt/ and many other common words: /kerb/ has very few, and of them only /kerchief/ and /kernel/ are in general use. Moreover, the English themselves use /curb/ as a verb and in all noun senses save that shown in /kerbstone/.

But a number of anomalies remain. The American substitution of /a/ for /e/ in /gray/ is not easily explained, nor is the substitution of /k/ for /c/ in /skeptic/ and /mollusk/, nor the retention of /e/ in /forego/, nor the unphonetic substitution of /s/ for /z/ in /fuse/, [Pg247] nor the persistence of the first /y/ in /pygmy/. Here we have plain vagaries, surviving in spite of attack by orthographers. Webster, in one of his earlier books, denounced the /k/ in /skeptic/ as "a mere pedantry," but later on he adopted it. In the same way /pygmy/, /gray/ and /mollusk/ have been attacked, but they still remain sound American. The English themselves have many more such illogical forms to account for. In the midst of the /our/-words they cling to a small number in /or/, among them, /stupor/. Moreover, they drop the /u/ in many derivatives, for example, in /arboreal/, /armory/, /clamorously/, /clangorous/, /odoriferous/, /humorist/, /laborious/ and /rigorism/. If it were dropped in all derivatives the rule would be easy to remember, but it is retained in some of them, for example, /colourable/, /favourite/, /misdemeanour/, /coloured/ and /labourer/. The derivatives of /honour/ exhibit the confusion clearly. /Honorary/, /honorarium/ and /honorific/ drop the /u/, but /honourable/ retains it. Furthermore, the English make a distinction between two senses of /rigor/. When used in its pathological sense (not only in the Latin form of /rigor mortis/, but as an English word) it drops the /u/; in all other senses it retains the /u/. The one American anomaly in this field is /Saviour/. In its theological sense it retains the /u/; but in that sense only. A sailor who saves his ship is its /savior/, not its /saviour/.

§ 3