2 New York, 1945, p. 147.
3 This is itself the product of such an assimilation. The NED says that it was formed “by adding se, si (probably the Gothic sai, see, behold) to the simple demonstrative represented by the and that.” It was, at the start, inflected for case and gender as well as for number, but “in Middle English these forms were gradually eliminated or reduced, until by 1200 in some dialects, and by the Fifteenth Century in all, this alone remained in the singular.”
4 p. 277.
1 See AL4, p. 452.
4. THE NOUN
461. [The only inflections of the noun remaining in English are those for number and for the genitive, so it is in these two regions that the few variations to be noted in vulgar American occur.] False singulars, made by back formation, are numerous, e.g., Chinee, Portugee, Japanee, trapee, specie, tactic and measle, nor are they confined to the untutored.2 I have encountered statistic in a solemn pronunciamento by a Catholic dignitary,3 in an uplifting editorial in a literary weekly,4 in a paper in a leading scientific journal,5 in a report of a committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors,6 and in the annual report of the Librarian of Congress.7 The NED, which marks it “rare,” presents only a few examples, the first of which, dated 1796, comes from an American book. Several correspondents report that they have heard len (from lens) and even encountered it in print.8 Pant (from pants) was reported in the Middle West in American Speech in 1926,1 and has since been found in Tennessee and South Carolina.2 I have myself had the felicity to discover homo sapien in the Baltimore Sun.3 When the English innings became inning in the United States is uncertain. The DAE shows that innings was used by Henry Chadwick in his pioneer treatise on baseball in 1868,4 but that Outing was using the singular form in 1886. The NED says that in Great Britain the term is “always in the plural form innings, whether in singular or plural sense.” It is traced as a cricket term to 1746. Partridge says that to have a good innings, meaning to be lucky, especially in money matters, has been in use in England since c. 1860, and in the sense of to live a long time since c. 1870, and that to have a long innings, in the latter sense, has been used since c. 1860.5 A number of botanical terms ending in -s, e.g., coleus and gladiolus, are commonly assumed to be plurals in both England and the United States, and in consequence false singular forms are in use. The NED traces gladiole to c. 1420. Noah Webster noted in 17896 that the Americans of that time mistook chaise (borrowed from the French about 1700) for a plural, and so developed a singular form, shay, which the DAE traces to 1717. It did not appear in England until later.
Rather curiously, many obviously plural forms are used in the singular without change, e.g., stockyards, grounds and (golf) links. On the level of the common speech Dr. Louise Pound adds ways, as in “He walked a ways with her” and “The house is some ways off,” and suds, as in a thick suds.7 She adds that she has also heard corp, from corpse, and appendic, from appendix. She says:
At first glance the plural-singulars first cited associate themselves vaguely with the adverbial -s, genitive in origin, which appears in always, lengthways, crossways, sideways, etc., as though -s were transferred from these adverbs to the singulars of the nouns. But though this association might help in the case of a ways, the commonest of the expressions – possible for this very reason – and often adverbial in function, it could hardly assist to account for a thick woods or for a picnic grounds, etc. Perhaps the speakers start with the singular in mind, as the presence of the indefinite article shows, then shift to the plural because the nouns involved are employed so frequently in the plural; note roadways, crossways, pleasure grounds, playgrounds, woods (as opposed to wood, the cut timber), links, works, stockyards, and the like. But, more probably, the plural forms are preceded by the indefinite article because treated as collective, as though to give the general impression of a singular, e.g., a way(s) made up of ways of different kinds or lengths, a wood(s) made up of separate trees or group of trees, a ground(s) made up of lawns, parks, and the like. In other words, the singular collective idea predominates over the grammatical form. Yet this tendency holds for certain expressions only. There is no such psychological confusion in the case of seemingly parallel words: for example, a groves, a lawns, a parks do not occur; this because the plurals of these words do not so promptly suggest, logically or through association, the idea of a singular.
I have never encountered any singulars, valid or false, for scissors, spectacles, clothes, athletics, series or obsequies, but hoe from hose is reported from the Ozarks1 and calv from calves and hoov from hooves from Nebraska.2 Aborigine from aborigines, though it is described by the NED as “etymologically as indefensible as serie or indice,” is traced in American use to 1858, though M. M. Mathews expresses doubt that it is an Americanism.3 There is an interesting section on such forms in A. Smythe Palmer’s “Folk-Etymology,”4 a curious and useful work that has fallen into undeserved neglect. He points out, for example, that Bible, from the Latin biblia, is really a plural form, and it follows that such forms as the Book, the Good Book and the Book of Books, so often used by theologians, are incorrect. Palmer also reminds genealogists that the surname Janeway is from Genoese and used to be Januweys or Januayes, and that its present singular form is as questionable as Chinee or Portugee. Every high-school boy should be aware that pea is a false singular from pease, but Palmer is on less familiar ground when he points out that the original form of potato, from the Haitian batatas, was potatus, potados or potatoes in both numbers, and that sherry is a false singular from sherris or seres (i.e., Xeres or Jerez, a town in Spain).
The use of license, cheese, molasses and Baptist as plurals is noted in AL4, p. 462. In the case of cheese, a false singular, chee, has developed, especially in the Southern mountains.1 This confusion between singular and plural extends to many words ending in -s, -ist, -ish, -ex, and even -age. John Gerard, writing in the latter part of the Sixteenth Century,2 said “radish are eaten raw,” and Cotton Mather, in his Diary for 1711, wrote “a number of people of both sex.” The surname of Tom Collins, inventor of the drink of the same name, was converted into a plural in a rum advertisement in a liquor trade paper in 1944.3 Baptist, pronounced baptizz, is not only in almost universal use as a plural among the folk of the Are-You-Saved? country; it also makes frequent appearances in print.4 In the same region cabbage is also a plural, as Wentworth shows by examples from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and Arkansas. So is sausage. So, again, is tourist.5 The late Will Rogers, a master of the common speech, even made one of business.6 I find enemy as a plural in an official Army paper7 and also in the London Times:8 perhaps the Army borrowed it from the English.
Wentworth lists many double plurals in the common speech, especially in the South, e.g., oxens, womens, dices, currantses, lices, folkses, sheeps, childrens, tomatoeses, nestes, postes, geeses, hogses, jeanses and (in)gredientses. He also turns up two triple plurals, feetses and menses (mens). Wright shows in his “English Dialect Grammar” that such forms are very common in the English dialects, and that some of them preserve the old -en plural ending, e.g., geesen and micen.
2 Tactic may really be called accepted. The NED has examples from Edmund Burke, Edward A. Freeman and Mark Pattison. Mr. Arthur D. Jacobs, of Manchester, tells me that it was used habitually by Sir Stafford Cripps in his Popular Front campaign of 1939. It has been used in this country by a writer as generally careful as Oswald Garrison Villard (Strategy of Good Manners, Negro Digest, Jan., 1946, p. 21) and appears frequently in the Congressional Record, e.g., July 19, 1945, p. 7849, col. 2, and July 26, 1946, p. A4705, col. 2.
3 Catholics and Birth Control, by Monsignor John A. Ryan, American Mercury, April, 1944, p. 505.
4 The Library’s Customers, by J. T. W (interich?), Saturday Review of Literature, Dec. 22, 1945, p. 16.
5 Heredity of the Agglutinogens M and N of Landsteiner and Levine, by Alexander S. Wiener, Human Biology, May, 1935, p. 231.
6 Editor and Publisher, Dec. 14, 1946, p. 78,
col. 3.
7 For the year ended June 30, 1945, p. 37.
8 For example, Miss Jane D. Shenton, of Temple University, and Mr. Barrington S. Havens, of Schenectady, N. Y.
1 May, p. 460: “There is a Kalamazoo Pant Company at Kalamazoo, manufacturers of Kazoo trousers.”
2 I am indebted here to Mr. Hayden Siler, of Jellico, Tenn., and Lieut. Col. F. G. Potts, of Mt. Pleasant, S. C.
3 Advertisement of the McKay Foundation, Dec. 27, 1945, p. 9: “Some say it’s fifty or a hundred million years since the first homo sapien roamed the plains and hunted in the hills.”
4 The Game of Baseball: How to Learn It, How to Play It, and How to Teach It; New York, p. 41.
5 Paratroop, by back formation from paratroops, has been reported from England (American Speech, Dec., 1944, p. 311), but so far as I know it has not come into use in the United States.
6 Dissertations on the English Language, p. 118.
7 Some Plural-Singular Forms, Dialect Notes, Vol. IV, Part I, 1913, pp. 48–50.
1 More Words From the Ozarks, by Vance Randolph, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Part X, 1927, p. 475.
2 Folk-Etymological Singulars, by Wilbur Gaffney, American Speech, Dec., 1927, p. 130.
3 The New Element in American English, American Speech, April, 1945, p. 106.
4 London, 1882, pp. 592–664.
1 Tennessee Mountains, by H. A. Edson and others, Dialect Notes, Vol. I, Part VIII, 1895, p. 376.
2 The Herball, or General Historie of Plants; London, 1597. Quoted in Encore, Oct., 1943, p. 492.
3 Beverage Retailer Weekly, Aug. 28, 1944, p. 9: “Thousands of Marimba Collins are being served and enjoyed every single day.”
4 Livermore (Ky.) Times, July 30, 1937, p. 1: “Baptist Hold Association.” I am indebted here to Mr. Roger C. Hackett.
5 American Speech, Jan., 1927, p. 217.
6 Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President; New York, 1926. Quoted in Encore, April, 1944, p. 395. I hope I need not add that Rogers was anything but illiterate himself. I saw him often in the 1925 era and we had many an hilarious palaver over the American vulgate.
7 Special Service Digest, Oct. 30, 1944, p. 1.
8 Gallantry on Northwest Frontier, Aug. 24, 1938.
5. THE ADJECTIVE
“In the dialects [of English],” says Wright, “the comparative suffix -er and the superlative -est are added to practically all adjectives, polysyllabic as well as monosyllabic. More and most are as a rule only used to supplement the regular comparisons, as more beautifuller, more worst.”1 He adds betterer, betterest, bestest, worser, worsest, morer and mostest. Wyld, in his “History of Modern Colloquial English,”2 recalls Shakespeare’s most unkindest cut of all, and traces badder, more better, more surer, more gladder, more larger, more greater, more stronger, more fresher,3 most best, most bitterest, most hardest and most nearest to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.4 Jespersen notes that “the natural tendency in colloquial speech is to use the superlative in speaking of two,” and that “this is found very frequently in good authors.” Russell Thomas assembles examples from Mallory, Pope, Boswell, Coleridge, Emerson, Melville and many others.5
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.
6. THE ADVERB
“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, b
right 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.”
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