American Language Supplement 2
Page 57
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.
7. THE DOUBLE NEGATIVE
“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 says3 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:
I don’t believe it would do but little harm if he does.1
I don’t kinda think it ain’t.
Please don’t buy but one.2
I will not be responsible for any debts only by myself after January 5, 1938.3
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
They didn’t none of them go.
I haven’t never gotten able to work any yet.4
I ain’t seen nobody roun’ here at no time.
He didn’t say nothing to nobody neither.5
Once a child gets burnt once it won’t never stick its hand in no fire no more.
There may not be no nothing.
Ain’t you learned to not never argue with no woman no more?6
If it don’t rain they ain’t no use for ’em to come up nohow.
He oughtn’ to never done it.7
I ain’t got nary none.
That boy ain’t never done nothin’ nohow.
I ain’t never seen no men-folks of no kind do no washin’.8
Hardly nobody don’t chew no tobacco no more nowheres.
This government last year could not raise but $3,000,000,000.9
Ain’t nobody hit nothing, has they?
Ain’t nothing you can’t do.
You can’t get nobody out nowhere around no base without no ball.10
He don’t know from nothing.11
You could not be but one person.1
There didn’t nobody see him, did they?
Hardly nobody don’t.
Don’t everybody know how.2
Both good schemes, but neither don’t put anybody to work.3
Don’t nobody touch that.
Didn’t I never tell, you ain’t got no right to go out and chase after no ball when nobody ain’t watching you?4
Nobody ain’t never said nothin’ about sendin’ no flowers to nobody.5
I never set no hens, nor nothing of the kind.
Nobody’s never wanted me.
You can’t get nowhere neither.
The last three are from the Linguistic Atlas of New England,6 which presents massive evidence of the prevalence of double and triple negatives in the area it covers. It distinguishes six main divisions, as follows:
1. The subject and the verb are negated, as in “Nobody hadn’t ought to.”
2. The verb and the predicate noun or adjective are negated, as in “That ain’t nothin’.”
3. The verb and the object are negated, as in “I ain’t done nothin’.”
4. The verb and the adverb are negated, as in “I couldn’t get nowheres near him.”
5. The object and the adverb are negated, as in “She never done no hard work.”
6. Triple negation, as in “Tain’t no place for nobody.”
The not-neither combination, as in “I did not do it, neither,” was in good usage until the end of the Eighteenth Century, and examples are to be found in Steele, Richardson, Burke and Cowper,7 but for the past century it has been receding into the common speech, wherein it is still very much alive all over the United States. So with the nor-not combination, as in Shakespeare’s “Nor do not saw the air.”8 The following note upon the double negative comes from an intelligent foreign observer:
It seems to me that the double negative is due, in great measure, to the ease with which not may be joined to the auxiliaries without increasing the number of syllables. Even haven’t, hasn’t, etc., are pronounced as monosyllables. If, in place of no and not, there were longer, or less simple, negating adverbs the double negative would not be possible because of the extra speech-effort required. The construction of the Scandinavian languages simply will not permit it; and so with German. I doubt that you have ever heard a German say anything comparable to: “Ich habe ihm nicht nichts abgenommen” or “Er gebraucht niemals nicht keine Seife.” It can’t be done.1
1 This sentence is given in AL4, p. 470.
2 Ignorance Builds a Language, American Scholar, Autumn, 1938, p. 477.
3 The Grammar of the Ozark Dialect, American Speech, Oct., 1927, p. 8.
4 p. 203. I add one from English English, found in the Londo
n Times Literary Supplement, Jan. 1, 1944, p. 8: “There can be no doubt but that it works.”
1 From a letter signed Loyal Democrat in the Indianapolis Times, June 24, 1939.
2 Store advertisement in Baltimore, 1936.
3 Advertisement in the Toledo Blade, reprinted in the New Yorker, Sept. 24, 1938.
4 Tonics and Sedatives, Journal of the American Medical Association, May 18, 1940, p. 28.
5 The last two were reported from the Clinch Valley, Virginia, by L. R. Dingus in Dialect Notes, Vol. IV, Part III, 1915, p. 179.
6 Contributed to the William Feather Magazine, Feb., 1941, by Frank Richey. Mr. Richey amused himself by contriving a sentence containing ten negatives and a split infinitive; “I ain’t never got no time for to no longer argue with no woman of no kind, not never, no more, nohow.”
7 The last two are from The Speech of East Texas, by Oma Stanley, before cited, p. 103.
8 The last three are from Our Southern Highlanders, by Horace Kephart; New York, 1921, p. 287.
9 Letter of the Hon. Thomas L. Blanton, of Texas, Congressional Record, Jan. 25, 1935, p. 1037, col. 2.
10 Remark of a rustic baseball coach, contributed by Mr. E. W. Delcamp, of Lexington, Ky.
11 Julius G. Rothenburg, in Some American Idioms From the Yiddish, American Speech, Feb., 1943, p. 48, reports this from New York City. He says that it comes from the Yiddish nisht zu wissen fin gornisht.
1 Letter in the Baptist Record of Jackson, Miss., Oct. 22, 1925.
2 i.e., “Everybody doesn’t know how.”
3 Will Rogers, 1934.
4 Reported from Germantown, Pa., by Jack Edelson, Word Study, Feb., 1946, p. 2.
5 I am indebted for this to Mr. K. L. Rankin.
6 Map 718.
7 For the first three see the NED under neither A3. For Cowper see his letter to William Unwin, Feb. 24, 1782.
8 Hamlet, III, c. 1601.
1 Mr. Valdemar Viking, of Red Bank, N. J.; private communication, Sept. 1, 1938.
8. OTHER SYNTACTICAL PECULIARITIES
The long-awaited grammarian of vulgar American, when he spits on his hands at last, will have a gaudy time anatomizing such forms as “He is the girl I go with’s brother,”2 “I’d like to froze to death,” “Where are we at?,” “Who are you taking music lessons offen (or offa)?” “I sorta, kinda like it,” “He done like I done,” “Try and stop me,” “He gone and done it,” “I hit him good and hard,” “Us he’s would like to know,” “What do you think of this here, now, Henry Wallace?,” “How old of a mule have you ever saw?,” “I ain’t sure, the way things happen,” “I used to could do it,” “I’ll call you up, without I can’t,” “I’d like for to go there,” “It ain’t hot to what we had yesterday,” “You want to take this medicine every hour,”3 “It ain’t so worse,” “I seen the bothen of ’m,” “Them dogs are us’n’s,” “If I hadda been there,” “A girl which I know,” “They must not be no mistake,” “Some men lets their wife run them,” “He hadn’t only one hat,” “We boughten some furniture,” “Both her and you is welcome,” “She’s a fine car,” “It’s O.K. by me,” “Once you try it once it goes easy,” “Iffen I had the money,” “I wisht I was there,” “It must be some-wheres,” “It was some place else,” “I been there,” “Who are you laughing at?,” “So what?,” and “He had the malaria.”
Some of these forms, e.g., good and as an adverb and such verb compounds as try and and come and, have gradually worked their way into polite usage;4 others, e.g., like for, are accepted in limited regions, but not generally;1 yet others, e.g., boughten, are still definitely and apparently hopelessly vulgar. But there is no telling what will happen in language, and it is perfectly possible that most of the last class will one day gain acceptance, just as “It is me,” like as a conjunction, to loan for to lend, the use of the plural pronoun with anyone, everyone, etc., somebody else’s, gotten as a past participle, the one-he combination, the split infinitive, the terminal preposition, and a hundred other forms, all of them once damned from hell to high water by the grammarians, have gained acceptance. In such matters there is simply no telling, for language is a great deal more an art than a science. Once, exploring the upper Middle West, I mislaid my shaving-brush in a hotel-room, and called in a chambermaid of unknown nationality to help me hunt for it. When I found it hidden behind the Gideon Bible and let go with a cry of triumph she asked politely, “Did you got it?” This, by prevailing rules, was “bad” English. But why? And how long will it continue “bad”? I’d not like to answer too positively, for did is undoubtedly a sound preterite and got is equally a sound perfect participle.
2 See Group Genitives, by Josephine Burnham, American Speech, Nov., 1926, pp. 84–85. A swell example is in Idea Man, by Claude Binyon, Variety, Jan. 8, 1947, p. 7: “You mean that fellow who took over when Hays left’s office?”
3 For should. See You Want To, by Louise Pound, American Speech, Aug., 1932, pp. 450–51.
4 Good and, by Steven T. Byington, American Speech, Oct., 1944, p. 229.
1 Like for, by A. R. Dunlap, American Speech, Feb., 1945, pp. 18–19.
X
PROPER NAMES IN AMERICA
1. SURNAMES
477. [Smith remains the predominant surname in the United States, followed by Johnson, Brown, Williams, Jones, Miller, Davis, Anderson, Wilson and Moore in order.] On May 2, 1939 the Social Security Board issued an analysis of the 43,900,000 names then on its roll, showing that ten per cent of the persons listed shared but fifty names, beginning with 471,190 Smiths, 350,530 Johnsons, 254,750 Browns, 250,312 Williamses, 240,180 Millers and 235,540 Joneses. The rest ran as follows:
Standing Name Approximate Number
26 Adams 70,000
19 Allen 81,000
8 Anderson 144,000
34 Bailey 45,000
23 Baker 71,000
33 Bell 47,000
36 Bennett 43,000
49 Black 27,000
46 Brooks 30,000
45 Burke 30,000
37 Butler 40,000
41 Cohen 33,000
7 Davis 177,000
32 Edwards 52,000
47 Elliott 26,000
43 Ellis 31,000
29 Evans 60,000
35 Fisher 43,000
38 Foster 39,000
21 Green 78,000
20 Hall 80,000
17 Harris 96,000
16 Jackson 105,000
40 James 33,000
42 Jenkins 33,000
47 Johnston 28,000
44 Jordan 30,000
24 King 70,000
18 Lewis 85,000
14 Martin 112,000
12 Moore 117,000
25 Nelson 70,000
50 Nichols 26,000
51 Owens 26,000
28 Phillips 61,000
27 Roberts 66,000
22 Robinson 77,000
31 Rogers 52,000
10 Taylor 118,000
11 Thomas 118,000
15 Thompson 108,000
30 Turner 56,000
39 Walker 38,000
13 White 113,000
9 Wilson 133,0001
It will be noted that all these first fifty names save Cohen are of British origin, but it should not be forgotten that many of them, notably Smith, Johnson and Miller, conceal large numbers of non-British names that have been changed.2 The German name of Müller, for example, has almost vanished from American directories: the umlaut has either been dropped, making it Muller, or is represented by ue, making it Mueller, or there has been a bold leap to Miller. Most of the dominating British names are English, but there are several that suggest Scottish origins, e.g., Johnston,3 or Welsh, e.g., Jones, Lewis and Owens, and at least one, Burke, is Irish. All other efforts that have been made to analyze the national onomatology have led to closely similar results. Of 2,474,502 officers and men of the Navy in World War II, 21,476, or one in every 115, were named Smith, and following came 15,045 Johnsons and 11,035 Joneses.1 In the A
rmy there were 54,180 Smiths, 41,580 Johnsons, 29,960 Browns, 28,140 Williamses, 25,720 Joneses and 25,620 Millers.2 On the roll of the Veterans Administration, in 1946, there were 13,000 John Smiths, and 8,000 of them had no middle initial.3 On June 1, 1929 the American Council of Learned Societies’ Committee on Linguistic and National Stocks in the Population of the United States issued a report showing the estimated numbers of persons in each 100,000 of population bearing the 200 most prevalent surnames. Its figures follow:
Adams 172
Alexander 87
Allen 220
Anderson 444
Andrews 62
Armstrong 68
Arnold 70
Austin 67
Bailey 112
Baker 186
Barnes 91
Beck 50
Bell 127
Bennett 110
Berry 68
Black 72
Boyd 69
Bradley 64
Brooks 108
Brown 630
Bryant 62
Burke 78
Burns 102
Butler 103
Campbell 166
Carlson 88
Carpenter 52
Carr 55
Carroll 71
Carter 138
Chapman 54
Clark 252
Cohen 57
Cole 75
Coleman 84