American Language

by H. L. Mencken

  Some of the verbs of the vulgate show the end-products of other language movements that go back to a very early period. There is, for example, the disappearance of the final t in such words as crep, slep, lep, swep and wep. Most of these, in Old English, were strong verbs. The preterite of to sleep (slœpan), for example, was slep, and of to weep was weop. But in the course of time both to sleep and to weep acquired weak preterite endings, the first becoming slœpte and the second wepte. This weak conjugation, in most cases, was itself degenerated. Originally, the inflectional suffix had been -de or -ede and in some cases -ode, and the vowels were always pronounced. The wearing-down process that set in in the Twelfth Century disposed of the final e, but in certain words the other vowel survived for a good while, and we still observe it in such archaisms as learnéd and belovéd. Finally, however, it became silent in other preterites, and loved, for example, began to be pronounced (and often written) as a word of one syllable: lov’d.88 This final d-sound now fell upon difficulties of its own. After certain consonants it was hard to pronounce clearly, and so the sonant was changed into the easier surd, and such words as pushed and clipped became, in ordinary conversation, pusht and clipt. In other verbs, the -t (or -te) ending had come in long before, and when the final e was dropped only their stem vowels needed to be changed. Thus arose such forms as slept. In vulgar American another step is taken, and the suffix is dropped altogether. Thus, by a circuitous route, verbs originally strong, and for many centuries hovering between the two conjugations, have eventually become strong again.

  The case of helt is probably an example of change by false analogy. During the Thirteenth Century, according to Sweet89 “d was changed to t in the weak preterites of verbs [ending] in rd, ld, nd.” Before that time the preterite of sende (send) had been sende; now it became sente. It survives in our modern sent, and the same process is also revealed in built, girt, lent, rent and bent. The popular speech, disregarding the fact that to hold is a strong verb, arrives at helt by imitation.90 In the case of tole, which I almost always hear in place of told, there is a leaping of steps. The d is got rid of by assimilation with l and without any transitional use of t. So also, perhaps, in swole, which is fast displacing swelled. Attackted and drownded seem to be examples of an effort to dispose of harsh combinations by a contrary process. Both are old in English. Boughten and dreampt present greater difficulties. Lounsbury says that boughten probably originated in the Northern (i.e., Lowland Scots) dialect of English, “which … inclined to retain the full form of the past participle,” and even to add its termination “to words to which it did not properly belong.”91 The p-sound in drempt follows a tendency that is also seen in such pronunciations as warm(p)th, com(p)fort and some(p)thing, and that has actually inserted a p in Thompson (Tom’s son). The general movement toward regularization is well exhibited by the new verbs that come into the language constantly. Practically all of them show the weak conjugation, for example, to broadcast.92 Even when a compound has as its last member a verb ordinarily strong, it is often weak itself. Thus the preterite of to joy-ride is not joy-rode, nor even joy-ridden, but, unless my ears fail me, joy-rided. And thus bust, from burst, is regular and its usual preterite is busted, though burst is irregular and its preterite is the verb itself unchanged. The same tendency toward regularity is shown by the verbs of the kneel class. They are irregular in English, but tend to become regular in colloquial American. Thus the preterite of to kneel, despite the example of to sleep and its analogues, is not knel’, nor even knelt, but kneeled. I have even heard feeled as the preterite of to feel, as in “I feeled my way,” though here felt still persists. To spread also tends to become weak, as in “He spreaded a piece of bread.” And to peep remains so, despite the example of to leap. The confusion between the inflections of to lie and to lay extends to the higher reaches of spoken American, and so does that between lend and loan. In the vulgate the proper inflections of to lend are often given to to lean, and so leaned becomes lent, as in “I lent on the counter.” In the same way to set has almost completely superseded to sit, and the preterite of the former, set, is used in place of sat. But the perfect participle (which is also the disused preterite) of to sit has survived, as in “I have sat there.” To speed and to shoe have become regular, not only because of the general tendency toward the weak conjugation, but also for logical reasons. The prevalence of speed contests of various sorts, always to the intense interest of the proletariat, has brought such words as speeder, speeding, speed-mania, speed-maniac and speed-limit into daily use, and speeded harmonizes with them better than the irregular sped. The American’s misuse of to learn for to teach is common to most of the English dialects. More peculiar to his speech is the use of to leave for to let. Charters records it in “Washington left them have it,” and there are many examples of it in Lardner.

  In studying the American verb, of course, it is necessary to remember always, as Menner reminds us, that it is in a state of transition, and that in many cases the manner of using it is not yet fixed. “The history of language,” says Lounsbury, “when looked at from the purely grammatical point of view, is little else than the history of corruptions.” What we have before us is a series of corruptions in active process, and while some of them have gone very far, others are just beginning. Thus it is not uncommon to find corrupt forms side by side with orthodox forms, or even two corrupt forms battling with each other. Lardner, in the case of to throw, hears “if he had throwed”; my own observation is that threw is more often used in that situation. Again, he uses “the rottenest I ever seen gave”; my own belief is that give is far more commonly used. The conjugation of to give, however, is yet very uncertain, and so Lardner may report accurately. I have heard “I given” and “I would of gave,” but “I give” seems to be prevailing, and “I would of give” with it, thus reducing to give to one invariable form, like those of to cut, to hit, to put, to cost, to hurt and to spit. My table of verbs shows various other uncertainties and confusions. The preterite of to blow may be blowed, blew or blown, and that of to drink oscillates between drank and drunk, and that of to fall is still usually fell, though fallen has appeared, and that of to shake may be either shaken or shuck. The conjugation of to win is yet far from fixed. The correct English preterite, won, is still in use, but against it are arrayed wan and winned, and Lardner, as I have noted, believed that the plain form of the present would eventually oust all of them. Wan seems to show some kinship, by ignorant analogy, with ran and began. It is often used as the perfect participle, as in “I have wan $4.” This uncertainty shows itself in many of the communications that I have received since my last edition was published. Practically every one of my conjugations has been questioned by at least one correspondent; nevertheless, the weight of observation has supported all save a few of them, and I have not made many changes.

  The misuse of the perfect participle for the preterite, so common in vulgar American, is also common in many other dialects of English. It has been going on for a long time, and in American, the most vigorous and advanced of all the dialects of the language, it is particularly well marked. Menner believes that it originated, at least as to some of the verbs, in the decay of the auxiliary have in the present perfect. The omission of the auxiliary, he says,

  is one of the most familiar phenomena of rapid or careless speech. I’ve been, I’ve bought, I’ve found, I’ve done easily degenerate into I been, I bought, I found, I done.… The process is a purely phonetic one. When “I’ve been there several times” and “I’ve done that since I was born” are contracted to “I been,” etc. and “I done,” etc. been and done have not become preterites; the meaning is still perfect, though the form is syncopated.… Thus it is not unlikely that I seen and I done, when they first appeared in the vulgate, were still perfect tenses with the auxiliary syncopated; that owing to the confusion of the two tenses in such cases as “I(’ve) never seen it” and “I never saw it,” I seen came to be regarded as a real preterite and extended to all the funct
ions of the past tense, as in “I seen it yesterday.” This explanation receives some support, in the case of seen, from the fact that the majority of the earliest instances of seen for saw that I have found are of the somewhat ambiguous type “I (they) never seen” If this be indeed the earlier usage, it may well indicate that the modern genuine preterite seen developed from the genuine perfect (’ve) seen by means of the intermediate stage seen, as in “I never seen,” of doubtful interpretation.93

  In the case of certain strong verbs, says Menner, the substitution of the perfect participle for the preterite originated in a confusion between the singular and plural forms of the preterite, which were once distinct. When this distinction began to disappear, the plural preterite, usually with u for its vowel, was sometimes substituted for the singular form in a, and so the preterite and the perfect participle coalesced, for the latter was usually also in u.94 Menner offers begun, clumb, rung, sung and swum as examples. Two further considerations may be mentioned. The first is that the perfect form of the verb was also commonly its adjectival form, and so got some support in mere familiarity. The second is that it was usually the authentic preterite in the passive voice, and so got more.

  The contrary substitution of the preterite for the perfect participle is old in English, and there was a time indeed when even the best writers were apparently unconscious of its inelegance. An examination of any play of Shakespeare’s will show many such forms as “I have wrote,” “I am mistook” and “He has rode.” In several cases this confusion has survived. “I have stood,” for example, is now perfectly correct English, but before 1550 the proper form was “I have stonden” Menner’s inquiries indicate, however, that two of the false perfects now familiar, saw and did, are relatively recent. He says:

  Many writers employ seen as preterite from the 40’s to the 60’s, whereas saw as past participle is extremely rare. The earliest instance I have run across is in Artemus Ward’s “Scenes Outside the Fair-Grounds”: “We have saw a entertainment as we never saw before,” and Josh Billings seems to have been the first humorist to employ saw for seen, as well as did for done, extensively. Even as late as “Huckleberry Finn,” where seen and see largely replace saw in the past tense, saw does not occur in the participle. The priority of the incorrect preterite over the incorrect participle is likewise plain in the verb do, though done had not attained so wide a popularity in the first half of the century as seen. The remarks of grammarians and commentators on the state of the language corroborate the practise of the humorists as an accurate reflection of the vulgar speech. Bartlett, whose dictionary of Americanisms was published in 1848, and Schele de Vere, whose similar book was published in 1872, record only the use of the participle for the preterite in these verbs.… The oldest commentary on Americanisms, John Witherspoon’s essays, originally printed in … 1781, notes he had fell, he had rose, he had threw, he had drew, but not he had saw or he had did.95

  The substitution of the preterite for the perfect participle seems to me to be increasing of late, and such striking examples as “How old of a cat have you ever saw?”96 are surely not uncommon. But a sense of its uncouthness appears to linger at the back of the proletarian mind, and sometimes it is embellished with an en suffix, and so brought into greater harmony with more orthodox forms of the perfect. I find that boughten, just discussed, is used much oftener in the perfect than in the simple past tense; for the latter bought usually suffices. The quick ear of Lardner detects various other coinages of the same sort, among them tooken, as in “little Al might of tooken sick” Hadden is also met with, as in “I would of hadden” But the majority of preterites remain unchanged. Lardner’s baseball player never writes “I have written” or “I have wroten,” but always “I have wrote.” And in the same way he always writes “I have did, ate, went, drank, rode, ran, saw, sang, woke and stole.”

  In the American vulgate, as Menner notes, the auxiliary have is under heavy pressure in all situations, and promises to disappear from those in which it is still used. I have heard was used in place of have, as in “before the Elks was come here.”97 Sometimes it is confused ignorantly with a distinct of, as in “she would of drove” and “I would of gave.”98 More often it is shaded to a sort of particle attached to the verb as an inflection, as in “He woulda tole you,” “Who coulda took it?,” “He musta been there.” In going through this change it drags its surrogate, of, along with it, and so one encounters such forms as kinda, sorta, coupla and outa.99 But that is not all. Having degenerated to of, have is now employed as a sort of auxiliary to itself, in the subjunctive, as in “If you had of went,” “If it had of been hard” and “If I had of had.”100 I have encountered some rather astonishing examples of this doubling of the auxiliary. One appears in “I wouldn’t hadda went”; another in “I’d ’a’ hadda saved more money.” Here, however, the a may belong partly to had and partly to the verb; such forms as a-going are very common in American. But in the other cases, and in such forms as “I hadda wanted,” it clearly belongs to had. Meanwhile, to have, ceasing to be an auxiliary, becomes a general verb indicating compulsion. Here it promises to displace must. The American seldom says “I must go”; he almost invariably says “I have to go”101 or “I have got to go,” in which last case got is the auxiliary.

  Some typical inflections of the verb for mode and voice are shown in the following paradigm of to bite:

  The subjunctive, which is disappearing from Standard American,102 is virtually extinct in the vulgar tongue. One never hears “if I were you,” but always “if I was you.” In the third person the -s is not dropped from the verb. One hears, not “if she go,” but always “if she goes.” “If he be the man” is never heard; it is always “if he is.” Such a sentence as “Had I wished her, I had had her” would be unintelligible to most Americans; even “I had rather” is forgotten. In the same way the distinction between will and shall, preserved in Standard English but already breaking down in the most correct American, has been lost entirely. Will has displaced shall completely, save in the imperative. This preference extends to the inflections of both. Sha’n’t is very seldom heard; almost always won’t is used instead. As for should, it is displaced by ought to (degenerated to oughter or oughta), and in its negative form by hadn’t oughter, as in “He hadn’t oughter said that,” reported by Charters. Lardner gives various redundant combinations of should and ought, as in “I don’t feel as if I should ought to leave” and “They should not ought to of had.” I have encountered the same form, but I don’t think it is as common as the simple oughta forms.103 In the main, should is avoided, sometimes at considerable pains. Often its place is taken by the more positive don’t. Thus “I don’t mind” is used instead of “I shouldn’t mind.” Ain’t has displaced is not, am not, isn’t and aren’t, and even have not and haven’t. One recalls a famous speech in a naval melodrama of a generation ago: “We ain’t got no manners, but we can fight like hell.” Such forms as “He ain’t here,” “I ain’t the man,” “Ain’t it the truth?”, “You been there, ain’t you?”, “You ain’t drank much,” “Them ain’t what I want” and “I ain’t heerd of it” are common. Charters adds the incomparable “It ain’t right to say, ‘He ain’t here today.’ ”

  In the negative a clear not is used only for special emphasis, as in “You will not do it.” In almost all other situations it is reduced to n’t, and sometimes this n’t, in rapid utterance, shrinks to n or is dropped altogether. Says Dr. E. C. Hills of the University of California:

  Usually before a consonant, and regularly before a dental, not becomes merely vocalic n, as in “I didn’(t) do it,” “We couldn’(t) stop,” and “He hasn’(t) gone.” With can, in rapid fluent speech uttered without self-consciousness, not before a consonant tends to disappear completely, so that “I c’n do it” is affirmative, while the negative form is “I can’(t) do it.” Some of my friends who are not trained phoneticians insist that they pronounce the t in “I can’ (t) do it,” but when they are off their guard
I do not hear the t. Moreover, when they say “I can’(t) do it,” or even “I can’(t) go tonight,” without pronouncing the t, my friends regularly understand the expression to be negative. If one pronounces the can with emphasis and followed perhaps by a slight pause, “I can go tonight” is affirmative. In combination with the y of you, nt becomes nch as in “Haven’t you seen it?” “Didn’t you do it?” This change, however, does not occur before the initial y of a verb, as in “He didn’(t) yell,” in which the t is usually not pronounced at all.104

  Dr. Hills, of course, is here discussing a colloquial American lying somewhere between the vulgate and the standard speech, but what he says applies to the vulgate. He should have added that when can is used in the negative it takes the a of its mother, can’t (and also of pan, stand, etc.), not the shorter a of ran, etc. Thus there is a phonetic difference between affirmative can and negative can, though they must be written alike. The nch-sound that Dr. Hill mentions has attracted the attention of the begetters of comic-strips. They frequently use can cha for can’t you. When to do is used in the negative, the form is almost invariably don’t; doesn’t is seldom heard. Among Southerners this use of the plural for the singular rises almost to the level of cultured speech. When, a few years ago, a fresh effort to police the national speech habits was begun at Columbia University, the editor of the Petersburg, Va., Progress-Index replied as follows: