American Language

by H. L. Mencken

  14 Margaret Morse Nice, in On the Size of Vocabularies, American Speech, Oct., 1926.

  15 The results of various investigations are set forth in Mrs. Nice’s article, just cited. See also Measuring the Vocabulary of High-School Pupils, by H. L. Neher, School and Society, Sept. 21, 1918; Says Average Man Uses 8,000 Words (an interview with Dr. Frank H. Vizetelly), New York Times, July 15, 1923; The Speech of Five Hundred College Women, by Sara M. Stinch field, Journal of Applied Psychology, June, 1925; Contemporary English, by W. E. Collinson; Leipzig, 1927 (an account of the growth of the author’s vocabulary); A Vocabulary Study of Children in a Foreign Industrial Community, by Alice M. Jones, Psychological Clinic, March, 1928; Statistics of Vocabulary, by E. A. Condon, Science, March 16, 1928; Extent of Personal Vocabularies and Cultural Control, by J. M. Gillette, Scientific Monthly, Nov., 1929; and Vocabulary of Children’s Letters Written in Life Outside School, by J. A. Fitzgerald, Elementary School Journal, Jan., 1934. I list only a few studies. The literature of the subject is very large.

  16 The subjunctive be, of course, is extinct. In the plural, are is commonly used correctly. The use of is in the second and third persons singular and in all persons of the plural is a Negroism, though it is also observed occasionally among the lowest classes of Southern whites. There is a familiar story illustrating its use. A customer goes into a store and asks, “You-all ain’t got no aigs, is you?” The storekeeper replies, “I ain’t said I ain’t,” whereupon the customer retorts in dudgeon, “I ain’t axed you is you ain’t; I axed you is you is. Is you?” In the negative, whether singular or plural, ain’t is employed almost universally; am not, is not and are not are used only for emphasis, and aren’t is unknown.

  17 The use of were in the first person singular occurs in certain English dialects, and was once not uncommon in vulgar American, but it has passed out. Today was is often used in the second and third persons plural. In the Eighteenth Century you was was used in the singular and you were in the plural. George Philip Krapp, in The English Language in America, Vol. II, p. 261, quotes “Was you fond of seeing,” etc., from a letter of John Adams, 1759.

  18 Usually pronounced bin, but sometimes ben, and often appearing without have, as in “I bin there myself.” The English bean is never heard.

  19 In The Druid, No. VI, May 16, 1781, the Rev. John Witherspoon listed attackted among his “vulgarisms in America only.”

  20 R. J. Menner, in The Verbs of the Vulgate, American Speech, Jan., 1926, argues that beaten and its analogues, bitten, broken, forsaken, hidden, ridden, shaken, taken, fallen, forgotten and gotten, are preterites only in certain regional dialects. He says: “Taken appears in lists of dialectical peculiarities from Tennessee, Southern Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Alabama and Virginia, and often occurs in stories written in a Southern dialect. But it is not characteristic of New England, New York and Pennsylvania; if it occurs in the North, it occurs exceptionally, and cannot be considered a preterite of the vulgar speech.” This was written in 1926. Since then, I believe, the form has made progress, and Mr. Charles J. Lovell tells me that he has heard it very frequently in Bristol county, Mass. There is a discussion of it in The Grammar of the Ozark Dialect, by Vance Randolph, American Speech, Oct., 1927, p. 2.

  21 Become is seldom heard in the present tense. Getting is usually substituted, as in “I am getting old.” But become is often used as a preterite, as in “What become of him?”

  22 In Old English, according to Menner, began (n) was the preterite singular and begunnon the preterite plural. When this distinction began to fade, both began and begun came into good usage, and both were recognized by Ben Jonson in his Grammar, 1640. Henry Alexander, in The Verbs of the Vulgate in Their Historical Relations, American Speech, April, 1929, gives examples of begun from Easton’s Relation of the Indyan Warr, 1675, and Madam Knight’s Journal, 1704. Noah Webster preferred it to began in his Grammar of the English Language, 1807. In 1928 or thereabout the National Council of Teachers of English submitted a long list of current usages to a committee consisting of authors, editors, linguists, teachers and business men, and asked their judgment. Only 5% of them approved begun as the preterite, but all of those who did so were persons specially trained in English philology. See Current English Usage, by Sterling Andrus Leonard; Chicago, 1932, p. 116.

  23 See the note under beaten, above. I have even heard “He bitten off more than he could chew.”

  24 Here usage seems to be uncertain. I have heard “The whistle blowed,” “He blew in his money,” and “They blown into town.”

  25 Alexander quotes brake from Samuel Sewall’s Diary, 1673. It was frequently used in those days, apparently under the influence of the King James Bible, in which it occurs 63 times. But it never got into the common speech. Broke is always used in the passive. One hears “I was broke” but never “I was broken.” Broke was once in good usage as a participial adjective. The Oxford Dictionary gives examples running from c. 1230 to 1647.

  26 Menner argues that brung belongs only to the lowest levels of the vulgate. He says: “Everyone knows that many a person who regularly says I sung or I begun would be horrified at the thought of saying I brung.” He adds that “some speakers who habitually say I have did and I have saw regard I brung as merely childish or humorous.” But he finds brung as a preterite in Artemus Ward, c. 1865, and in John Neal’s The Down-Easters, 1833, and reports it used as a perfect participle in the last-named and in J. G. Holland’s The Bay Path, 1857. It appears in a list of Appalachian Mountain words in Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Pt. X, 1927, p. 470.

  27 Burned, with a distinct d-sound, is almost unknown to the vulgate.

  28 Burst is seldom heard. In combinations, e.g., on a bust, bust-head and trust-buster, bust is almost Standard American.

  29 The use of bust as the preterite is probably promoted by the fashion for a crude historical present, mentioned in Section 1.

  30 Boughten is in common use as a participial adjective, as in boughten bread.

  31 Catched, which was good English in the Eighteenth Century, is in Lardner, and also in Huckleberry Finn, The Biglow Papers and Thomas C. Haliburton’s The Clockmaker, 1837, but I incline to believe that it is now used relatively seldom. Cotched is heard only in the South, and mainly among Negroes. It appears in the vocabulary of provincialisms printed in Adiel Sherwood’s Gazetteer of the State of Georgia, 3rd ed., 1837, and was condemned by Noah Webster in his Dissertations on the English Language; Boston, 1789, p. III, as “frequent” and “barbarous.” As we have seen in Chapter VII, Section 2, catch is usually pronounced ketch.

  32 Alexander reports finding chose as the past participle in a military diary of 1774, and choosen, now obsolete, in the town records of Jamaica, L. I., 1695. He says that the former was used as the participle of to choose so early as the Fourteenth Century, and that it survived in good usage until the days of Southey. Choosed is in Sherwood’s Georgia Vocabulary,

  33 Clumb is in Lardner, and also in Huckleberry Finn and The Biglow Papers. Clomb was in good usage down to the end of the Seventeenth Century, and has survived as a poetical archaism.

  34 Come as the preterite is very old, but came as the past participle is apparently recent.

  35 To curse is used only when the act shows a certain formality and solemnity. “The blind man cursed the guy what robbed him” would be heard, but not “He cursed his wife.” In the latter situation to cuss would be used, most often followed by out. Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, 1848, listed to cuss as then “common to various parts of the Union.”

  36 Dast is more common in the negative, as in “He das’n’t do it.” It was originally a form of the present, and is sometimes still used.

  37 Dove seems to be making its wav into Standard American, apparently supported by drove. It occurs in Theodore Roosevelt’s Hunting the Grizzly; New York, 1905, p. III, and in Amy Lowell’s Legends; Boston, 1921, p. 4. The judges appointed by the National Council of Teachers of English decided against it, but there
was apparent among them a trend toward accepting it. See Leonard, above cited, p. 117. In 1926 Leonard submitted it to a committee of 26 eminent academic authorities on English. Five of them approved it unreservedly, and 11 called it sound “cultivated, informal English.” Div is reported from the Ozarks, in Snake County Talk, by Jay L. B. Taylor, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Pt. VI, 1923, p. 205.

  38 Menner reports hearing done used as the preterite by persons belonging to all three of his classes. But he heard did as the past participle only among “people with little education and no background.”

  39 Vance Randolph, in The Grammar of the Ozark Dialect, American Speech, Oct., 1927, says that dremp is the usual form in the Ozarks. But elsewhere, I believe, drempt is more common.

  40 Drinked is in The Biglow Papers and in Artemus Ward, but it seems to have gone out, save maybe in remote areas. The committee of judges appointed by the National Council of Teachers of English condemned the preterite use of drunk, but “linguists and members of the Modern Language Association, probably because of their awareness of the historical justification for the form, placed it higher than the other groups.” See Leonard, above cited, p. 116. Menner reports the use of drank as the perfect participle by persons of all three of his categories.

  41 Driv and druv seem to survive only in humorous use, save maybe in the remoter rural parts. Both, as past participles, are in The Biglow Papers, and Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, 1848, listed druv as a preterite then in common use. Driv was denounced as a New England provincialism by T. G. Fessenden in The Ladies’ Monitor; Bellows Falls, Vt., 1818, p. 171.

  42 This in the active voice. In the passive, I think, drowned is more common. “This is so common,” said the Rev. John Witherspoon in The Druid, No. VI, May 16, 1781, “that I have known a gentleman reading in a book to a company, though it was printed drowned, read drownded.”

  43 Ate, in my observation, is seldom used as the preterite, though it appears in Lardner, and is reported bv Menner. The use of eat as its own preterite was formerly sound in English, and still survives more or less on relatively decorous levels. I find it in Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham; New York, 1915, p. 24. It is encountered plentifully in Shakespeare. According to Leonard, above cited, p. 118, et as the preterite is “entirely correct in England, incorrect in the United States.” It is so given in Broadcast English; London, 1935, and H. W. Fowler, in Modern English Usage; Oxford, 1926, actually condemns ate as “wrong.”

  44 Eaten is seldom used. In The Vulgate in American Fiction, American Mercury, Dec., 1927, Wallace Rice says that eat was used as the perfect participle by Shakespeare, Fletcher, Fuller, Evelyn, Mary II, Purchas, J. Collins, Arbuthnot, Pope, Malmesbury, Johnson, Prior, Coleridge, Jane Austen, Marryat, Tennyson, Dickens and Thackeray. He says that the Imperial Dictionary; London, 1892, prefers eat to eaten, and that it has been approved by various American grammarians.

  45 Fotch seems to be mainly confined to the Appalachian mountain dialect, though I have heard Lowland Negroes use it. Noah Webster, in his Dissertations on the English Language; Boston, 1789, p. III, says that it was then “very common in several States, but not among the better classes of people.”

  46 Fit appears to have gone out. It is in Congreve’s The Way of the World, 1700, and was apparently in good usage then. Thornton gives American examples running from 1825 to 1869.

  47 “He was found $2” is much more common than “He was fined.” The pull of the preterite of to find is obvious.

  48 Friz seems to be archaic. It occurs in The Biglow Papers.

  49 There was a time when get was almost invariably pronounced git, but the standard pronunciation is now more common. In “Do you get me?” the e is never i. Gotten is rare in England, save in ill-gotten.

  50 Leonard says, in Current English Usage, p. 118: “Both linguists and dictionaries testify that this form is acceptable in the United States, although it is nearly obsolete in England.” In the late Eighteenth Century gotten was fashionable in both countries, and Noah Webster, in his Dissertations, 1789, listed it among the affectations of “young gentlemen who have gone through a course of academical studies, and received the usual honors of a university.” Got, as everyone knows, is a verb of all work in the vulgate. Its excessive use was denounced by the editor of the English Journal, March, 1927. See Get and Got, by Wallace Rice, American Speech, April, 1932. Also, Gotten, by George O. Curme, the same, Sept., 1927.

  51 Gin and guv are archaic. The former, marked rare, appears in a Maine word-list compiled by E. K. Maxfield, Dialect Notes, Vol. V, Pt. IX, 1926, p. 387. It was in common use from about 1800 to the Civil War, and is listed in Fessen-den’s Georgia Vocabulary, and in the glossary printed with David Humphrey’s The Yankey in England; Boston, 1815. Lardner uses both give and gave as the perfect participle. Menner reports that he found give in use as the preterite among all three of his classes, but that give and gave as the perfect participle were confined to “people with little education and no background.” Henry Harap lists give as the preterite among The Most Common Grammatical Errors, English Journal, June, 1930, p. 441.

  52 Glode once enjoyed a certain respectability in the United States, as in England. It is to be found in the Knickerbocker Magazine for April, 1856. It is also in Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam, 1818.

  53 Almost invariably followed by around.

  54 The literary hanged is never heard. “The man was hung,” not hanged.

  55 To heat is seldom heard. The common form is to heaten. When het is used it is always followed by up. Webster favored it as the preterite, and Krapp says (The English Language in America, Vol. II, p. 258), that it “only just failed to be accepted into good general use.”

  56 See the note under beat, above.

  57 Hoist is seldom heard.

  58 Both forms appear in Lardner, and both are reported by Menner.

  59 To lend is being displaced by to loan. The standard preterite, lent, is seldom heard save as noted below. Harap notes in The Most Common Grammatical Errors, English Journal, June, 1930, p. 442, that to lend has begun to displace to borrow. Certainly, “I lent a dollar from him,” meaning “I borrowed a dollar,” is now common.

  60 To let is being supplanted by to leave, as in “Leave me be,” but this substitution has probably gone furthest in the preterite. “He let me have it” is seldom heard; the usual form is “He left me.”

  61 Seldom used; lay takes its place. To lay was condemned by 93% of the judges appointed by the National Council of Teachers of English, but one of them, a linguist, noted that it “was good in the Eighteenth Century.” See Leonard, above cited, p. 113.

  62 To loose is very seldom heard. Even to loosen seems to be going out. The popular form is to unloosen, which is conjugated like to loosen.

  63 The linguists, authors and editors on the committee of the National Council of Teachers of English placed proven “among the disputable usages; the other groups of judges regarded it as established.” See Leonard, before cited, p. 119.

  64 Riz as the preterite of to raise is now confined to the rural regions. Various contributors to Dialect Notes report it from States as far apart as Connecticut and Louisiana.

  65 Pronounced reconize in all three situations.

  66 Used in place of rinse. In New England rench is sometimes rense. See Dialect Notes, Part II, 1890, p. 63.

  67 Rid is in Artemus Ward, but it is seldom heard today.

  68 Menner reports that he has heard rode by persons who are “the average product of American high-schools.”

  69 Always used in place of roil.

  70 Riz seems to be going out as the preterite of to rise, though it is still heard. To rise, says Menner, “is a rare verb in the vulgate. Get up (of people) and come up (of the sun) are substituted for it.” But bread still rises. In her Journal, 1704, Sarah Kemble Knight used riss as the preterite.

  71 To sass is always used in place of to sauce, which would seem a schoolmarmish affectation to the vulgar Americano. The adject
ive is sassy.

  72 Lardner gives seen, see and seed as the preterite, and saw and see as the perfect participle. See as the preterite is in the New Haven Records (1639), the Easthampton Records (1654), the Huntington Records (1681), and the Journal of Sarah Kemble Knight (1704). It is denounced by the Rev. John With-erspoon in The Druid, No. VI, May 16, 1781, and he says that it was then “common in both England and the United States.”

  73 Used almost always in place of sit. The preterite sot, once in wide use, is now rarely heard.

  74 Bartlett, in his Dictionary of Americanisms, 1848, listed shet as then in common use. It is still heard, but shut seems to be prevailing. Sometimes shutted appears as the preterite, as in “You bet he shutted up.”

  75 Alexander traces spoke back to Gower, 1390, and says that it was still accepted as the perfect participle of to speak as late as 1754.

  76 Dr. Josiah Combs reports that in the Southern mountains “the ending -ed is usually dropped in the preterite in verbs whose infinitive ends in -t.” (Dialect Notes, Vol. IV, Pt. IV, 1916, p. 292.) In the general vulgate, I believe, sweat is fast becoming an invariable verb. I have heard “He sweat and puffed” and “I have sweat over it all night.”