I was willing to tell her all about them two poor girls.... They must not be no mistake about who is the boss in my house. Some men lets their wife run all over them.... Allen has went to a college football game. One of the reporters give him a pass.... He called up and said he hadn't only the one pass, but he was not hurting my feelings none.... The flat across the hall from this here one is for rent.... If we should of boughten furniture it would cost us in the neighborhood of $100, even without no piano.... I consider myself lucky to of found out about this before it was too late and somebody else had of gotten the tip.... It will always be ourn, even when we move away.... Maybe you could of did better if you had of went at it in a different way.... Both her and you is welcome at my house.... I never seen so much wine drank in my life....
Here are specimens to fit into most of Charters' categories—verbs confused as to tense, pronouns confused as to case, double and even triple negatives, nouns and verbs disagreeing in number, have softened to of, n marking the possessive instead of s, like used in place of as, and the personal pronoun substituted for the demonstrative adjective. A study of the whole story would probably unearth all the remaining errors noted in Kansas City. Lardner's baseball player, though he has pen in hand and is on his guard, and is thus very careful to write would not instead of wouldn't and even am not instead of ain't, offers a comprehensive and highly instructive panorama of popular speech habits. To him the forms of the subjunctive mood have no existence, and will and shall are identical, and adjectives and adverbs are indistinguishable, and the objective case is merely a variorum form of the nominative. His past tense is, more often than not, the orthodox present tense. All fine distinctions are obliterated in his speech. He uses invariably the word that is simplest, the grammatical form that is handiest. And so he moves toward the philological millennium dreamed of by George T. Lanigan, when "the singular verb shall lie down with the plural noun, and a little conjugation shall lead them."
§ 3
The Verb
This process is natural and inevitable, for it is among the verbs and pronouns, as we have seen, that the only remaining grammatical inflections in English, at least of any force or consequence, are to be found, and so they must bear the chief pressure of the influences that have been warring upon all inflections since the earliest days. The primitive Indo-European language, it is probable, had eight cases of the noun; the oldest known Teutonic dialect reduced them to six; in Anglo-Saxon they fell to four, with a weak and moribund instrumental hanging in the air; in Middle English the dative and accusative began to decay; in Modern English they have disappeared altogether, save as ghosts to haunt grammarians. But we still have two plainly defined conjugations of the verb, and we still inflect it for number, and, in part, at least, for person. And we yet retain an objective case of the pronoun, and inflect it for person, number and gender.
Some of the more familiar conjugations of verbs in the American common speech, as recorded by Charters or Lardner or derived from my own collectanea, are here set down:
| Present | Preterite | Perfect Participle |
|---|---|---|
| Am | was | bin (or ben)[20] |
| Attack | attackted | attackted |
| (Be)[21] | was | bin (or ben) [20] |
| Beat | beaten | beat |
| Become[22] | become | became |
| Begin | begun | began |
| Bend | bent | bent |
| Bet | bet | bet |
| Bind | bound | bound |
| Bite | bitten | bit |
| [Pg194] Bleed | bled | bled |
| Blow | blowed (or blew) | blowed (or blew) |
| Break | broken | broke |
| Bring | brought (or brung, or brang) | brung |
| Broke (passive) | broke | broke |
| Build | built | built |
| Burn | burnt[23] | burnt |
| Burst[24] | —— | —— |
| Bust | busted | busted |
| Buy | bought (or boughten) | bought (or boughten) |
| Can | could | could'a |
| Catch | caught[25] | caught |
| Choose | chose | choose |
| Climb | clum | clum |
| Cling (to hold fast) clung | clung | |
| Cling (to ring) | clang | clang |
| Come | come | came |
| Creep | crep (or crope) | crep |
| Crow | crew | crew |
| Cut | cut | cut |
| Dare | dared | dared |
| Deal | dole | dealt |
| Dig | dug | dug |
| Dive | dove | dived |
| Do | done | done (or did) |
| Drag | drug | dragged |
| Draw | drawed[26] | drawed (or drew) |
| Dream | dreampt | dreampt |
| Drink | drank (or drunk) | drank |
| Drive | drove | drove |
| Drown | drownded | drownded |
| Eat | et (or eat) | ate |
| Fall | fell (or fallen) | fell |
| Feed | fed | fed |
| Feel | felt | felt |
| [Pg195] Fetch | fetched[27] | fetch |
| Fight | fought[28] | fought |
| Find | found | found |
| Fine | found | found |
| Fling | flang | flung |
| Flow | flew | flowed |
| Fly | flew | flew |
| Forget | forgotten | forgotten |
| Forsake | forsaken | forsook |
| Freeze | frozen (or friz) | frozen |
| Get | got (or gotten) | gotten |
| Give | give | give |
| Glide | glode[29] | glode |
| Go | went | went |
| Grow | growed | growed |
| Hang | hung[30] | hung |
| Have | had | had (or hadden) |
| Hear | heerd | heerd (or heern) |
| Heat | het[31] | het |
| Heave | hove | hove |
| Hide | hidden | hid |
| H'ist[32] | h'isted | h'isted |
| Hit | hit | hit |
| Hold | helt | held (or helt) |
| Holler | hollered | hollered |
| Hurt | hurt | hurt |
| Keep | kep | kep |
| Kneel | knelt | knelt |
| Know | knowed | knew |
| Lay | laid (or lain) | laid |
| Lead | led | led |
| Lean | lent | lent |
| Leap | lep | lep |
| [Pg196] Learn | learnt | learnt |
| Lend | loaned[33] | loaned |
| Lie (to falsify) | lied | lied |
| Lie (to recline) | laid (or lain) | laid |
| Light | lit | lit |
| Lose | lost | lost |
| Make | made | made |
| May | —— | might'a |
| Mean | meant | meant |
| Meet | met | met |
| Mow | mown | mowed |
| Pay | paid | paid |
| Plead | pled | pled |
| Prove | proved (or proven) | proven |
| Put | put | put |
| Quit | quit | quit |
| Raise | raised | raised |
| Read | read | read |
| Rench[34] | renched | renched |
| Rid | rid | rid |
| Ride | ridden | rode |
| Rile[35] | riled | riled |
| Ring | rung | rang |
| Rise | riz (or rose) | riz |
| Run | run | ran |
| Say | sez | said |
| See | seen | saw |
| Sell | sold | sold |
| Send | sent | sent |
| Set | set[36] | sat |
| Shake | shaken (or shuck) | shook |
| Shave | shaved | shaved |
| Shed | shed | shed |
| Shine (to polish) | shined | shined |
| Shoe | shoed | shoed |
| Shoot | shot | shot |
| Show | shown | showed |
| Sing | sung | sang |
| Sink | sunk | sank |
| [Pg197] Sit[37] | —— | —— |
| Skin | skun | skun |
| Sleep | slep | slep |
| Slide | slid | slid |
| Sling | slang | slung |
| Slit | slitted | slitted |
| Smell | smelt | smelt |
| Sneak | snuck | snuck |
| Speed | speeded | speeded |
| Spell | spelt | spelt |
| Spill | spilt | spilt |
| Spin | span | span |
| Spit | spit | spit |
| Spoil | spoilt | spoilt |
| Spring | sprung | sprang |
| Steal | stole | stole |
| Sting | stang | stang |
| Stink | stank | stank |
| Strike | struck | struck |
| Swear | swore | swore |
| Sweep | swep | swep |
| Swell | swole | swollen |
| Swim | swum | swam |
| Swing | swang | swung |
| Take | taken | took |
| Teach | taught | taught |
| Tear | tore | torn |
| Tell | tole | tole |
| Think | thought[38] | thought |
| Thrive | throve | throve |
| Throw | throwed | threw |
| Tread | tread | tread |
| Wake | woke | woken |
| Wear | wore | wore |
| Weep | wep | wep |
| Wet | wet | wet |
| Win | won (or wan)[39] | won (or wan) |
| Wind | wound | wound |
| Wish (wisht) | wisht | wisht |
| Wring | wrung | wrang |
| Write | written | wrote |
A glance at these conjugations is sufficient to show several general tendencies, some of them going back, in their essence, to the earliest days of the English language. The most obvious is that leading to the transfer of verbs from the so-called strong conjugation to the weak—a change already in operation before the Norman Conquest, and very marked during the Middle English period. Chaucer used growed for grew in the prologue to "The Wife of Bath's Tale," and rised for rose and smited for smote are in John Purvey's edition of the Bible, circa 1385.[40] Many of these transformations were afterward abandoned, but a large number survived, for example, climbed for clomb as the preterite of to climb, and melted for molt as the preterite of to melt. Others showed themselves during the early part of the Modern English period. Comed as the perfect participle of to come and digged as the preterite of to dig are both in Shakespeare, and the latter is also in Milton and in the Authorized Version of the Bible. This tendency went furthest, of course, in the vulgar speech, and it has been embalmed in the English dialects. I seen and I knowed, for example, are common to many of them. But during the seventeenth century it seems to have been arrested, and even to have given way to a contrary tendency—that is, toward strong conjugations. The English of Ireland, which preserves many seventeenth century forms, shows this plainly. Ped for paid, gother for gathered, and ruz for raised are still in use there, and Joyce says flatly that the Irish, "retaining the old English custom [i. e., the custom of the period of Cromwell's invasion, circa 1650], have a leaning toward the strong inflection."[41] Certain verb forms of the American colonial period, now reduced to the estate of localisms, are also probably survivors of the seventeenth century.