Where an obvious logical or lexical distinction has grown up between an adverb and its primary adjective the unschooled American is very careful to give it its terminal -ly. For example, he seldom confuses hard and hardly, scarce and scarcely, real and really. These words convey different ideas. Hard means unyielding; hardly means barely. Scarce means present only in small numbers; scarcely is substantially synonymous with hardly. Real means genuine; really is an assurance of veracity. So, again, with late and lately. Thus, an American says "I don't know, scarcely," not "I don't know, scarce"; "he died lately," not "he died late." But in nearly all such cases syntax is the preservative, not grammar. These adverbs seem to keep their tails largely because they are commonly put before and not after verbs, as in, for example, "I hardly (or scarcely) know," and "I really mean it." Many other adverbs that take that position habitually are saved as well, for example, generally, usually, surely, certainly. But when they follow verbs they often succumb, as in "I'll do it sure" and "I seen him recent." And when they modify adjectives they sometimes succumb, too, as in "it was sure hot." Practically all the adverbs made of adjectives in -y lose the terminal -ly and thus become identical with their adjectives. I have never heard mightily used; it is always mighty, as in "he hit him mighty hard." So with filthy, dirty, nasty, lowly, naughty and their cognates. One hears "he acted dirty," "he spoke nasty," "the child behaved naughty," and so on. Here even standard English has had to make concessions to euphony. Cleanlily is seldom used;, cleanly nearly always takes its place. And the use of illy is confined to pedants.
Vulgar American, like all the higher forms of American and all save the most precise form of written English, has abandoned the old inflections of here, there and where, to wit, hither and hence, thither and thence, whither and whence. These fossil remains of dead cases are fast disappearing from the language. [Pg229] In the case of hither (=to here) even the preposition has been abandoned. One says, not "I came to here," but simply "I came here." In the case of hence, however, from here is still used, and so with from there and from where. Finally, it goes without saying that the common American tendency to add -s to such adverbs as towards is carried to full length in the vulgar language. One constantly hears, not only somewheres and forwards, but even noways and anyways. Here we have but one more example of the movement toward uniformity and simplicity. Anyways is obviously fully supported by sideways and always.
§ 6
The Noun and Adjective
The adjectives are inflected only for comparison, and the [Pg230] American commonly uses them correctly, with now and then a double comparative or superlative to ease his soul. More better is the commonest of these. It has a good deal of support in logic. A sick man is reported today to be better. Tomorrow he is further improved. Is he to be reported better again, or best? The standard language gets around the difficulty by using still better. The American vulgate boldly employs more better. In the case of worse, worser is used, as Charters shows. He also reports baddest, more queerer and beautifulest. Littler, which he notes, is still outlawed from standard English, but it has, with littlest, a respectable place in American. The late Richard Harding Davis wrote a play called "The Littlest Girl." The American freely compares adjectives that are incapable of the inflection logically. Charters reports most principal, and I myself have heard uniquer and even more uniquer, as in "I have never saw nothing more uniquer." I have also heard more ultra, more worse, idealer, liver (that is, more alive), and wellest, as in "he was the wellest man you ever seen." In general, the -er and -est terminations are used instead of the more and most prefixes, as in beautiful, beautifuller, beautifullest. The fact that the comparative relates to two and the superlative to more than two is almost always forgotten. I have never heard "the better of the two," but always "the best of the two." Charters also reports "the hardest of the two" and "my brother and I measured and he was the tallest." I have frequently heard "it ain't so worse," but here a humorous effect seems to have been intended.
Adjectives are made much less rapidly in American than either substantives or verbs. The only suffix that seems to be in general use for that purpose is -y, as in tony, classy, daffy, nutty, dinky, leery, etc. The use of the adjectival prefix super- is confined to the more sophisticated classes; the plain people seem to be unaware of it.[71] This relative paucity of adjectives appears to be common to the more primitive varieties of speech. E. J. [Pg231] Hills, in his elaborate study of the vocabulary of a child of two,[72] found that it contained but 23 descriptive adjectives, of which six were the names of colors, as against 59 verbs and 173 common nouns. Moreover, most of the 23 minus six were adjectives of all work, such as nasty, funny and nice. Colloquial American uses the same rubber-stamps of speech. Funny connotes the whole range of the unusual; hard indicates every shade of difficulty; nice is everything satisfactory; bully is a superlative of almost limitless scope.
The decay of one to a vague n-sound, as in this'n, is matched by a decay of than after comparatives. Earlier than is seldom if ever heard; composition reduces the two words to earlier'n. So with better'n, faster'n, hotter'n, deader'n, etc. Once I overheard the following dialogue: "I like a belt more looser'n what this one is." "Well, then, why don't you unloosen it more'n you got it unloosened?"
§ 7
The Double Negative
Like most other examples of "bad grammar" encountered in American the compound negative is of great antiquity and was once quite respectable. The student of Anglo-Saxon encounters it constantly. In that language the negative of the verb was formed by prefixing a particle, ne. Thus, singan (=to sing) became ne singan (=not to sing). In case the verb began with a vowel the ne dropped its e and was combined with the verb, as in naefre (never), from ne-aefre (=not ever). In case the verb began with an h or a w followed by a vowel, the h or w of the verb and the e of ne were both dropped, as in naefth (=has not), from ne-haefth (=not has), and nolde (=would not), from ne-wolde. Finally, in case the vowel following a w was an i, it changed to y, as in nyste (=knew not), from ne-wiste. But inasmuch as Anglo-Saxon was a fully inflected language the inflections for the negative did not stop with the verbs; the indefinite article, the indefinite pronoun and even some of the nouns were also inflected, and survivors of those forms appear to this day in such words as none and nothing. Moreover, when an actual inflection was impossible it was the practise to insert this ne before a word, in the sense of our no or not. Still more, it came to be the practise to reinforce ne, before a vowel, with nā (=not) or naht (=nothing), which later degenerated to nat and not. As a result, there were fearful and wonderful combinations of negatives, some of them fully matching the best efforts of Lardner's baseball player. Sweet [Pg233] gives several curious examples.[73] "Nān ne dorste nān thing āscian," translated literally, becomes "no one dares not ask nothing." "Thaet hus nā ne feoll" becomes "the house did not fall not." As for the Middle English "he never nadde nothing," it has too modern and familiar a ring to need translating at all. Chaucer, at the beginning of the period of transition to Modern English, used the double negative with the utmost freedom. In "The Knight's Tale" is this: