American Language (93 page)

115
Modern English; New York, 1910, p. 300.

116
Troublesome Relatives,
American Speech
, June, 1931.

117
A New English Grammar, Pt. I, P. 339.

118
History of the English Language, revised ed.; New York, 1894, P. 274–5. There is an elaborate historical account of the process in Case-Shiftings in the Pronouns, in Chapters on English, by Otto Jespersen; London, 1918.

119
Modern English, before cited, pp. 288–9.

120
These authorities include Sayce, Sweet, Ellis, Jespersen and the Fowlers, and in America, Whitney, Barrett Wendell, Lounsbury and Oliver F. Emerson. Their remarks on the subject are summarized by Wallace Rice in Who’s There? —
Me, American Speech
, Oct., 1933. George H. McKnight, in Modern English in the Making; New York, 1928, pp. 532–33, cites many examples of
it’s me
from modern English writers, including Laurence Housman, May Sinclair, Anne Douglas Sedgwick, Joseph Conrad and St. John Ervine. He also cites examples of
it’s her
from J. Middleton Murry and A. A. Milne, of
it’s him
from J. W. Croker, James Stephens and A. S. M. Hutchinson, and of
it’s us
from Hutchinson. The committee of judges appointed in 1926 by the National Council of Teachers of English approved
it’s me
by a vote of 130 to 91. Rather significantly, the business men on the committee turned out to be far more conservative than the authors, editors, linguists and teachers. They voted against it 18 to 5. In 1921 it was formally approved by the late Edward J. Tobin, then superintendent of schools of Cook county, Ill. (
i.e.
, of Chicago), and in 1926 it got the imprimatur of the College Entrance Examination Board. See
American Speech
, Dec., 1926, p. 163. The Tobin pronunciamento was discussed all over the country for weeks. The analogous French form,
c’est moi
, was denounced by Petrus Ramus in his French grammar, 1562. But in a later edition, 1572, he admitted it, saying, “To rob our language of such expressions would be like drawing a sword against all France.” See McKnight, cited above, p. 222.

121
A New English Grammar, Pt. I, p. 341.

122
It may be worth noting that the archaic misuse of
me
for
my
, as in “I lit
me
pipe,” is almost unknown in American, either standard or vulgar, though a correspondent in Philadelphia tells me that it is a localism in that city, and is sometimes used by elderly persons of Irish birth. Even
“me
own” is seldom heard. This survival of the Middle English pronunciation of
mi
(
my
) is very common in England.

123
The writers of popular songs supply many examples. Sigmund Spaeth, in Stabilizing the Language Through Popular Songs,
New Yorker
, July 7, 1934, cites “Remember I was once a girl like
she
,” “A sweet slice of Heaven for just you and
I
,” and “ ’Twas foolish for
we
two to fight.” In 1924 one Gehring, running for Congress in New York City, circulated a card reading “He thinks like you and
I
.” On June 25, 1925, the Los Angeles
Examiner
printed on its first page a head reading “Silva Says Killing Prompted By Insults at
He
and Buddy.” Sometimes there is a double exchange in case-forms, as in a speech heard by a correspondent in Wyoming: “Between
I
and you,
him
and
her
drinks too much.”

124
A New English Grammar, Pt. I, p. 341.

125
The King’s English, 2nd ed.; Oxford, 1908, p. 63.

126
Here, of course,
kind
is probably-felt to be plural.
Those
is used in the same way, as in “
Those
are the kind.”

127
In 1858 Charles Crozat Converse of Erie, Pa., proposed
thon
for
he-or-she
and
thon’s
for
his-or-her
, but though both are listed in Webster’s New International Dictionary, 1934, they have made no progress. See
English
, Jan., 1920, p. 262.
Thon
is an old Northern English word signifying yonder, now sunk into dialect. The late Ella Flagg Young, the first woman president of the National Education Association, favored
hiser
and
himer
, and tried to induce the association to approve them,
c
. 1910. Mr. James F. Morton of Paterson, N. J., has proposed
hesh
for
he-and-she
, and some one else has proposed
heer
for
him-and-her
. Mr. Lincoln King of Primghar, Iowa, advocates
ha, hez
and
hem
in the nominative, genitive and objective respectively. Another reformer, this time anonymous (The Post Impressionist, Washington
Post
, Aug. 20, 1935) proposes
hes, hir
and
hem
. In Thought and Language; London, 1934, p. 7, P. B. Ballard tells of a female revolutionist in England who complained that “while the masculine personal pronoun had three distinct forms,
he, his
and
him
, for the separate cases of the singular, the feminine pronoun had only two,
she
and
her
,” and “suggested as a remedy for this gross piece of injustice that the feminine pronoun should be declined
she, shis
and
shim
” English, of course, also suffers from the lack of a word corresponding to the German
geschwister
, meaning brothers and/or sisters. The biologists use
siblings
, but it has not come into general use.

128
Congressional Record
, Feb. 27, 1935, p. 2784.

129
The speech was made in New York City, Sept. 27, 1918.

130
Parts of Speech and Accidence; Boston, 1935, p. 47.

131
The history of such forms is recounted in The English Group Genitive, by Otto Jespersen, printed in his Chapters On English; London, 1918.

132
This occasionally gets into print. See South American Travels, by Henry Stephens; New York, 1915, p. 114. It is also used by Ezra Pound in his translation of Remy de Gour-mont’s The Natural Philosophy of Love; New York, 1922.

133
“The
tactic
in Japan has always been,” etc. Law and Order in Japan, by Harry F. Ward, New York
Nation
, Sept. 9, 1925, p. 289.

134
Folk-Etymological Singulars, by Wilbur Gaffney, Dec., 1927, p. 130.

135
Some Singular-Plural Forms,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Pt. I, 1913, p. 48.

136
Dialect Notes
, Vol. I, Pt. VIII, 1895, p. 376.

137
For this headline from the Oxford
Public Ledger
, Jan. 15, 1934, I am indebted to Mrs. B. K. Hays of Oxford: “Hunting License Bring in $85,000.”
License
appeared as a plural in a syndicated cartoon by J. N. Darling (Ding), Feb. 4, 1936.

138
The following admonition is from the
Baptist and Commoner
(Little Rock, Ark.), Jan. 2, 1928: “Will the brethren never learn that when more than one Baptist is meant they should say
Baptists
, not
Bap-
tist
. Over and over again they write like this: ‘The
Baptist
believe,’ or ‘The
Baptist
in these parts,’ etc. Which one of the Baptists do you mean, brother, when you say the
Baptist?
You never hear any one saying the
Methodist
believe and the
Methodist
in these parts. When they mean more than one Methodist they say
Methodists
. Why, then, say
Baptist
when you mean
Baptists
, that is, more than one?”

139
Mr. Blanton,
Congressional Record
, April 3, 1935, p. 5103.

140
Her World, by Lucile, San Francisco
News
, April 1, 1924.

141
The Grammar of the Ozark Dialect,
American Speech
, Oct., 1927, p. 8.

142
To which, perhaps, may be added
furtherest
, which appeared in a Chicago dispatch on the first page of the San Francisco
Chronicle
, Feb. 2, 1922.

143
Notes on the Vernacular,
American Mercury
, Oct., 1924, p. 235.

144
See
Nifty, Hefty, Natty, Snappy
, by Klara H. Collitz,
American Speech
, Dec., 1927, and Observations on
Nifty, Hefty, Natty
, Snappy, by Henry J. Heck, the same, Oct., 1928. Mrs. Collitz tries to determine the etymology of the words she discusses, and Mr. Heck shows how they are defined in various dictionaries, including two German ones and one Italian one.

145
See Vogue Affixes in Present-Day Word-Coinage, by Louise Pound,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. V, Pt. I, 1918.

146
The Speech of a Child Two Years of Age,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Pt. II, 1914.

147
The case for it is stated with great eloquence by Wallace Rice in Go
Slow —
Proceed
Slowly, American Speech
, Sept., 1927. He cites a number of impeccable authorities in support of it. They agree, he shows, that the shortened form is usually good idiom whenever the adverb is stressed. “He is dying
slowly
” is sound, but so too is “How
slow
he dies.” Thus
go slow
is justified, and so is
get-rich-quick. Get-rich-quickly
would sound feeble and banal.

148
I have, however, noted “here
late
” for “here
lately
.” But it is obviously derived from “here
of late
” The use of
real
, as in
real nice, real smart, real good
, etc., is an exception. But the American Legionary distinguishes between
real nice
and
really true
. He never says, “I
real
seen him.”

149
That there is logical and historical justification for this is demonstrated by Robert C. Pooley in
Real
and
Sure
as Adverbs,
American Speech
, Feb., 1933. “No one,” says Mr. Pooley, “ever says ‘I will write
really
soon.’ We may say ’I will write soon,
really
,” or ‘I will
really
write soon,’ but never ’ I will write
really
soon.’ It simply isn’t English, grammar and grammarians notwithstanding.”

150
Dr. Josiah Combs reports that in the Southern mountains
-ly
is sometimes added to adverbs which lack it in Standard English,
e.g., ever
, as in “It has
everly
been the custom.” But he adds: “This usage is rare, and is confined usually to Primitive Baptist syntax, when the preacher strikes an attitude, and attempts to place his language on stilts.” See
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Pt. IV, 1916, p. 288. In another paper (Language of the Southern Highlands,
Publications of the Modern Language Association
, Dec., 1931), Combs reports the use of adverbs as adjectives, as in “I’m as
gaily
as a girl” and “He feels
weakly.
” This, of course, is nothing new in English:
poorly
has been used as an adjective, according to the Oxford Dictionary, since the Sixteenth Century.

151
See Grammar and Usage in Textbooks on English, by Robert C. Pooley; Madison, Wis., 1933, p. 136.

152
A New English Grammar, Pt. I, pp. 437–8.

153
Mr. Withrow of Wisconsin, March 28, 1935, p. 4881.

154
For some examples see The King’s English, by H. W. and F. G. Fowler, 2nd ed.; Oxford, 1908, p. 321
jf
.

155
Oct. 1, 1864.

156
I take this, not from the
Congressional Record
, but from Noah Webster’s Dissertations on the English Language; Boston, 1789, Pt. II, p. 150.

157
Old, Early and Elizabethan English,
Dialect Notes
, Vol. IV, Pt. IV, 1916, p. 284.

158
New York
Times
, Aug. 20, 1934.

159
At all
is often displaced by
any
or
none
, as “He don’t love her
any
,” and “It didn’t hurt me
none
.”

160
Parts of Speech and Accidence; Boston, 1935, p. v.

161
The Psycho-Biology of Language; Boston, 1935.

162
My files show only one published article on the subject, and that one is by a layman. He is Hugh Mearns, and his article, Our Own, Our Native Speech, was published in
Mc-Clure’s Magazine
, Oct., 1916. Some rather elaborate investigations of liaison have been made by Mr. Harry Gwynn Morehouse, but they remain, I believe, unpublished. It is, of course, discussed incidentally in many treatises on American.