Hills, in his elaborate study of the vocabulary of a child of two,[1] 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 w-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—Syntactically, perhaps the chief characteristic of vulgar American is its sturdy fidelity to the double negative. So freely is it used, indeed, that the simple negative appears to be almost abandoned. Such phrases as "I see nobody" or "I know nothing about it" are heard so seldom that they appear to be affectations when encountered; the well-nigh universal forms are "I don't see nobody" and "I don't know nothing about it." Charters lists some very typical examples, among them, "he ain't never coming back no more," "you don't care for nobody but yourself," "couldn't be no more happier" and "I can't see nothing." In Lardner there are innumerable examples: "they was not no team," "I have not never thought of that," "I can't write no more," "no chance to get no money from nowhere," "we can't have nothing to do," and so on. Some of his specimens show a considerable complexity, for ex-
- ↑ The Speech of a Child Two Years of Age, Dialect Notes, vol. iv, pt. ii, 1914.
