H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
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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; wonderful 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?”
The almost universal confusion of liable and likely is to be noted. The former is nearly always used, as in, “he’s liable to be there” and “it ain’t liable to happen.” Likely is reserved for the sense of attractive, as in “a likely candidate.”
8. 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,” “I could hardly walk,” “I know nothing about it” are heard so seldom among the masses of the people that they appear to be affectations when encountered; the well-nigh universal forms are “I don’t see nobody,” “I couldn’t hardly walk,” 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 example, “Matthewson was not only going as far as the coast,” meaning, as the context
