MSGID: 2:221/6.0 5d250ff0   
   REPLY: 1:153/716.0 d22bd110   
   PID: JamNNTPd/Cygwin32 1.3 20190208   
   CHRS: IBMPC 2   
   TZUTC: 0300   
   TID: hpt/w32-mvc 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   Ardith Hinton:   
      
   AH> When  I  say  "ain't  nobody  here  but  us chickens" in   
   AH> response to a query from  somebody  who  needs  help  in   
   AH> deciding  whether  or  not  to abandon the XYZ echo as a   
   AH> lost cause, I'm making a bit  of  friendly  noise  in  a   
   AH> jocular  fashion  to let them know I'm still reading the   
   AH> echo even if I don't write very often.   
      
   I ain't got no objections.   
      
   AH> I think  Alexander  knows  I  wouldn't  recommend  using   
   AH> "ain't" or "wanna" on a grade twelve English exam... but   
   AH> he's read widely enough to be aware of their existence.   
      
   He probably is, but I found his usage  somehow  out-of-place   
   in  our  discussion.   It  jarred  my  ear.  Of course, that   
   feeling was entirely subjective, but I couldn't help it.   
      
   AH> I hear the above in many popular songs from the US.   
      
   So do I, for I  love  first-wave  R&B  and  listen  to  such   
   singers  as  Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis (author of "One night   
   of sin"), Lloyd Price, Little Richard,  Chuck  Willis,  Ruth   
   Brown,  Lavern Baker, Ella Johnson (with her brother Buddy's   
   orchestra), Etta James, Big Mama  Thornton  (whose  original   
   version of "Hound dog" makes Elvis's a weak parody) and many   
   others.  The Clovers sing:   
      
     There ain't nothing in this world   
     For a boy and a girld   
     But love, love, love.   
      
   Even the white country and rockabilly  singer  Carl  Perkins   
   sings:   
      
     Ain't nothing shaking but the leaves on the trees.   
      
   Here's my friend singing it for me:   
      
   https://soundcloud.com/anton-shepelev/nothing-shaking-cover   
   (oops, he has correcte it to "there is")   
      
   Another  interesting  trend  is inverted verb inflections in   
   person.  Whereas Fats Domino sings  (in  one  verse  out  of   
   three with the phrase) "I wants to walk you home", Roy Brown   
   sings "Love don't love nobody" and The El Dorados sing  "She   
   don't run around."   
      
   When the snobbish Pat Boone (an English major) was recording   
   a watered-down cover of Domino's "Ain't  that  a  shame"  he   
   tried  actually  to  sing  "Isn't  it a shame" but the sound   
   engineer dissuaded him.   
      
   AH> I also note with interest that  our  neighbours  to  the   
   AH> south  tend  to  shorten  the  spelling  of  words  like   
   AH> "cheque" and "neighbour",  in  an  apparent  attempt  to   
   AH> simplify the language.   
      
   Rather,  it is to make those words native to English instead   
   of keeping them immigrants.  See, for example,  paragraph  I   
   (The  Naturalization of Foreign Words) in the third tract by   
   the Society for Pure English:   
      
     http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12390/12390-h/12390-h.htm   
      
   AH> I have requested MODERN AMERICAN USAGE from  the  public   
   AH> library.  :-)   
      
   Make  sure it is the original edition, because even the most   
   zelaus descriptivists agree that later editors betrayed  the   
   dead  Fowler  and ruined his dictionary.  I bought in Moscow   
   and presented to a friend the following reprint of the first   
   edition:   
      
              A Dictionary of Modern English Usage:   
              the Classic First Edition   
              ISBN: 9780199585892   
      
   It seems to preserve even the typesetting of the original.   
      
   But you can have some Fowler for free on Bartleby:   
      
                  https://www.bartleby.com/116/   
                  [King's English]   
      
   which,  to  me,  has  the advantage of being a coherent book   
   instead of a  set  of  disjoined  articles  in  alphabetical   
   order.   Some  topics  merely touched in MEU are expouned in   
   great deatail in "King's English".  The  chapter  on  "will"   
   and  "shall"  is  a  masterpiece  (which I understood upon a   
   fouth re-reading :-).  The usage of "shall" and  "will"  and   
   "should"  and "would" by Agatha Christie and Anthony Hope is   
   now much clearer to me.   
      
   ---   
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