“Then Jephthah assembled all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim. The men of Gilead struck Ephraim down, for they had said, “You Gileadites are fugitives in Ephraim, living in Ephraim and Manasseh.” Gilead captured the fords of the Jordan River leading to Ephraim. Whenever an Ephraimite fugitive would say, “Let me cross,” the Gileadite men would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said,“No,” then they would say to him, “Say, ‘Shibboleth’!” Yet he would say,“Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it correctly. Then they would grab him and kill him at the Jordanfords. During that time forty-two thousand from Ephraim fell.”
–Judges12:4-6, Holy Bible, Modern English Version
In this passage, the Ephraimites were easily identified in one small way—they said the same thing as their enemies in a slightly different way.Unlike the Ephraimites, we may never face certain death for our regional dialect or pronunciation of a specific word. However, certain English speakers will face censure in other ways. Is there anything more frustrating than being stopped mid-sentence to be flagged for “bad grammar”?
English is a complex and rich language, spoken in several dialects all around the world. There’s more to the story of a dialect or usage than that the speaker(s) i s simply corrupting the “proper” form. There’s an etymology behind all words. There are many misunderstood expressions in the English language. They are not simply“bad” English, but come from dialects that make up a small portion underneath avast English umbrella.
1. “Ax” instead of “ask”
It’s not commonly held knowledge that the pronunciation of “ax” for “ask” isn’t due to a lack of education, but rather, has more to do with the etymology of the word’s pronunciation. It’s simply a very old pronunciation of a very old word.
According to the American Dialect Society’s Jesse Sheidlower “ax” goes back some 1,200 years. Canterbury Tales author Geoffrey Chaucer was a notable “ax”er.”The pronunciation derives from the Old English verb “acsian.” . . .It’s in the first complete English translation of the Bible (the Coverdale Bible): ‘Axe and it shall be given.’”Sheidlower adds, “The people who use the ax pronunciation are using the pronunciation that has been handed down, in an unbroken form, for a thousand years.”(https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/03/248515217/why-chaucer-said-ax-instead-of-ask-and-why-some-still-do)
2. “Could care less”
There are many theories about its origin (and possibly Yiddish connections) in addition to the generally accepted one that speakers are misusing the phrase “I couldn’t care less”. Writer Mark Israel cites this history of the term: “The idiom “couldn’t care less”, meaning”doesn’t care at all”(the meaning in full is “cares so little that he couldn’t possibly care less”), originated in Britain around 1940. “Could care less”, which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around 1960.” Israel posits that it could simply be a shortened form of “”As if I could care less!” Whether or not this theory actually has merit, it should be noted that the Oxford English Dictionary cites “I could care less” as an American colloquialism. (https://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxcouldc.html)
3.“Reckon”
Not just spoken by backwards rednecks or in some old western movie, “reckon” is spoken by English users the world over. A person coming from rural Alabama could have a great deal in common, linguistically, with a speaker from the UK, South Africa, New Zealand, or Australia. In 1300, “reckon” meant “to make a computation” and had similarities with German and Dutch. Though it seems to be declining in use in the U.S., it’s hanging tough worldwide.
4.“I seen”
In his column “The Oxford Etymologist”, author Anatoly Liberman posits that the use of it in Southern English probably has Scottish or Irish origins, but that this theory is hard to prove. “This tense developed in the full light of history, and the development did not follow a straight line.Several auxiliaries have been tried, and sometimes the participle was considered sufficient for the form. Irish English seems to have been particularly radical in that respect. We probably owe the I been/seen/done construction to it. It was exported to America and became more widely used there than in the old country, but the virtual absence of pre-nineteenth attestation remains a mystery”(https://blog.oup.com/2012/08/omit-auxiliary-help-verb-english/)
5.“Might could” (and other double modals)
This is another dialectal feature that is thought to exist only in Southern American English, but that assumption is wrong. Linguistics enthusiast and blogger Ryan Denzer-King writes:“For a long time I thought this construction was limited to the South, but I have since learned that there are other areas of the country featuring double modals, including Michigan.”He states that the use of them is often stigmatized by the branch of linguists who want to elevate one dialect or English variety over another. Also, he posits that because double modals aren’t spoken in California or the Northeast, that they don’t receive a lot of attention in linguistic literature.(https://linguistlessons.blogspot.com/2010/09/double-modals.html)
6. Double negatives
Double negatives are common in many world languages as well as several modern day dialects of English.They weren’t especially prevalent in writing during the time of Shakespeare (though they appeared from time to time), nor are they today. However, double negatives, used to have a place of honor in English writing.
According to British Linguist Richard Ingham in Old English, there were several different dialects. One dialect which was considered the “correct” dialect of the day (West Saxon) used “double negatives”. Ingham writes “I came across some beautiful examples of people actually`correcting’ single negation to double negation at that time!”(Don’t never say never: Double negatives were once common, The Chicago Tribune,November 8, 2006)
7.“I be”
This use in the African American Vernacular English dialect has a specific name—“habitual be”. There are many theories about the origin of AAVE, but at present they mostly remain inconclusive. One common theme is that is a sort of pidgin that combines elements of West-African language rules with English.
“I be” is great fodder for ridicule, unfortunately. Perhaps it is simply from a West African verb form that English didn’t originally have.“Do you speak American?”, an AAVE (AAE) teaching curriculum,posits “People who use this feature do not use it in all sentences with the be verb, and they do not suffer from a lack of ability to conjugate be. Rather, uninflected be is used only to refer to habitual or regularly occurring actions. In other types of sentences, speakers of AAE will use inflected be or no be at all, as in ‘We’re playing basketball right now’ or ‘We playing basketball’ right now. Note that standard English does not have a special form of the be verb to indicate habituality. It uses an adverb or adverbal phrase with the verb to indicate the meaning (We usually play basketball; She often works late).”
8.“True dat”
Here is yet another AAVE feature that gets a bum rap. If we go back to the theory of AAVE formation, we find that West African languages don’t possess “th” sounds. So, in the formation of AAVE, we got phrases like “True dat” for“true that” or “Da man” for “the man”
9. Using “them” instead of “those”
It might be equated as being strictly Southern, but in all honesty, it can be heard across the country.
It’s also quite common in Canadian English.
It is spoken in British English dialects to this day. Some theorize that it has a connection with the use of “me” vs.“my” as a possessive pronoun. This is a construction that is used in the“educated” areas of the country—Cambridge and Oxford—as well as others.
10.“Would of/should of/could of” instead of “would’ve/should’ve/could’ve”
According to University of Cambridge’s Mark J. Jones (Departmentof Linguistics), these constructions are common across many English speaking dialects. He posits that the reason for this is because of changes in the way the endings of “would’ve/should’ve/could’ve” sounded.He has some misgivings as to whether or not this is the reason for the constructions’ evolution. If that had been the case, it would have only happened regionally.However, there is a stronger case for that argument as it relates to North American English. They “may be easier to identify as definite cases of stressed OF.”(https://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-1861.html)
There’s much to be said about language and its etymology and significance. Speech can separate us from our enemies (as in the case of the Ephraimites). Speech can unite us with our peers. Speech can offer us solidarity with our culture and upbringing. When trying to find the appropriate form for the appropriate time—speech can be a headache.
For those of us who feel uneasy in keeping up with what is proper or improper speech, there might be solace in the words of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund. “I am the king of the Romans and therefore am above grammar.”