In many cases a weak preterite supplants the proper strong one: div, driv, fit, gi'n or give, rid, riv, riz, writ, done, run, seen or seed, blowed, crowed, drawed, growed, knowed, throwed.

There are many corrupt forms of the verb, such as gwine for gone or going, mought (mowt) for might, dim, het, ort or orter, wed (weeded), war (was or were--the _a_ as in far), shun (shone), cotch (in all tenses) or cotched, fotch or fotched, borned, hurted, dremp.

Our Southern Highlanders — Part 128

Peculiar adjectives are formed from verbs. "Chair-bottoming is easy settin'-down work." "When my youngest was a leetle set-along child" (interpreted as "settin' along the floor"). "That Thunderhead is the torndowndest place!" "Them's the travellinest hosses ever I seed." "She's the workinest woman!" "Jim is the disablest one o' the fam'ly." "Damn this fotch-on kraut that comes in tin cans!"

Our Southern Highlanders — Part 128

A verb may serve as an adverb: "If I'd a-been thoughted enough." An adverb may be used as an adjective: "I hope the folks with you is gaily" (well). An adjective can serve as an adverb: "He laughed master." Sometimes a conjunction is employed as a preposition: "We have oblige to take care on him."

Our Southern Highlanders — Part 128

These are not mere blunders of individual illiterates, but usages common throughout the mountains, and hence real dialect.

The ancient syllabic plural is preserved in beasties (horses), nesties, posties, trousies (these are not diminutives), and in that strange word dummerunses that I cited before.

Pleonasms are abundant. "I done done it" (have done it or did do it). "Durin' the while." "In this day and time." "I thought it would surely, undoubtedly turn cold." "A small, little bitty hole." "Jane's a tol'able big, large, fleshy woman." "I ginerally, usually take a dram mornin's." "These ridges is might' nigh straight up and down, and, as the feller said, perpendic'lar."

Everywhere in the mountains we hear of biscuit-bread, ham-meat, rifle-gun, rock-clift, ridin'-critter, cow-brute, man-person, women-folks, preacher-man, granny-woman and neighbor-people. In this category belong the famous double-barreled pronouns: we-all and you-all in Kentucky, we-uns and you-uns in Carolina and Tennessee. (I have even heard such locution as this: "Let's we-uns all go over to youerunses house.") Such usages are regarded generally as mere barbarisms, and so they are in English, but Miss Murfree cites correlatives in the Romance languages: French _nous autres_, Italian _noi altri_, Spanish _nosotros_.