Where an obvious logical or lexical distinction has grown up between an adverb and its primary adjective the unschooled American is very careful to give it its terminal /-ly/. For example, he seldom confuses /hard/ and /hardly/, /scarce/ and /scarcely/, /real/ and /really/. These words convey different ideas. /Hard/ means unyielding; /hardly/ means barely. /Scarce/ means present only in small numbers; /scarcely/ is substantially synonymous with /hardly/. /Real/ means genuine; /really/ is an assurance of veracity. So, again, with /late/ and /lately/. Thus, an American says "I don't know, /scarcely/," not "I don't know, /scarce/"; "he died /lately/," not "he died /late/." But in nearly all such cases syntax is the preservative, not grammar. These adverbs seem to keep their tails largely because they are commonly put before and not after verbs, as in, for example, "I /hardly/ (or /scarcely/) know," and "I /really/ mean it." Many other adverbs that take that position habitually are saved as well, for example, /generally/, /usually/, /surely/, /certainly/. But when they follow verbs they often succumb, as in "I'll do it /sure/" and "I seen him /recent/." And when they modify adjectives they sometimes succumb, too, as in "it was /sure/ hot." Practically all the adverbs made of adjectives in /-y/ lose the terminal /-ly/ and thus become identical with their adjectives. I have never heard /mightily/ used; it is always /mighty/, as in "he hit him /mighty/ hard." So with /filthy/, /dirty/, /nasty/, /lowly/, /naughty/ and their cognates. One hears "he acted /dirty/," "he spoke /nasty/," "the child behaved /naughty/," and so on. Here even standard English has had to make concessions to euphony. /Cleanlily/ is seldom used;, /cleanly/ nearly always takes its place. And the use of /illy/ is confined to pedants.
Vulgar American, like all the higher forms of American and all save the most precise form of written English, has abandoned the old inflections of /here/, /there/ and /where/, to wit, /hither/ and /hence/, /thither/ and /thence/, /whither/ and /whence/. These fossil remains of dead cases are fast disappearing from the language. [Pg229] In the case of /hither/ (=/to here/) even the preposition has been abandoned. One says, not "I came /to here/," but simply "I came /here/." In the case of /hence/, however, /from here/ is still used, and so with /from there/ and /from where/. Finally, it goes without saying that the common American tendency to add /-s/ to such adverbs as /towards/ is carried to full length in the vulgar language. One constantly hears, not only /somewheres/ and /forwards/, but even /noways/ and /anyways/. Here we have but one more example of the movement toward uniformity and simplicity. /Anyways/ is obviously fully supported by /sideways/ and /always/.