Date: Mon, 28 Oct 1996 18:10:55 -0500

From: Mark Mandel Mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]DRAGONSYS.COM

Subject: "don't" with 3rd-sg subj (was: NO TICKEE, NO SHIRTEE



antedate)



An early citation posted by Barry Popik re "no tickee, no shirtee!"

raises a different question. "... even if Mayor Grace don't veto it

..." clanged hard on my sense of register as a harsh nonstandard

intrusion in what was otherwise a literate though colloquial style of

writing (more evident in the full citation than in the single

sentence I have copied below). Is this usage actually as inconsistent

as it seems to me 110 years later, or is it really typical of the

source and consistent in its time and place?



Mark A. Mandel : mark[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dragonsys.com

Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200

320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/



Barry A. Popik Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 10/27/96, 02:57pm

This is from The Brooklyn Times, 29 July 1886, pg. 2, col. 2:



Of course such an ordinance won't hold water if any Chinaman has

gumption enough to make a test case of it even if Mayor Grace don't

veto it which he doubtless will.