Off-Topic: The American Verb

By John Derbyshire on October 25, 2013 at 12:10pm

Pursuant to my TakiMag column on language, a reader reminds me that while Hungarian may have 35 noun cases to our two, English makes the verbs work harder. 

We even have some entirely American tenses:

the imperfect reparative:  “I’m fixin’ to . . .”

the athletic nostalgic:  “I used ta could . . .”

and my favorite, peculiar to the Southeast I think:

the ascending additive:  “He up and . . .”

USA!  USA!