Hell in American Speech

Abstract

WE have come far from the day when bold people spoke of the infernal realm as Hades, timid ones, as the other place, and Mark Twain invented the facetious euphemism hot as the hereafter. Today hell fills so large a place in the American vulgate that it will probably be worn out in a few years more, and will become obsolescent. Clerical circles should take it upon themselves, as a public duty, to invest some other theological term with a shuddering fearsomeness that will qualify it as the successor to hell, when the lamentable decease of the latter actually takes place. From the original noun have developed verbal, adjectival, and interjectional uses, and if we count its use in phrases, adverbial. The latter is, perhaps, the most frequent use. For instance, it is used, in phrases, as the equivalent of negative adverbs, and as an intensifier of negative adverbs. The hell you say! (= You don't say!) Like hell I will! (or) I will like hell! (= I will not!) Among other adverbial expressions, a common one is the as-than hell combination. It is used with such adjectives as pleased, mad (i. e., angry), peeved, hot, cold, busy, wild, black, and others, sometimes in the positive degree and sometimes in the comparative. It's colder'n hell on them prairies. You're crazier'n hell, Kid. (= You are mistaken.) That White Center pitcher is wild as hell to-day. The phrase like hell, previously mentioned, serves in a similar adverbial capacity in such forms as: Run like hell, or he'll ketch yuh. I hate like hell to do this.