Non-standard English: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Getting to grips with unusual English writing
Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she
wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean, and I must try
not to do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down
on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering
about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone,
you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had
some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right,
because she done it herself.
Her sister Miss Watson, a tolerable, slim old maid, with goggles on,
had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spellingbook. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow
made her ease up. I couldn’t stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was
deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, “Don’t put your feet
up there, Huckleberry;” and “Don’t scrunch up like that, Huckleberry – set
up straight;” and pretty soon she would say, “Don’t gap and stretch like that,
Huckleberry – why don’t you try to behave?” Then she told me all about the
bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn’t
mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a
change, I warn’t particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said
she wouldn’t say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to
the good place. Well, I couldn’t see no advantage in going where she was
going, so I made up my mind I wouldn’t try for it. But I never said so,
because it would only make trouble, and wouldn’t do no good.
From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
1. What does Huckleberry want to do at the start of the passage?
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2. What are Huckleberry’s views on smoking?
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3. Why does Twain refer to the widow using snuff? (paragraph 1)
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4. In your own words, explain what the widow thinks about smoking.
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5. Which word suggests that Huckleberry is accepting of Miss Watson at first?
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6. What does Huckleberry mean when he says that Moses was ‘no kin to her’? (paragraph 1)
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7. What is Huckleberry learning about with Miss Watson?
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8. Give the correct version of ‘warn’t’. (paragraph 2)
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9. What’s wrong with the phrase ‘don’t know nothing about it’? (paragraph 1)
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10. What do you think Huckleberry feels about Miss Watson? Give evidence.
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