Like most other examples of "bad grammar" encountered in American the compound negative is of great antiquity and was once quite respectable. The student of Anglo-Saxon encounters it constantly. In that language the negative of the verb was formed by prefixing a particle, /ne/. Thus, /singan/ (=/to sing/) became /ne singan/ (=/not to sing/). In case the verb began with a vowel the /ne/ dropped its /e/ and was combined with the verb, as in /naefre/ (never), from /ne-aefre/ (=/not ever/). In case the verb began with an /h/ or a /w/ followed by a vowel, the /h/ or /w/ of the verb and the /e/ of /ne/ were both dropped, as in /naefth/ (=/has not/), from /ne-haefth/ (=/not has/), and /nolde/ (=/would not/), from /ne-wolde/. Finally, in case the vowel following a /w/ was an /i/, it changed to /y/, as in /nyste/ (=/knew not/), from /ne-wiste/. But inasmuch as Anglo-Saxon was a fully inflected language the inflections for the negative did not stop with the verbs; the indefinite article, the indefinite pronoun and even some of the nouns were also inflected, and survivors of those forms appear to this day in such words as /none/ and /nothing/. Moreover, when an actual inflection was impossible it was the practise to insert this /ne/ before a word, in the sense of our /no/ or /not/. Still more, it came to be the practise to reinforce /ne/, before a vowel, with /nā/ (=/not/) or /naht/ (=/nothing/), which later degenerated to /nat/ and /not/. As a result, there were fearful and wonderful combinations of negatives, some of them fully matching the best efforts of Lardner's baseball player. Sweet [Pg233] gives several curious examples.[73] "Nān ne dorste nān thing āscian," translated literally, becomes "/no/ one dares /not/ ask /nothing/." "Thaet hus nā ne feoll" becomes "the house did /not/ fall /not/." As for the Middle English "he /never/ nadde /nothing/," it has too modern and familiar a ring to need translating at all. Chaucer, at the beginning of the period of transition to Modern English, used the double negative with the utmost freedom. In "The Knight's Tale" is this: He /nevere/ yet /no/ vileynye /ne/ sayde In al his lyf unto /no/ maner wight.