H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
Page 293
| Thus, yourn, hern, hisn, ourn and theirn, whatever their present offense to grammarians, are of a genealogy quite as respectable as that of yours, hers, his, ours and theirs. Both forms represent a doubling of inflections, and hence grammatical debasement. On the side of the yours-form is the standard usage of the past five hundred years, but on the side of the yourn-form there is no little force of analogy and logic, as appears on turning to mine and thine. In Anglo-Saxon, as we have seen, my was min; in the same way thy was thin. During the decadence of the language the final n was dropped in both cases before nouns—that is, in the conjoint form—but it was retained in the absolute form. This usage survives to our own day. One says “my book,” but “the book is mine”; “thy faith,” but “I am thine.” 73 Also, one says “no matter,” but “I have none.” Without question this retention of the n in these pronouns had something to do with the appearance of the n-declension in the treatment of your, her, his and our, and, after their had displaced here in the third person plural, in their. And equally without question it supports the vulgar American usage today. 74 What that usage shows is simply the strong popular tendency to make language as simple and as regular as possible—to abolish subtleties and exceptions. The difference between “his book” and “the book is his’n” is exactly that between my and mine, thy and thine, in the examples just given. “Perhaps it would have been better,” says Bradley, “if the literary language had accepted hisn, but from some cause it did not do so.” 75 |
| As for the addition of s to you in the nominative and objective |