Everlastingly

This adverb is misused in the South in a manner that is very apt to excite the risibility of one to whom the peculiar misuse is new. The writer recently visited the upper part of New York with a distinguished Southern poet and journalist. It was the gentleman's first ride over an elevated road. When we were fairly under way, in admiration of the rate of speed at which the cars were moving, he exclaimed, "Well, they do just everlastingly shoot along, don't they!" Every. This word, which means simply each or all taken separately, is of late years frequently made, by slipshod speakers, to do duty for perfect, entire, great, or all po ible. Thus we have such expre ions as every pains, every confidence, every praise, every charity, and so on. We also have such diction as, " Every one has this in common"; meaning, " All of us have this in common."