In fact, Lincoln never completely overcame his primitive linguistic background. Even in his presidential years his speech betrayed his frontier roots. He began his celebrated 1860 Cooper Union speech by saying, “Mr. Cheerman.” As president he said “unly” for “only,” “own” for “one,” “waal” for “well,” “thar” for “there,” “was” for “were,” “git” for “get,” “ye” for “you,” “rare” for “rear,” and “one on ’em” for “one of them.” George Templeton Strong, who recorded some of these Hoosierisms, called the president’s grammar “weak” and deemed him “a barbarian, Scythian, yahoo, or gorilla, in respect of outside polish.” Strong heard Lincoln say, “me and the Attorney General’s very chicken-hearted!” In his antebellum career as a lawyer, he used “ain’t” freely, greeting friends in court with a jocular: “Ain’t you glad to see me?” or “Ain’t you glad I come?” During his famous 1858 debates with Stephen A. Douglas, he one day asked: “Ain’t Hitt here?” When a magician at the White House asked for the president’s handkerchief, Lincoln replied, “You’ve got me now, I ain’t got any.” He said of a supposed relative, “She ain’t my cousin, but she thinks she is.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
(echo:: @ ⌗)