Stella, I knew I loved you, but Damon Runyon, be still my heart *smile*. I am one of the few people under about 75 who know Runyon and loved his stories, they were often my good night stories as a kid......Runyon was often accused of gold plating villains, because so many of his characters were based on real people, some of whom were not so nice. The irony of Runyon is that these tough, some nasty people, can do the right thing or good things, often without knowing it, while the good people, especially the bankers and such, don't.....
My favorite? Hottest guy in the world, after Big Jules shoots the gorilla that has taken a baby and is on top of a building, that saves the babies life, and he find out it is his hated cop nemesis baby, tells him "well, copper, it wasn't so easy, and I am not surprised to find out he is your kid, for to tell the truth, I have a had time telling the baby from the monk"
. It's merely an observation that a)intelligence has nothing to do with education and b) that people who are very well-read tend to have good grammar. The examples that you have brought up is more linguistic patterns than grammar. It's almost a separate dialect.
