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It's a sentence from "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" after Mark Twain: "I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary".

I have tried to figure it's precise sense out but I couldn't do it. Two different implications come to my mind.

  1. I had never seen anybody who didn't tell lies one time or another, but for Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary (they were the only ones who hadn't told lies ever).
  2. I had never seen anybody who were telling lies, but for Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary (they were the only ones whom I had heard telling lies).
Eugene
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    Does this answer your question? Trying to find a grammar rule that explains heavy use of ‘but’ instead of ‘that doesn’t’ in older English 'This is an example of what I call the nobbut construction. All of the examples cited involve negatives (hardly, not, no) which invoke the special "except" meaning of but in their scope.'_ John Lawler // 'without' = 'unless' here. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 22 '23 at 10:48
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    As @EdwinAshworth explains, but means except. It’s parallel in construction to I’ve never seen anybody but* Jim eat so much ice cream. In 21st-century standard English, but* is used in this way mainly with noun phrases or bare verbs (He did nothing but sleep*), but in Huck’s dialect, it could be used with verb phrases too (lied one time or another*). – PaulTanenbaum Sep 22 '23 at 11:21
  • @Edwin Ashword Regarding your help, I should arrive at a conclusion that my No.1 is the right interpretation, isn' t it? – Eugene Sep 22 '23 at 11:22
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    @PaulTanenbaum The most difficult part for me was that of "without it was...". – Eugene Sep 22 '23 at 11:26
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    Ah. without here is essentially the same as unless. Again, this is not modern standard English, but my native-speaker’s ear (or mind’s eye) can imagine it in the mouth of a Brooklyinite out of Damon Runyon: He never lays eyes on nobody without he decides they’re his best friend or somethin, which would mean that he innocently presumes that others are well intentioned. – PaulTanenbaum Sep 22 '23 at 11:34
  • Yet another embarrassing closure. – Araucaria - Him Sep 27 '23 at 00:21
  • @Araucaria - Him Thank you! I concur with you. Each time I intend to ask a question I start feeling creepy at the thought that my question may be downvoted and it can hinder me in asking further. If a learner is querying something on this site he is trying to make out something offering a difficulty to the non-native speakers, altogether, notwithstanding it's being obvious and trivial for the native speakers. – Eugene Oct 02 '23 at 14:45
  • Well, part of the reason for downvotes may be exactly that: you being a "learner", for which we have English Language Learners :) – Joachim Nov 03 '23 at 08:54

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