"So I said to myself, 'Self...'"

[Dennis R. Preston]

larry,

I'm interested in the 3rd sg marker on "says." Did you turn up no "thinks"?

dInIs


>At 5:24 PM -0400 9/26/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>There's a snowclone of sorts that's often used to indicate a jokey
>>interior monologue (or dialogue, actually): "So I said to myself,
>>'Self...'" Here are Googlecounts for some variations:
>>
>>"so I said to myself, self"     1,480/493
>>"so I says to myself, self"     3,240/169
>>"so I say to myself, self"        996/114
>>"so I thought to myself, self"  1,850/223
>>"so I think to myself, self"      377/166
>>"so I asked myself, self"         495/147
>>"so I ask myself, self"           370/138
>>
>>(For each search string I give two numbers: the raw Googlecount, and then
>>the count of what Google calls "the most relevant results" -- found by
>>appending "&start=950" to the end of the URL to see what's left after
>>Google has omitted "similar" entries.)
>>
>And there's the fuller version I'm familiar with,
>
>"So I says to myself, 'Self', I says,..."
>
>(I note that there are 129 raw hits of this version, but only 3 if
>you try it with "proper" agreement--"So I say to myself, 'Self'', I
>say..."   The jocular "dialect" form with "I says" definitely
>predominates here, as it does in Ben's tabulation above.
>
>larry


--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
15C Morrill Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
517-353-4736
preston at msu.edu