Want I should?
Dennis Preston
preston at MSU.EDU
Tue Aug 14 10:53:31 UTC 2007
Wilson,
Your comma is noted (and I agree with it). I am
not a native speaker of it, but the older South
Midlanders around me in my youth were.
dInIs
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>Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: Want I should?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>"Alternative ONE" sounds perfectly ordinary to me as a feature of
>Black English, with one trivial distinction. I'd write it as
>
>"You can put it in my mailbox or under my door, one."
>
>(In this case, dInIs, I really do hear it and speak it with comma
>intonation. It's not motivated by something that I learned in a
>high-school course on English grammar.)
>
>-Wilson
>
>On 8/13/07, Montgomery Michael <ullans at yahoo.com> wrote:
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>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Montgomery Michael <ullans at YAHOO.COM>
>> Subject: Re: Want I should?
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Beverly, you're mighty right with regard to my
>> implication. If this construction does have a basis
>> in German (and probably anyway), I'd expect it to show
>> up elsewhere in the U.S. hinterland, since millions of
>> German speakers emigrated to America in the 18th/19th
>> centuries, largely to the interior. My original point
>> is only a hypothesis, though. Surely we have someone
>> on the list whose German (and maybe its varieties) is
>> good enough to enlighten us what the underlying
>> structure might have been. I don't doubt that the
>> WANT I SHOULD construction probably has a Yiddish
>> basis for megalopolitan speakers.
>>
>> I spent a dozen years culling a vast range of
>> material, both written and oral, from the TN/NC
>> mountain area, so in so long with my radar on, it
>> should not be surprising that some syntactic patterns
>> were detected that are still buzzing below most of our
>> screens. I'd probably not have included it in the
>> dictionary if it had occurred only once, but there it
>> was, half a century apart and from two different
>> (albeit written) sources.
>>
>> The "want I should" construction is not native to me,
>> but there are others I've noticed (and sometimes
>> studied) in my speech after either hearing myself on
>> tape or having someone misunderstand me.
>>
>> An example of the first type is present perfect + AGO,
>> as in "That's been many years ago." In 1977 if
>> someone had asked me directly what verb form I used
>> with AGO, I would no doubt have said the simple past
>> ("That was many years ago"), yet when I audited
>> recordings I made with local folks in East Tennessee,
>> there I was using the present perfect. Was it
>> accommodation? Probably, in part. But I've noticed
>> myself using it at other times over the past thirty
>> years, now that I'm alert to it. And now that I am, I
>> hear speakers in southern Appalachia who use the
>> present perfect with AGO universally. As a result of
>> all this, I put the pattern in my dictionary, s.v.
>> both AGO and HAVE.
>>
>> Now, AGO with the present perfect may be a common
>> colloquialism in this country, and if so, I'd like to
>> know this (when I google for "been many years ago," I
>> do get 10,700 hits). But I've never seen or heard any
>> discussion about it, and since syntactic patterns too
>> rarely get entered in dictionaries, especially
>> historical dictionaries, I couldn't find anything that
>> I could connect my observations to. It's not in DARE
>> sv.v. AGO.
>>
>> An example of the second type of phenomenon is what I
>> have termed "alternative ONE." Some dozen years ago I
>> told a class of students at the end of the hour how
>> they could submit their assignment to me: "You can put
>> it in my mailbox or under my door one." Most of the
> > students were of course South Carolinians, and they
> > understood this statement without blinking and filed
>> out of the room. However, a young man from
>> Connecticut lingered. After a moment or two he said,
>> "Doctor Montgomery, I'm not sure I understand. Where
>> is your door one?" I blanked, then thought of the TV
>> gameshow Let's Make a Deal, and finally realized that
>> a construction I'd used and heard all my life was
>> unintelligible to some other native speakers of
>> American English. I've written about alternative ONE
>> in an essay in Beth Simon and Tom Murray's recent
>> collection on the American Midland, and I am pleased
>> to say that DARE has a paragraph on it in volume 3,
>> s.v. ONE.
>>
>> I am only recently re-connected to this list, so these
>> patterns might could have been discussed, dissected,
>> and diagnosed. If so, I'd like to be informed.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>> --- Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU> wrote:
>>
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>> > Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > Poster: Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIO.EDU>
>> > Subject: Re: Want I should?
>> >
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > I suspect Michael didn't mean to imply that
>> > German-heritage speakers only
>> > in Appalachia used the construction, nor that it
>> > might not have Yiddish
>> > origins in other regions--only that _when_ it's used
>> > in Appalachia, it
>> > might be because of German migration into the area.
>> > The German requires an
>> > embedded 'that' clause, rather than the English
>> > infinitive: Willst du dass
>> > ich soll .... (or close). Chris?
>> >
>> > Beverly
>> >
>> > At 10:30 AM 8/13/2007, you wrote:
>> > >---------------------- Information from the mail
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>> > >Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > >Poster: Scot LaFaive
>> > <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
>> > >Subject: Re: Want I should?
>> >
>> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > >
>> > >Oh yeah, and the only form I've heard it in is "You
>> > want I should..." in a
>> > >question.
>> > >
>> > >Scot
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > >From: Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
>> > > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society
>> > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> > > >Subject: Re: Want I should?
>> > > >Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 09:26:38 -0500
>> > > >
>> > > >---------------------- Information from the mail
>> > header
>> > > >-----------------------
>> > > >Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > >Poster: Scot LaFaive
>> > <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
>> > > >Subject: Re: Want I should?
>> > >
>> >
>> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > > ------
>> > > >
>> > > >So it's considered Appalachian? Interesting.
>> > > >Another interesting tid bit is that the only
>> > times I've ever heard it have
>> > > >been on TV by various characters; I heard it on
>> > Medium the other day and I
>> > > >recall someone on Leave It To Beaver saying it.
>> > Could it be both writers
>> > > >were Appalachian? I would guess it is as
>> > localized as it might once have
>> > > >been.
>> > > >BTW, I see from the internets that a lot of
>> > people associate this with
>> > > >Yiddish.
>> > > >
>> > > >Scot
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > >From: Montgomery Michael <ullans at YAHOO.COM>
>> > > > >Reply-To: American Dialect Society
>> > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > > >To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> > > > >Subject: Re: Want I should?
>> > > > >Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:49:16 -0700
>> > > > >
>> > > > >---------------------- Information from the
>> > mail header
>> > > > >-----------------------
>> > > > >Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > > >Poster: Montgomery Michael
>> > <ullans at YAHOO.COM>
>> > > > >Subject: Re: Want I should?
>> > > >
>> >
>> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > > --------
>> > > > >
> > > > > >The excerpt below is from my _Dictionary of
> > > Smoky
>> > > > >Mountain English_ (Univ. of Tennessee Press,
>> > 2004). A
>> > > > >Yiddish source is out of the question, but a
>> > German
>> > > > >one is much more tantalizing. Quite a few more
>> > people
>> > > > >settled in southern Appalachia whose own
>> > language or
>> > > > >ancestral language was German than is usually
>> > > > >recognized.
>> > > > >
>> > > > >Michael
>> > > > >
>> > > > >want verb
>> > > > > 1 with ellipsis of following that, with a
>> > dependent
>> > > > >clause as object of the verb.
>> > > > > 1928 Mathes (in 1952 Mathes Tall Tales 43)
>> > Child, I
>> > > > >want ye should think about it all yer days!
>> > 1931
>> > > > >Goodrich Mt Homespun 49 They want you should
>> > use the
>> > > > >hickory on some of them rough boys. ibid. 54
>> > Maw
>> > > > >wants you should go with her tomorrow to her
>> > aunts' in
>> > > > >Tennessy. 1975 Chalmers Better 59 Pink's
>> > wife's been
>> > > > >took bad, and Doc wants you should come and
>> > he'p him.
>> > > > >
>> > > > >
>> > > > >--- Scot LaFaive <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
>> > wrote:
>> > > > >
>> > > > > > ---------------------- Information from the
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>> > > > > > header -----------------------
>> > > > > > Sender: American Dialect Society
>> > > > > > <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> > > > > > Poster: Scot LaFaive
>> > > > > > <spiderrmonkey at HOTMAIL.COM>
>> > > > > > Subject: Want I should?
>> > > > > >
>> > > >
>> >
>> >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > > --------
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > I'm curious where or in what group "want I
>> > should"
>> > > > > > is spoken and from, as in
>> > > > > > "You want I should come over?" I found the
>> > link
>> > > > > > below that says it's from
>> > > > > > Yiddish. (BTW, is this "Ben" on the
>> > ads-list?)
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >
>> > > >
>> >
>> >http://positiveanymore.blogspot.com/2006/03/you-want-i-should-grow-bear
>> > > d.html
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > > Scot
>> > > > > >
>> > > > > >
>> > > >
>> >
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>> > > >
>> >
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>
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
> -Sam'l Clemens
>
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--
Dennis R. Preston
University Distinguished Professor
Department of English
Morrill Hall 15-C
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
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