Heard in Missouri: "but good!"

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:25 PM -0500 12/20/07, Doug Harris wrote:
>Yep, I know. I saw the TV series, sang the song (_way_ too many times, in my
>parents opinion) and wore out the cap!
>(the other) doug

These early starts at b'ar-killin' are evidently a fam'ly trait:
http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/item_1895.htm

LH

P.S. (eggcorn alert):
It may be seem bit far-fetched, but many city-dwelling baby-boomers
(or pre-boomers) insist that at the time they had always understood
the line as
"Killed in a bar when he was only three"
(Just google the line.)



>---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>At 9:48 PM -0500 12/20/07, Doug Harris wrote:
>>It's highly unlikely the bear -- or b'ar -- would agree with that
>>description of his/her demise.
>>(And "when he was only three" seems, grammatically, to be referring
>>to the critter, not the critter-conquerer. That seems more likely
>>than the song writer's  version, unless disbelief isn't simply
>>suspended, but cast, in toto, aside.
>
>I'm afraid it's the latter--we're talking Walt Disney, after all.
>It's far easier to suspend disbelief in precisely this way,
>especially when the whole point is tellin' tall tales about Davy C.
>and his exploits, than to interpret the antecedent of "*he*" in
>
>Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee,
>Greenest state in the land of the free,
>Raised in the woods so's he knew ev'ry tree,
>Kilt him a bar when *he* was only three.
>Davy, Davy Crockett,
>King of the wild frontier.
>
>Besides which, if Davy's b'ar were being specified as "only three",
>that would imply this wasn't such an all-fired great deed as killin'
>a grown-up b'ar would have been.
>
>LH
>
>
>>(the other) doug
>>-------------------
>>At 6:08 PM -0800 12/19/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>OED has David Crockett killing a bear "good" in 1834 (_good_, ...adv. B.).
>>>
>>>     JL
>>
>>And we have independent evidence that he also kilt him a b'ar when he
>>was only three, which would have been in 1789 or thenabouts.  But the
>>historical record doesn't show whether or not he kilt that one good.
>>
>>LH
>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>On Dec 19, 2007, at 3:33 PM, David Donnell wrote:
>>>
>>>>    Pardon my asking: by "opaque idiom" what do you mean?
>>>
>>>all idoms are to some extend semantically opaque. these ("but good",
>>>"and how") are especially so: knowing the meanings of the words
>>>wouldn't help you at all in figuring out their meaning/use.
>>>
>>>>    I reckon you mean there is no literal sense to either idiom... (If
>>>>    so, I agree with you. Otherwise, please correct me.)
>>>
>>>yup.
>>>
>>>>    Also, below you say it's "general american. colloquial, but
>>>>    widespread."
>>>>
>>>>    Don't you find the expression a wee bit anachronistic? I mean, can
>>>>    you imagine any young adult using it nowdays? Just curious.
>>>
>>>you might be right; this is something someone could look at. but
>>>there seems to be (or have been) nothing particularly regional about it.
>>>
>>>>    Note: I don't have enough info to circumscribe usage of the
>>>>    expression--didn't mean to suggest it is regional. I simply reported
>>>>    the identity & location of the person using the expression. (My dear
>>>>    old ma.)
>>>
>>>i realize that this cuts both ways. if you don't give the details, we
>>>don't know how to situate the report. but whatever details you give,
>>>we'll take to be possibly relevant to the report.
>>>
>>>i picked up on the possibly regional part, because others did. my
>>>apologies.
>>>
>>>arnold
>>>
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