Heard on local news: there were > it was

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

There was a time many years ago that this construction was identified by variationists as a feature of "Black English." It is, but (as e.g., Juanita Williamson pointed out) it is also a feature of Southern white English.

I'm not aware of this having been reported for any Yankees, but I'm not enormously surprised.
------Original Message------
From: Wilson Gray
Sender:
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Oct 6, 2008 9:52 AM
Subject: [ADS-L] Heard on local news: there were > it was

Local, white-male resident of Matha's Vineyard, MA, describing his
response to seeing from land a fire on a ferry:

"I alerted the authorities, just in case _it was_ more problems on the
boat than we thought."

-Wilson
--
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.
-----
-Mark Twain

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org