LL-L "Prepositions" 2003.03.13 (03) [E]

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From: Szelog, Mike <Mike.Szelog at CITIZENSBANK.com>
Subject: LL-L "Prepositions" 2003.03.13 (02) [E]

In answer to Ron's question...

Up here in New Hampshire, I would still think of it as definitely a
"Southern thing". I concur with Ron in that "to wait on" a person is to
serve them; like a waiter/servant, etc. ("I wait on him hand and foot, and
what do I get in return...!!??). To use "wait on" for "wait for" is
something just not heard in northern New England to my knowledge; I've never
heard it at any rate from a native New Englander.

Mike S
Manchester, NH - USA

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From: Global Moose Translations <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L "Prepositions" 2003.03.13 (02) [E]

Ron wrote:

> Until I came to the United States, it was written in stone for me that
there
> was a difference between "to wait for" and "to wait on": if you wait *for*
a
> person you wait for him or her to arrive or do something, and if you wait
> *on* a person you act as his or her waiter, serving meals or drinks.
Lately
> I have been hearing "to wait on" used more and more in the first sense as
> well (e.g., "I'm waiting on the bus.").

I encountered exactly the same thing. My ex-husband from the Pasadena area
would say "wait on" instead of "wait for" all the time, and it always made
me flinch. My current husband, who comes from the same neighbourhood and
even went to the same schools as my ex, never uses it that way, though (and
that, of course, is why I'm married to HIM now...). But I seem to have heard
it in Oregon, too.

It sounds very much like a Germanism to me. Maybe there were enough German
immigrants to the States who said it wrong? Or is this happening in Britain,
too?

Gabriele Kahn

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Preposition

Thanks, Mike and Gabriele.

Gabriele:

> It sounds very much like a Germanism to me. Maybe there were enough
> German immigrants to the States who said it wrong? Or is this happening
> in Britain, too?

I thought of that too (e.g., German _auf ... warten_, Yiddish _vartn oyf
..._), possibly also from Dutch (_op ... wachten_).  But  this could only
apply to "wait on" (perhaps because "wait on" in a different sense already
existed).  Surely it would not apply to "believe on," apart from the fact
that this occurs already in the King James Bible.  If "to wait on" (in the
sense of "to wait for") occurs in British dialects, too, then we might need
to suspect that we are dealing with an archaic construction preserved in
certain American dialects.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

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