EITHER; GO WITH

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 7/22/2000 10:15:03 AM, AAllan at AOL.COM writes:

<< It never hurts to check DARE . . . which says (based on that national
survey
a quarter century ago) that "eyether" is heard "esp urban areas of the
NEast, esp among well educ speakers, often considered affected." >>

Thanks, Allan. One can continue to conjecture that, say, Boston speakers were
"reinforced" by George III and German spelling, but (again) the fact that the
variants go back into Middle English suggests that the variant pronunciations
are basically indigenous. So far as I know, King George did not pronounce
NEIGHBOR or WEIRD or CONCEIVE or EIGHT with /ay/, nor does anyone in Chicago
or Milwaukee. If spelling would affect the pronunciation of words spelled EI,
then wouldn't we have spelling pronunciations of SOME other EI words,
especially those that (unlike NEITHER) would be primarily written.

Steve's intransitive "I want to go with" (= 'I want to be one of those who
goes', 'I want to go with you/y'all') is interesting; I have many times heard
this attributed to German influence. I grew up in a community in which this
usage was widespread but in which almost no one was of German ancestry.
Somewhat similar patterns are common in English (e.g., "I want to come
over"), as is what is sometimes termed "you understood" Again, one cannot
completely rule of some marginal second-language influence, but analogy
within English itself seems like a sufficient explanation. Is there any hard
evidence that intransitive "go/come with" does not have a long history in
English predating German influence in Chicago?