x and them

[Erik Moldrup]

This is probably a (very) long shot, but I think it's interesting that the phrase "X and them" has a 100% equivalent in (old, rural) Danish ("X og dem") - and since I read a Canadian university thesis on "The Influence of Danish in North American English" I've been on the lookout for such otherwise inexplicable expressions that deviate from standard (American) English.

So, everybody related to any -(s)sen's or -(s)son's just MIGHT find a plausible explanation in their ancestry. In Danish "them" mostly covers family.

However, as Scandinavians mainly settled in the (mid-)West (and not in the South), this may, after all, be a long shot too far off the mark.

Erik Moldrup
Denmark