South Dakotan 'yet'

[Steve K.]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Laurence Horn wrote:

> Is there turkey yet?
>
> on our class dialect questionnaires to elicit this sense:  the
> utterer is someone who arrives late at the Thanskgiving table hoping
> some turkey remained, not (as in the Northeast) someone who arrives
> early hoping to start stuffing him/herself.  The first of the South
> Dakotan "yet"s is consistent with this, but the latter two aren't.
> (I'm not sure WHAT they are:  if "Is that a bottle of gin yet?" the
> drunkard's equivalent to "Is it soup yet?", uttered plaintively while
> staring at a bottle of Poland Spring, then it's just the AHD4's sense
> 1 or 2, but I suspect something else was intended.)

I've been chewed out in the Northeast for saying the following:

"Are you awake yet?" to someone at midnight when they have not been to bed
already and I've woken up for a glass of water and find them still at
work at their computer.

It seems natural and normal to me, but I've had that usage shamed out of
me.

--- Steve K.