South Dakotan 'yet'

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>... people up here often attach "yet" to end of sentences. For instance,
>"I need to go to the bank yet,"

This is perfectly natural to me, with "yet" = "still". I use this type of
expression. I would not use "Is there turkey yet?" with "yet" = "still"
simply because it's ambiguous as Larry Horn pointed out -- but either
interpretation seems natural to me. I'm from Detroit.

>"Is that a bottle of gin yet?"

Seems odd to me; I would take the "yet" here as the 'ironic intensive'
sentence termination (I think supposedly based on Yiddish "noch"?) -- maybe
roughly = "after all".

>"Let's eat dinner at eight yet." ....

I don't remember ever hearing such a thing. I guess I would interpret "yet"
= "still", with the implication that a suggestion of changing the dinner
schedule from eight to something else is being rejected.

I've lived in WI but not SD.

-- Doug Wilson