"I loves me some X"

[Brooke Pierce]

I'm not sure to what extent "I loves me some" has been discussed here before
(I'm new to the list), but for what it's worth:

In my years living in Kentucky and Texas, I never heard the phrase.  Then I
moved to New York City about 4 years ago and soon started noticing it being
used almost exclusively by African-Americans.  I figured it had started as a
phrase unique to urban black culture, but now I'm hearing it more and more
from white kids (teens and college students, mostly) from all different
classes, backgrounds, and levels of education.

At first they seemed to be using it ironically, but not so much anymore.  I
think the educated kids still feel obligated to say it in a playful tone at
least, but it's said much more matter-of-factly than other street slang
phrases that they have picked up.

That's not to say that I hear "I loves me some X" often, but enough that I
even find myself saying it now and again.


Brooke Pierce



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On Mon, 22 Jul 2002 22:27:34 -0400 Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM> wrote:

On a bulletin board I subscribe to, a woman in her 30s posted
the following, in reference to children's books:

  it must be so cool when your kids reach an age where you can read and
  enjoy some of the same books. not that i don't loves me some _very hungry
  caterpiller,_ mind you, but y'know what i mean.

[_The Very Hungry Caterpiller_ is a classic young-children's book.]

I told her I had heard it a few times recently, and asked her if it
has any special associations or origins that she knew of; she replied:

  the first time i heard someone use that expression was back when i was in
  high school, visiting my uncle in georgia. i assumed it was a southern
  thing; a lower class southern thing, specifically. i've heard it a bunch
  since then, mostly being said by southerners, but also by non-southerners
  and/or more educated people who were using it ironically.

Just a data point.

Jesse Sheidlower