"I loves me some X" redux

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Wed Jul 24 20:11:41 UTC 2002


Is there really a dialect where this "love [objective pronoun] [something]"
is used conventionally? I find "I stopped and got me some smokes" quite
ordinary and natural, but I've never encountered anything like "I really
love me some smokes". The only environment in which I would find such a
construction even borderline natural would be along the lines of "I loved
me some girls" and I think this is a different "love" (cf. "met all the
girls and I loved myself a few" [IIRC] in the song "One Toke Over the Line").

To me these "I love[s] me [something]" examples on the Web etc. look like
caricatures or imitations of some dialect rather than examples of an
established usage ... maybe analogous to the effort to sound "southern" by
replacing "you" with "y'all" in absolutely all contexts singular or plural.
But then maybe it's just that I haven't been to [quaint locality X] where
everybody's been doing these things routinely for centuries.

As for the qualifier, consider:

I stopped and bought cigarettes.
I stopped and bought some cigarettes.
I stopped and bought me some cigarettes.
* I stopped and bought me cigarettes.
I stopped and bought myself some cigarettes.
* I stopped and bought myself cigarettes.
I stopped and bought cigarettes for myself.
I stopped and bought some cigarettes for myself.
I stopped and bought my wife some cigarettes.
* I stopped and bought my wife cigarettes.
I stopped and bought cigarettes for my wife.
I stopped and bought some cigarettes for my wife.

* Does y'all agrees y'all with them there little stars? (^_^)

-- Doug Wilson



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