I'm done my homework

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Dec 9, 2004, at 6:39 AM, David Bowie wrote:

> From:    "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> : On Oct 31, 2004, at 8:38 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote [quoted]:
> :...: Of the 4 people that gave top marks to "I'm done my homework", 3
> are
> : from Maryland and 1 is from Horsham PA.  Interesting.
>
> And the 3 from Maryland are most likely from Baltimore (or maybe
> Columbia)
> and north, i'm guessing. I don't have any firm data to back it up, but
> that
> seems to be one of the big Central Maryland-Southern Maryland (there
> is no
> Northern Maryland) linguistic differences, from my eavesdropping. (And
> it
> may be a relatively recent import, too, but i'm on even tenuouser
> ground
> with that one.)
>
> No idea what Western Maryland or the Eastern Shore are like with this
> one,
> though. but my guess is that the former would pattern with Central
> Maryland;
> no idea at all on the latter.

the geographical distribution is puzzling.  one of the first reports i
posted was from the pacific northwest, and googling gives cites from
people apparently from a variety of places.  but there's definitely a
baltimore-area cluster.

just to remind you: this is not about "done" vs. "finished"; i have
cites for "I'm finished my homework" and similar things.

arnold, who fell into this thing entirely by [or, if you will, on]
accident