all up in my kitchen

[Beverly Flanigan]

Luanne, I got a response on "all up in my kitchen" and variants thereof
from a former student who lives in the Cleveland-Erie area.  I'll paste it in:

My niece, who lives & works in a suburb of Cleveland,
reports that two co-workers, native Clevelanders, have
heard the phrase. One said it's used by blacks. The
other said he hadn't heard it in a long time, & the
last time it was by a cook, race/ethnicity
unspecified.
It definitely does mean "you are in my business," but
seems to have given/be giving way to a large
assortment of other expressions which mean the same
thing. The two she gave as examples are, "They're all
up in your/my conversation," and "Do you want to know
what I had for breakfast, too?"
If you'd like me to find out more details on this
report, just lemme know. I'll pass on whatever else I hear.

Beverly

At 03:28 PM 2/4/2004 -0600, you wrote:
>Another query I received:
>
><Where would one go to find the origin of the phrase "all up in my
>kitchen," meaning "prying into my personal matters ?"  It appears also to
>contain an element of "provoking me." My sister reports having heard this
>in Cleveland, and I can find it in some web diaries/blogs, but I've never
>encountered it myself.
> >
>
>I'm not familiar with this.  Anyone who can help?
>
>Thanks.
>
>Luanne
>
>Luanne von Schneidemesser
>Dictionary of American Regional English
>University of Wisconsin-Madison
>600 N. Park St., 6129 H.C. White Hall
>Madison WI 53706
>http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/dare/dare.html