A big time at the [picture] show

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 22, 2004, at 11:08 PM, Sam Clements wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
> Subject:      Re: A big time at the [picture] show
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> And you know/knew that folk up North said "good time" --how?

 From having lived above the Mason-Dixon Line for many years, Langhorne.
May I call you "Langhorne? Of course, when, as a child, I still lived
below the Cotton Curtain, I naively believed that the language that I
spoke was called "'Merican," that it was the only language in
existence, and that the way that it was spoken in my household was the
way that 'Merican was spoken or, at least, ought to have been spoken,
across the face of the earth.

-Wilson Gray

>
> Sam Clements
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at EARTHLINK.NET>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2004 11:03 PM
> Subject: Re: A big time at the [picture] show
>
>
>> On Jul 22, 2004, at 8:59 PM, Janis Vizier Nihart wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       Janis Vizier Nihart <tarheel at MOBILETEL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Re  The show
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>>> --
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>>>
>>> Yes, we used it here in South Louisiana.  I gradually stopped using
>>> the =
>>> term when I moved away for several years.  Our last theater closed
>>> down =
>>> about 4 years ago.  I t was officially named The Show.  The older
>>> people =
>>>  who speak mostly French still use the term as a French word.
>>
>> I'm a native of Marshall, TX, about 35 mi. W of Shreveport in North
>> Louisiana and yes, ma'am, we sure enough did used to go to the
>> "[picture] show" After we came back from the [picture] show, folk
>> would
>> ask us whether we'd had a "big" time at the show and not whether we'd
>> had a "good" time, the way that folk do up North. What kind of time
>> did
>> y'all have at the show, a "big" time or a "good" time?
>>
>> -Wilson Gray
>>
>