"Who-all" and "what-all"

[Peter A. McGraw]

Same in southern California in the late 40s-early 50s.  And it was chanted
to a melody that, if you start with C, goes something like C C C C E-flat C
C, with a rhythm of four quarter notes, two half notes and a concluding
whole note.

(There was a discussion of this on the list some time ago--it's probably to
be found in the archives.)

Peter Mc.

--On Friday, July 30, 2004 5:00 PM -0400 "Dennis R. Preston"
<preston at MSU.EDU> wrote:

> Hmmmm! In my southern Illinois ute, we said
>
> olly, olly oxen free
>
> I suspect the oxen is just a spelling variant, but we really did say
> "olly," homophonous with "Ollie," definitely not "ally," at least if
> that first vowel is meant to be that of "all" (for those who
> distinguish the two, that is, as all from southern Illinois do.
>
> dInIs
>
>
>
>> Page Stephens  writes:
>> "When the game was over did you call ally ally outs in free like we did
>> in southern Illinois?"
>> ~~~~~~~~~~
>> We did, but the version in SE NE was "ally ally ocksin free!"  (1930s)
>> A. Murie
>>
>>
>>
>> ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>   ~@:>
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic,
>         Asian and African Languages
> Wells Hall A-740
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48824-1027 USA
> Office: (517) 353-0740
> Fax: (517) 432-2736



*****************************************************************
Peter A. McGraw       Linfield College        McMinnville, Oregon
******************* pmcgraw at linfield.edu ************************