"Who-all" and "what-all"

[Beverly Flanigan]

Allie allie oxen free in Minnesota in the '40s and '50s.  (Allie as in
alley, not Ollie.)

At 06:00 PM 7/30/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>Yeah, well, I considered using those spellings, but realized I used to
>think of it as the (mysterious) "ocksin."  And yes, I meant the vowel of
>"all," but running various vowel sounds through my hearing memory, couldn't
>be absolutely certain of any one.
>AM
>~~~~~~
>
> >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
>
>
>A&M Murie
>N. Bangor NY
>sagehen at westelcom.com