"all stove up"-- "I feel so break-up"

[Wilson Gray]

On Jun 1, 2004, at 9:33 AM, Dale Coye wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dale Coye <Dalecoye at AOL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "all stove up"-- "I feel so break-up"
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> This reminds me of the Weavers' song-- not sure of the title but the
> first
> line is "We sailed on the ship John D."  --they sing "I feel so
> break-up, I
> wanna go home"   When I heard the Beach Boys version not so long ago
> they changed
> it to "I feel so broke up" which makes more sense to me-- almost in
> the sense
> we're talking about in "stove up"-- can anyone enlighten me on "feel so
> break-up?"  why break and not broke?
>
> DF Coye
> The College of NJ

"The Ship 'John B.'" is a folksong of Caribbean origin - Jamaican, I
think, but maybe not - and uses some form of Caribbean English. Is it
true that the Beach Boys sing "broke up"? I've always heard it as
"break up." My mistake, I guess.

-Wilson Gray