Different dialects, same error

[Wilson Gray]

On Sep 7, 2004, at 9:47 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Different dialects, same error
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> At 5:06 PM -0400 9/4/04, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> On Sep 4, 2004, at 4:43 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at MSU.EDU>
>>> Subject:      Re: Different dialects, same error
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> --
>>> --------
>>>
>>>> Existenetial 'it' is actually pretty widespread in white southern
>>>> speech, although more often noted by linguists for AAVE. Yes, I come
>>>> by it native(ly), as I clearly do not come by -ly.
>>>
>>> There are, however, restrictions in the dialects which I have never
>>> quite got the handle on. Some AAVE existential it's are out of bounds
>>> for me, but I haven't analyzed them.
>>>
>>> For example, "It ain't nobody named Windy" sounds really good to me
>>> but "It's a man in the other room" (on the existential reading, of
>>> course) don't.
>>
>> dInIs, here's a verse from a '60's blues song
>
> published in 1965 by Elmore James, Marshall Sehorn, and Sonny Boy
> Williamson, if the web-based info can be trusted

1965 certainly feels like the right year.

>
>> for your reading
>> enjoyment.
>>
>> Raise your window, baby.
>> I ain't going out that door.
>> _It's a man downstairs_.
>> He could be your man.
>> I don't know.
>>
> I'm pretty sure (I could listen and check if I can locate the CD)
> that the Allman Brothers (southern, white) "translate" this in their
> cover of "One Way Out" on the classic "Eat a Peach" album as "There's
> a man down there."
>
> Larry
>

The original version - that is, the one that got air play on
black-oriented AM radio in Los Angeles in the 'Sixties - seems to have
vanished from the ken of mortal men. The only versions that I've been
able to locate, aside from that by the Allmans, is the one by Rice
"Sonny Boy Williamson" Miller and the one by Elmore James. But neither
of these is the version that I remember. Perhaps the original guy got
ripped off. Fats Domino was known to write tunes for others. Then, if a
tune hit, he would cover it and drive the unknown's original off the
air. If it didn't hit, so what?

-Wilson Gray