dialect tidbit

[Peter A. McGraw]

Some of the replies to this message seem to have veered toward literal uses
of expressions like these, whereas I think Beverly's question had to do
with figurative uses.

In my childhood (40s and 50s), "Good night!" was my family's all-purpose
interjection for emotions ranging from surprise to shock to exasperation.
I wasn't conscious of it fading from our repertoire, but I haven't used it
or heard anyone else use it in, probably, 40 years or more.  Its demise was
probably due to fading taboos against the use of mild profanity (I presume
this one arose as a euphemism for "Good God!").  A few years ago my mother
mentioned that that was the strongest language her father (who was from
East Texas) ever used.

I didn't find it in DARE.  The OED has it, labeled "dial." and with a
single occurrence, from the 19th century.

Did anybody else grow up using this, or was it just our family?  Or is it
peculiar to East Texas, or just "an age thing"?

Peter

--On Wednesday, September 22, 2004 3:26 PM -0400 Beverly Flanigan
<flanigan at OHIOU.EDU> wrote:

> A student of mine from SW Virginia (Roanoke) gave me a phrase that first
> sounds like a phatic greeting but really isn't:  "Good day!" or "Good day
> in the morning time!" or "Great day (in the morning time)!"  It's really
> an interjection, meaning "Wow! Gosh! Heck!" (her words).
>
> Has anyone else heard of this expression?  The student's classmate from
> northeastern Virginia was not familiar with it.  But the more I think of
> it, the more it sounds vaguely like an Irish expression.  Ring a bell?



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