greaser

[Wilson Gray]

On Jul 28, 2005, at 12:51 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at RCI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: greaser
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:14:46 -0400, Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
> wrote:
>
>> On Jul 27, 2005, at 6:06 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>
>>> -----
>>> The Living Age, Volume 14, Issue 176, Sep. 25, 1847
>>> "The Battle of Monterey", p. 619/2
>>>
>>> Perhaps I did feel a little weak in the jints when I seed the
>>> officers
>>> unbuttonin their shirt collars, and the men throwin away their
>>> canteens
>>> and haversacks, as they was marchin rite strait up to them ar works,
>>> whar the greasers was waitin for us, every devil with his gun pinted
>>> and his finger on the trigger; I know'd they was
>>
>>> gwine
>>
>>> to let us have it, and I felt monstrous uneasy till it cum.
>>>
>>> http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?
>>> frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Flivn%2Flivn0014%2F&tif=00625.
>>> TIF
>>> -----
>>
>> Does this mean that "gwine" was once a feature of at least one dialect
>> of European-American English? Or was the speaker black?
>
> The speaker is described simply as "a Western volunteer, recently
> returned
> from Mexico." I know there were "freedmen" who served in the Mexican
> American War, but given the speaker's "unmarked" status in the
> narrative,
> I think we can safely assume he was intended to be Euro-American.
>
> Mark Twain is quoted in the OED as telling his publisher in 1882, "I's
> gwyne to sen' you de stuff," but that looks like it's merely a bit of
> dialect-minstrelsy.
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>

Thanks, Ben.
So, that the speaker was white and that "gwine" hasn't always been
regarded as a peculiarity of Negro dialect is a distinct possibility.
"Veddy interesting," as they used to say on Laugh-In.

-Wilson