"So I said to myself, 'Self...'"

[Laurence Horn]

>larry,
>
>I'm interested in the 3rd sg marker on "says." Did you turn up no "thinks"?
>
>dInIs

No, I didn't turn up no "thinks" (on the non-concord reading).
Some double-thinks (and double-selfs) from the first page of the 949
hits on "So I thinks to myself":

So I thinks to myself, "Self," I thinks, "self, it's time we made
some effort to
build a bridge to that other community."

so, i thinks to myself, i thinks, 'self--we gotta do sumthin' about all this
teevee the family been watchin'.' and i says, 'yes, we do.

So I thinks to myself, "Self," I thinks, "I wonder if you can use your Laserjet
1300 to create waterfast id pages.".

L

>
>>At 5:24 PM -0400 9/26/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>>>There's a snowclone of sorts that's often used to indicate a jokey
>>>interior monologue (or dialogue, actually): "So I said to myself,
>>>'Self...'" Here are Googlecounts for some variations:
>>>
>>>"so I said to myself, self"     1,480/493
>>>"so I says to myself, self"     3,240/169
>>>"so I say to myself, self"        996/114
>>>"so I thought to myself, self"  1,850/223
>>>"so I think to myself, self"      377/166
>>>"so I asked myself, self"         495/147
>>>"so I ask myself, self"           370/138
>>>
>>>(For each search string I give two numbers: the raw Googlecount, and then
>>>the count of what Google calls "the most relevant results" -- found by
>>>appending "&start=950" to the end of the URL to see what's left after
>>>Google has omitted "similar" entries.)
>>>
>>And there's the fuller version I'm familiar with,
>>
>>"So I says to myself, 'Self', I says,..."
>>
>>(I note that there are 129 raw hits of this version, but only 3 if
>>you try it with "proper" agreement--"So I say to myself, 'Self'', I
>>say..."   The jocular "dialect" form with "I says" definitely
>>predominates here, as it does in Ben's tabulation above.
>>
>>larry
>
>
>--
>Dennis R. Preston
>University Distinguished Professor
>Department of English
>15C Morrill Hall
>Michigan State University
>East Lansing, MI 48824
>517-353-4736
>preston at msu.edu