"Stayed" > "stood"

[Wilson Gray]

Yeah, I remember that, too. It goes way back, like to the '40's, as
something that was said by a Jewish comedian(?). I can't recall
whether it was a catch-phrase or merely a one-time thing that became
famous.

Oddly enough, I had no idea that the phrase was not standard. As a
consequence, I could never figure out what it was supposed to mean or
why it was supposed to be funny. Then, when I was in the Army Reserve
in the '60's, a fellow black Reservist said to me, "When I was at Fort
Polk, man, I STOOD in New Orleans!" And the scales fell from the eyes
of my internal grammar.

[For movie buffs, Truman van Dyke was our commanding  officer.]

-Wilson

On 8/17/06, Jim Parish <jparish at siue.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jim Parish <jparish at SIUE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Stayed" > "stood"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> > Heard on the Judge Joe Brown Show
> >
> > Two young people of Puerto-Rican extraction from NJ, ex-boyfriend and
> > ex-girlfriend, keep using "stood" - You stood at yo' brothuh house!
> > No! You stood at yo' mothuh house! - for "stayed." The girlfriend also
> > says, "If I had known about hah [his other girlfriend], I'd-a BIN lef'
> > you!" The boyfriend also uses "ch" for "sh," though his speech is
> > otherwise not unusual.
> >
> > A black woman standing as witness for the girlfriend uses "stayed,"
> > despite the use of "stood" by her friends.
>
> I seem to recall the words "I shoulda stood in bed!", attributed, I think,
> to a baseball player. Yogi? Dizzy? Somebody of that general type.
>
> Jim Parish
>
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