Heard on "The People's Court"

[Brenda Lester]

You've never heard, "He came at me with a gun"? I've lived all around this country, and I hear different variations--gun, knife, razor, baseball bat. Street language.

  Are you horrified? That's what you get for watching PEOPLE'S COURT .


Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
  Spoken by a black? Latin? black Latin? plaintiff:

"My sister came _at_ me and aksed me to watch her kids for her."

Though she did say, once, "... came _to_ me ..., " she used "... came
at me ..." about a dozen times.

I really hope that this use of "at" doesn't catch on. AFAIK, languages
that distinguish "[verb of motion] at" (threatening) from "[verb of
motion] to" (non-threatening) in the way that English does are rare.

-Wilson
--
There's only one thing that money can't buy and that's poverty.

-Jack Benny

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org