gwine

[Wilson Gray]

Aw, naw he di?n'! I love the brother like a brother, but he hath reached
deeply into his rectum, yea, even unto his colon, in order to pull out this
shit.

-Wilson

On 3/7/06, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> Subject:      Re: gwine
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From Henry Louis Gates, Jr., _Figures in Black_ (1987; rpt. N.Y.: Oxford
> U. P., 1989), p. 191 ( The author is considering the appearance of "gwine"
> in an old spiritual :
>
>   "Gwine to sit down at the welcome table,
>   Gwine to feast off milk and honey." ) :
>
>   "Gwine," for instance, is still commonly found in Black speech. It is
> basically untranslatable, yet, with a little reflection, we must see that
> the full import of the word goes far beyond its referent 'I am going to,'
> and implies far more. "Gwine" implies a filial devotion to a moral order but
> also the completion, the restoration, of harmony in a universe out of step
> somehow. "Gwine" asserts a reordering, again this restoration rhythmic, its
> diphthong heightening its force on the heels on the breathily spoken "gw"
> sound, the "w" tempering the hard "g." "Gwine" connotes unshakeable
> determination, the act to come made certain to come by the act of speech.
> "Gwine" leaves no room for doubt, for question, for vacillation...."Gwine"
> contains a concept, a way of looking at the world, not fully translated by
> "I am going to." With "gwine," people accept their primal place in the bosom
> of God.
>
>   JL
>
>
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