Sure don't

[Wilson Gray]

Come on, y'all! Give me some slack! Every time that I turn around,
some aspect of my everyday speech be being treated as though it was
from some foreign language. To quote the first black bunny at the L.A.
Playboy Club speaking to one of her (white) regulars, "How come you
always be correc'in' my Anglish?" To paraphrase Charlie Daniels's
_Uneasy Rider_, "I been usin' 'sure don't' all of my life!"

I've been using and hearing "sure don't" all of my life and, till now,
I did not know that there was anything strange or unusual about it.
I've given it a lot of thought, but for me, anyway, to paraphrase The
Band, " 'No' is all it means." There's no particular emphasis on
negativity or politeness.

-Wilson

On 7/31/07, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Sure don't
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> At 2:20 PM -0500 7/31/07, Scot LaFaive wrote:
> >I asked, "Do you have any maps?"  She said, "We sure don't."
> >
> >While reading some reports at work I came across this construction a few
> >times. I'm familiar with using "sure" as an adverb when the answer is in the
> >affirmative ("Yes, we sure do."), but not otherwise. The writer is probably
> >an L2 speaker (her L1, if not English, would probably be Spanish). The
> >supposed speaker of "We sure don't" is in Texas. Anyone know if this is a
> >regional construction in Texas?
> >
> >Scot
> >
>
> Not just Texas, I'd guess, but general Southern and [South?] Midland,
> unless I miss my guess.
>
> Michael Montgomery and I just happen to have had an exchange on this
> topic last week.  With what I hope is his non-objection, I'll
> reproduce Michael's question here and my response, of possible
> interest for the reference to the cute (if somewhat ill-informed)
> piece in the Atlantic I cite below by the humorist Ian Frazier.  The
> cartoon in the piece is especially nice.
>
> LH
>
> [MM:]
> >With regard to regional negatives that sometimes
> >perplex, I have long wondered how much of a role
> >intonation might play.  Twenty years ago Lise Winer (a
> >Canadian) told me that when she went to SIU-Carbondale
> >to teach, she was confused by "I sure don't" being
> >expressed with the same intonation as "I sure do."
> >She had been used to the two having very different
> >patterns, but when she would ask a salespeople if
> >their shop had a certain product and got the response
> >"we sure don't" with a high falling contour on
> >"don't," she was mystified.  Do you think this might
> >be a Midlandism?
>
> [LH:]
> I think so; I've come across it both in person and on screen (big and
> small) representations and at first was very confused, until I
> recognized what it was doing.  What I couldn't figure out is if it
> was intended as a garden path (helped along by the parallel
> intonation you mention), an attempt to be cheerfully polite, or
> something else.
>
> Googling it, I find a reference to "The Positive Negative" in an
> Atlantic Monthly piece by Ian Frazier from June 1997:
>
> We sure don't!" The last word is spoken with a rising inflection, as
> if the expression were a positive one ending with the word "do".
> http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jun/frazier.htm
>
> (Despite the reference to "a rising inflection", I suspect this is
> the very same intonation you refer to as a "high falling contour".)
> Frazier refers to the "Sure Don't Bakery" and more generally to the
> 'border into "sure don't" America'.
>
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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