"Give me some sugar" ... alive and well

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

But what exactly does it mean?
 
Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Joseph Salmons
Sent: Tue 12/18/2007 5:06 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "Give me some sugar" ... alive and well



Oh, this one is far from dead ... at least among my relatives in North
Carolina.

Joe


On Dec 18, 2007, at 4:55 PM, Dennis Preston wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Preston <preston at MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Give me some sugar."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 'Give me some sugar' was very common among white folk in Southern
> Illinois, Southern Indiana, Northern Kentucky, including use by my
> grandparents, making it  much older, in the early 40s and 50s. It is
> it old timey indeed; could be gone.
>
> dInIs
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      "Give me some sugar."
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> When I was at UC Davis in 1969, I had occasion to say to my
>> girlfriend, a white native of Sacramento, "Gimme some sugar'." After
>> an awkward silence lasting some few seconds, she finally replied, "I
>> don't know what you mean." From that time to the present, I've
>> asked a
>> random assortment of white Northerners about this expression and have
>> yet to find one who was familiar with it. (I haven't asked any white
>> Southerners, since they're as rare as black people in the rarefied
>> Northern atmosphere in which I live. In addition, I've, for no good
>> reason, assumed that the expression is General Southern and is not
>> peculiar to BE.)
>>
>> Google yields about 80,000 raw hits for all variants: "sugar" v.
>> "suga," "give me" v. "gimme," etc.
>>
>> DARE has only(?) "gimme some juice," under GIVE, presumably only in
>> its literal meaning. Interestingly enough, all of DARE's Black
>> variants are in use nearly everywhere in BE as I know it.
>>
>> So, I guess that this is still almost surely only a Down-Home
>> expression.
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>> -Wilson
>>
>> --
>> 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
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org <http://www.americandialect.org/> 
>
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> University Distinguished Professor
> Department of English
> Morrill Hall 15-C
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing, MI 48864 USA
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org <http://www.americandialect.org/> 

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

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