Heard on the Judges

[Wilson Gray]

Forty-ish black female defendant:

"She come at me rampin' 'n' ravin'."

Judge Maria Lopez:

" ... 'Ramping'? ... _Ranting_ and raving."

Defendant:

"Yes, ma'am. She come at me rantin' ([raen tIn], a Southern-States BE
pronunciation) 'n' ravin'."

Google has a mere 45 instances of "ramping ...," but one of them is
from _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ by Charles Dickens: "Swaggering
fighting men had had their centuries of _ramping_ and raving ..."

Who knew that this "error," if it is such, had such an impressive pedigree?

-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

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