one-time "whenever", live

[Montgomery Michael]

That's intriguing.  "Rift" is almost certainly also a
Scotch-Irish inheritance, having been brought mainly
by settlers from Ulster in the 18th/early 19th
century.  It's known today in both Ulster and in
Scotland but has an OldNorse etymon.  When working on
my book _From Ulster to America: The Scotch-Irish
Heritage of American English_, I could find no
evidence of it in the U.S. beyond Pennsylvania,
though.  Is anyone aware of usage elsewhere?

Michael

--- "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society
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> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
> Subject:      Re: one-time "whenever", live
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> > > This is not too uncommon in casual speech around
> here (Pittsburgh area).
> > >
> > > -- Doug Wilson
> > >
> > >
> >If not, it must be a relatively recent phee-nom. I
> grew up in Pittsburgh
> >and have never heard it. True, I moved away decades
> ago, but I've visited
> >many times since.
>
> I doubt it's recent. One's mileage may vary. When I
> say "not too
> uncommon" I suppose I mean I hear it once a month or
> so and no longer
> do a double-take. Maybe if I looked into it I'd find
> that it's
> usually from one of a given five persons or
> something like that, I
> don't know. I don't mean that I hear it right and
> left every day and
> start to do it myself ... like the "needs washed"
> construction. (^_^)
>
> When I moved here 18 years ago, I was most impressed
> by "rift" =
> "belch", which (unlike the above things) I had AFAIK
> NEVER
> encountered anywhere else. I did an experiment and
> indeed "rift"
> outnumbered "belch" and "burp" and some other
> alternatives (small
> data set overall though). But one day when I was
> swapping shibboleths
> with several locals and I mentioned "rift" one
> ordinary man who had
> lived his whole 25-30 years around here said he'd
> never heard the
> word before (all the others knew it for sure).
>
> -- Doug Wilson
>
>
> --
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