Finally!

[Wilson Gray]

dInIs, you're "one of them good folk who come from home," as the old
Jimmy Coe recitation (by which I mean, roughly, a commercial
phonographic recording of a particular variety of story-telling, the
whole "verse" is:

A. Look! There's that old Georgia boy!
B. Yeah. One of them good folk who come from home)

has it. (If anyone cares, thirty seconds of Chuck Berry's recitation,
"No Money Down," can be heard for no money down at the iTunes store.)
Hence, I always expect that you will be down. So, in this case, I
suppose that the BE peculiarity can be reduced to finding only "fuck
over NP" grammatical. Actually, I wouldn't be entirely shocked to hear
a black speaker use "fuck NP over." One of the more unspeakable,
horrible consequences of desegregation is grammar-mixing, though my
own unhappy experience has been that, except for that one, brief,
shining moment in the barracks, in vain have I corrected the white
folk, for they have not received instruction.

-Wilson

On 9/25/07, Dennis Preston <preston at msu.edu> 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: Finally!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am a 'fuck over' speaker since the mid to late 1940's (which does
> not at all challenge its perhaps earlier greater frequency in the
> AfrAmer community). But if I had been in Wlson's barracks, I would
> not have freaked.
>
> I do not accept "fuck over him" any more than I would accept "looked
> over him" (for eyeball, investigate, assess). "Fuck over N" or "fuck
> N over" are both OK by me; It's the pronoun that fucks up it.
>
> dInIs
>
>
> >---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >-----------------------
> >Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> >Subject:      Re: Finally!
> >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >What Jon said.
> >
> >As for my claim that there's a relationship to race, "fuck over" has
> >been a BE street (and, in some households, a home) colloquialism that
> >I've been familiar with since the beginning of time. But this, in my
> >experience, is not the case among white speakers. As an example the
> >racial bit, in 1960, I once used the term in the barracks at the Army
> >Language School. I asked, "Have you guys heard about the way that the
> >First shirt fucked over Lupow?" And my barracks-mates, all of whom
> >were white (during the time that I was at the Language School, among
> >approximately 400 students in the Russian Division, there were only
> >two black GI"s: your humble correspondent and a WAC with a big butt),
> >freaked. Not a single one had ever heard the phrase, "fuck over,"
> >before. I was stunned, since I know it like I know my own name.
> >Naturally, they thought that it was really cool and wanted to learn
> >it. (I had to teach some people that you say "FUCK over" and not "fuck
> >OVER"). I first heard the expression, "fuck someone over" ca.1970 and,
> >from that time to the present, I've never heard it used by blacks
> >under any circumstances, despite any literary evidence to the
> >contrary, possibly because I've never been a fan of Louis Armstrong,
> >etc., not to mention that no such record would ever have been played
> >on the radio and it's doubtful that it would have been sold in any
> >black record shop, back in the day, any more than a black store or
> >shop would have sold pornography. Till at least the 'Seventies, the
> >most erotic material freely available in black-operated stores was
> >Playboy, Jet magazine, and the Jet girlie calendar. I went to grade
> >school with Lamont McLemore, Jet's longtime girlie photographer -
> >since ca.1950 - and also a member of the Fifth Dimension, the formerly
> >well-known Saint Louis singing group. He was a Renaissance man, I
> >reckon. It must have been a hard life, since Lamont, though he was
> >younger than I am, died several years ago.
> >
> >-Wilson
> >
> >As for the syntax, saying "He fucked over me," etc., sounds completely
> >natural to me. OTOH, "He fucked me over"
> >
> >
> >On 9/24/07, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>-----------------------
> >>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>  Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
> >>  Subject:      Re: Finally!
> >>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  Though skin pigmentation is irrelevant per se, HDAS suggests (and
> >>I believe) that "to fuck over X"
> >>
> >>    a. was indeed the original form in the sense in question,
> >>
> >>    b. has been vastly more prevalent among speakers of AAVE - so
> >>much so as to sugget the idiom's origin there,
> >>
> >>    c. was not much used in white speech before the mid '70s,
> >>
> >>    d. still sounds rhythmically or positionally "wrong" to me as a
> >>speaker of WAVE.
> >>
> >>    Earliest HDAS ex. is from 1961, but the context suggests it was
> >>around for a while.
> >>
> >>    The form "fuck X over" undoubtedly owes something to "work X
> >>over."  I believe this is becoming the general form.
> >>
> >>    JL
> >>
> >>
> >>    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >>    ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>-----------------------
> >  > Sender: American Dialect Society
> >>  Poster: Wilson Gray
> >>  Subject: Finally!
> >>
> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>  The correct usage has appeared in print! From Slashdot:
> >>
> >>  "... [G]ranting corporations the right to _fuck over_ other
> >>  corporations who come up with rather ordinary improvements ..."
> >>
> >>  Lest the point be missed, for those of us old enough (and/or black enough?),
> >>
> >>  "... [G]ranting corporations the right to _fuck_ other corporations
> >>  _over_ who come up with rather ordinary improvements ..." is
> >>  ungrammatical.
> >>
> >>  That is, [fuck NP over] is absolutely *not* a viable or a grammatical
> >>
> >>  alternative to [fuck over NP]. Unless, of course, you speak a
> >>  different dialect.
> >>
> >>  There are 215,000 raw Google hits that include uses such as "get the
> >>  fuck over it." So, sorting out the various usages would take ten men
> >>  and a boy. But the Urban Dictionary, at least, has it right. Well,
> >>  sort of. The second definition defines _fuck over_ as a Briticism
> >>  meaning "fuck over," with examples ambiguous as to dialect. And either
> >>  UD doesn't have "fuck NP over" (unlikely?) or I don't know how to find
> >>  it (likely?).
> >>
> >>  -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
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  ---------------------------------
> >>
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> >>
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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
> >
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >The American Dialect Society - 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
>


--
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