"I am still believing..."

[Wilson Gray]

It may simply be Southern, since I'm familiar with it from the speech
of rural-Southern black speakers. (Oftentimes, Northern BE slang is
just ordinary Southern BE speech brought North by Big Mama or cudn
Willie James or cudn Joe Daniel on a visit from Down Home.) At one
time, ca.1960-65, "I'm gnawin' (so, as "no" is pronounced "naw") this"
was used as a hip replacement [no pun intended] for "I'm hip" by black
GI's in Berlin.

-Wilson

On Feb 5, 2008 10:18 PM, Arun K Raman <arunkr.shivers at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arun K Raman <arunkr.shivers at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      "I am still believing..."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I"m watching a speech by Mike Huckabee on MSNBC and he said something
> strange. He ended a sentence with "I am still believing."
>
> The full sentence , and I paraphrase, was "we'll forget about the cotton
> bowl and I think we'll be thanking our friends from the north before the
> night is done, I am still believing."
>
> I haven't heard anything similar in America but I have heard it in India and
> a few middle eastern countries. Is this just a a single anomaly or a strange
> Arkansas oddity?
>
> --
> -
> Arun K Raman
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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