Heard on The Judges: creeping blackenization?

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:51 AM -0400 5/28/08, Doug Harris wrote:
>My mother used to say "here goes" many decades ago, as in "here goes
>nothing", and I might to this day say "here/there goes" to mean "here/there
>is", but not so baldly as your Cuban-American.  May be he is not so standard
>a speaker.
>Seán Fitzpatrick
>----
>
>The here/there usage has slightly baffled me (it's not an issue worth
>getting TOO worked up about!) in the context of waitresses who say, when
>delivering food (usually NOT when delivering drinks) either "here you go"
>or "there you go". I've never been able to figure this out. Is it a
>pessimist/optimist thing -- half started vs half finished with the meal --
>or what? And why not "here you ARE" or "there you ARE"??
>WTF?
>dh
>
Not sure about the metaphorical interpretations,
but French has a similar opposition between
"voici" and "voila", which have a complicated
overlapping distribution and are used, inter
alia, to announce the presentation of food.

LH

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