'looks like'

[Wilson Gray]

John right, look like t' me. With sentential stress on _some_, anyhow.
Otherwise, I'd expect "sometimes" and not "some time."

Of course, youneverknow.

-Wilson

On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 6:18 PM, Baker, John M. <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Baker, John M." <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> Subject:      Re: 'looks like'
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> This sounds like something that could be said in my native idiolect
> (south-central Kentucky).  I understand "looks like" to mean "under the
> circumstances, you would think," and "some time" to be hyperbole for "at
> least once."
>
>
> John Baker
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Lynne Murphy
> Sent: Mon 7/5/2010 5:44 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: 'looks like'
>
>
>
> A reader of my blog has sent me a query that's stumped me. Starting with =
> an
> example from _To kill a mockingbird_, he writes:
>
> "Dill says of Boo Radley, musing on his reclusiveness, "Looks like he'd
> stick his head out the door some time".  I *think* I've met this use =
> (which
> I can only make sense of by "translating" as "You'd think that...") a
> handful of times since, ie over a period of getting on for 30 years
> since I read the book, but I can't remember any specifics."
>
> I agree that, in context, it looks like you have to read it as 'You'd =
> think
> he'd stick his head out', rather than 'It looks like he would stick his
> head out sometimes', the context can be found at the bottom of page 12 =
> on
> this pdf version:
>
> photo.goodreads.com/documents/1239291793books/2660.pdf
>
> Is this a known use of 'looks like', or do we have to read the 'some =
> time'
> as 'sometimes' in spite of the contextual evidence?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Lynne
>
>
>
> Dr M Lynne Murphy
> Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
> Arts B357
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QN
>
> phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
> http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com =
> <http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/>=20
>
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--
-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.
–Mark Twain

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