Heard on The Judges: _for to_ VP

[Herb Stahlke]

Wilson,

Doesn't Judge Mathis often echo the unusual syntax of people in his court?

Herb

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 6:28 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Heard on The Judges: _for to_ VP
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Thirty-ish, black female speaker living in Youngstown, OH:
>
> "I ain't riding in no hooptie with no *bungee cord* _for to_ hold up
> the bumper!"
>
> ...
>
> Thirty-ish, black male speaker, likewise living in Y-town:
>
> When I be trying to drive, she be tickling _on_ me, like this." [demonstrating]
>
> Judge Greg Mathis:
>
> "Were you really tickling _on_ him like that?"
>
>
> So, I assume that the judge found nothing strange about this syntactic
> structure.
>
>
> I'm fairly certain that I'd long heard people speak this way, but it
> didn't grab my attention till Buddy Johnson & His Orchestra, With [his
> real-life] Sister Ella On Vocals, released Hittin' _On_ Me in 1953:
>
> I don't want
> No man
> Always
> _Hittin' on_
> Me
>
>
> Probably because "hit on" already had the slang meaning, "approach for
> a sexual or other favor." There was a certain amount of cognitive
> dissonance involved in reconciling the two meanings of "hit on," since
> the song was about a woman who wouldn't take an ass-whipping from a
> man and then not do anything about it.
>
> --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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