Dialect notes. v.3, 1908-09

[Wilson Gray]

 Payne, Leonidas Warren. A Word-List from East Alabama.

Though the author makes clear that he's dealing almost exclusively
with a local white dialect of East Alabama, with only occasional
references to the local black dialect, and my father was a black
native of Moundville in West Alabama, I find this article (from GB) to
be really interesting reading.

To give a typical f'rinstance, Payne notes the use of forms like _all
the high_ in place of _as high as_:

That's _all the high_ I can jump = That's  _as high as_ I can jump.

In E TX BE, we say (said?):

That's _all the higher_ I can jump.

I'd completely forgotten that I'd ever talked that way!

Of course, "high" and "higher" are different, but as has been pointed
out elsewhere, "A difference that makes no difference is no
difference."
--
-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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