"I got a woman / Way ...

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:43 AM -0400 6/3/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>_over town_"
>
>as Ray Charles sang.

The (I assume later) versions by Elvis, the Beatles, Johnny Cash, et
al. have "I('ve) got a woman/Way cross town/She's good to me".  Not
to be confused with Waycross, Georgian.  I guess the main point is
that she's good to me, wherever she is.

LH

>
>It's the case that _over town_, which I otherwise know only from Ray
>Charles's song, is common among local speakers here in the towns along
>the banks of the Susquehanna in the Wyoming Valley, with reference to
>going across the river uptown (north) to "The City Square" in
>Wilkes-Barre, the primary local shopping district. My wife, who never
>used this phrase in Boston, uses it all the time, now that she's back
>home.
>
>I *still* have no idea what, exactly, Ray Charles had in mind, when he
>used "(way) _over town_."
>
>-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
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org