"Tell me something good!"

[Charles C Doyle]

Of course, I am many generations younger than you, Wilson.  But "Tell me something good!" was common among white east Texans in the 1950s and 1960s as well!

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Wilson Gray [hwgray at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2011 8:00 PM

When the song of this title, by Rufus, dropped, back in the day, I had
the feeling that there was something Texan about the phrase, as though
it was something that I used to hear people, e.g. my mother, say to me
and to each other, when I was a child in Marshall.

I checked with Mother Dear and, sure enough, she verified the memory.

Today, I heard someone else that I know to be from Texas and who's
white say, spontaneously, in the course of answering a telephone call,

"Tell me something good!"

Y'all, is this one of those things, like _tee-nine-shee_ "teeny-tiny,"
that's used by Texans and not just by black East Texans?


The song was written by Stevie wonder, a native of Saginaw, MI. Once,
in Widener Library, I came across an undergrad wearing the
paraphernalia of my frat. I struck up a conversation with him. He
mentioned that he was a native of Saginaw, MI. In turn, I mentioned
that I was a native of Marshall. Startled, he said that his parents
were also natives of Marshall.

When I last lived in Marshall, a classmate mentioned that the Northern
branch of his family lived in Saginaw.

Q.E.D.

---Wilson

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