"Let's get you that tattoo finished."

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:57 PM -0400 4/27/11, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:59 AM, Damien Hall <D.Hall at kent.ac.uk> wrote:
>>  I assume that's what caused Wilson to remark upon it.
>
>Some AmE-speakers find such structures to be nothing short of amazing.
>Readers may recall my twice-told - or, quite likely, more-often told -
>tale of the barracks-mate, a native of Darien, CT, who was absolutely
>astounded when a mess-cook said to him,
>
>"Get you a tray."
>
>It was literally days before he could stop bringing it up for
>discussion, even though - or, perhaps, especially because - he was
>alone in finding anything noteworthy about that sentence.
>
My first encounter with this was in an old Appalachian mountain
moonshiner ballad sung by Joan Baez on one of her early (1963?)
albums, "Copper Kettle":

Get you a copper kettle,
Got you a copper coil.
Cover with new-made cornmash,
And never more you'll toil.

You just lay there in the junipers
When the moon is bright
Watch them jugs a-filllin'
In the pale moonlight.

LH

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