"Thaaat's what I'm talking about!"

[Dan Goncharoff]

I have heard it all my life as a way of signifying agreement, or
acknowledgement of agreement..

Here's an example. from the movie Jaws:

HARBOUR OFFICE
Martin: Polly, listen to me. We got some road block signs outside. Now you..
you... you gotta get somebody to help us. Yeah get those, get those road
block signs out on the highway. Because we got more people down here than we
can handle.
Hendricks: Ya?
Martin: What are you doing out there? These are your people, go and talk to
them!
Hendricks: Those aren't my people! They're from all over the place! Did you
see all the license plates out in the parking lot? Connecticut, Rhode Island,
New Jersey. I'm all by myself out there! Um, what happened to the extra help
we were supposed to be get?
Martin: That's not until the fourth of July! Between now and then it's you
and me!
Hooper: Ah, you know those eight guys in the fan-tail launch out there?
Martin: Yeah?
Hooper: Well none of them are going to get out of the harbour alive.
Martin: Lenny, that's what I'm talking about. You know their first names!
Talk to those clowns!

DanG



On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Thaaat's what I'm talking about!"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I too have heard it a number of times, but OED hasn't. I certainly
> never heard it in NYC.
>
> The idiom's distinction comes from the fact that the speaker need not
> have been talking at all.
>
> JL
>
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Ben Zimmer
> <bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: "Thaaat's what I'm talking about!"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 3:26 PM, will salmon wrote:
>>>
>>> On Oct 27, 2011, at 2:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>> >
>>> > There's a current TV commercial in which B.B. King says this.
>>> >
>>> > Contextually it can only mean, "Yes, indeed, I think that's really great!"
>>> >
>>> > AAVE?
>>>
>>> I've said this for years, and I am a native speaker of Texican.
>>
>> Seems unremarkable to me, too -- I feel like I've heard it in a
>> hundred movies. Earliest relevant example I can find from a quick
>> search of IMDb's quote repository is from Will Smith in "Men in Black"
>> (1997):
>>
>> Zed: Kay, give the kid a weapon.
>> [Kay opens a chest filled with intergalactic guns. He picks up a large rifle]
>> Kay: A Series Four De-atomizer.
>> Jay: That's what I'm talkin' about.
>>
>> Eddie Murphy said it in his standup movie "Raw" but not in the
>> intended idiomatic fashion -- though he did use it in relevant way in
>> "Mulan" (1998) and "I Spy" (2002). More recent examples come from Sam
>> Worthington in "Avatar" (2009) and Steve Carrell in "Despicable Me"
>> (2010).
>>
>> --bgz
>>
>> --
>> Ben Zimmer
>> http://benzimmer.com/
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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>

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