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

[Jonathan Lighter]

Hardly the same.

The "Jaws" ex. means, "(Can't you see) that's what I'm talking about?!"

B.B. King says "Thaat's what I'm talking about!" in response to the
guitar-playing and blood-sugar testing of  of Crystal Bowersox. He
thinks both are great.

JL

On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Thaaat's what I'm talking about!"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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:
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>>> 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/
>>>
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>>> 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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> 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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