Heard on The Doctors: "Lookit, youse

[Laurence Horn]

On May 5, 2012, at 7:48 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> A forty-ish, white, emergency-room doctor at a Saint Louis hospital
> who describes himself as having been "born and raised in Saint Louis"
> says "_Lookit, youse!_

"Lookit, youse" would have have equally at home in NYC when I was growing up, although we (my friends and I) would have only been likely to utter "Lookit!", not "youse".  For "you-all"/"youse"/"yinz"/"you lot"/"you guys", we poor urchins had to get by with just "you", although we were passively familiar with at least "youse".

LH

> After my wife caught on that I don't live in
> real time, she gave me this cell for me to call her and say when I was
> *really* going to be home."
>
> At the time that we moved to StL, ca. 1941-42, the use of _Lookit!_ in
> place of _Look!_, _youse_ in place of _you_ or _y'all_, and _never
> V-ed_ in place of _didn't V_ were the locutions that I found strangest
> about the local white dialect.
>
> It's interesting - to me - that the first two are still alive. (I've
> since discovered that the use of _never V-ed_ instead of _didn't V_ -
> or _*ain't* V(-ed)_, as appears to be more common, nowadays - is
> general among white speakers.)
>
> --
> -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

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