[Ads-l] Is this what it seems?

[Joel Berson]

I am not and never have been a Southerner, but I too hear it as normal (certainly understandable), could easily say it (although probably not preferentially), and might even write it casually.


Joel

      From: Joe Salmons <jsalmons at WISC.EDU>
 To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU 
 Sent: Saturday, August 8, 2015 8:55 AM
 Subject: Re: [ADS-L] Is this what it seems?
   
Yeah, I took it as an ‘it-existential’. I’m a Southerner and  have some of those constructions but a limited set. (I don’t know what the parameters actually are.) This sentence sounds utterly normal to me … I’d say it for sure and might write it in an informal context.


> On Aug 8, 2015, at 7:43 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
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> Sender:      American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:      Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Is this what it seems?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> I take it to be "it's" substituting for "there's" - heard daily in
> Southern-origin speech.
> 
> JL
> 
> On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 8:34 AM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net> wrote:
> 
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>> Sender:      American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:      Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: Is this what it seems?
>> 
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> I take it to be a copula-less cleft construction: "It's only women
>> [that/who are] in the shop."
>> 
>> Neal
>> 
>> On 8/7/2015 11:01 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
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>>> Sender:      American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:      Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>> Subject:      Is this what it seems?
>>> 
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> "Valentine=E2=80=99s Day is one of the few times of the year when most
>> China Star
>>> customers are male. Usually,_it's_ only women in the shop..."
>>> 
>>> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/learning-to-speak-lingerie
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Not "... there are/there're/there is/there's only women ..."?
>>> 
>>> --
>>> -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
>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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