The neighbor was riding his bike down the street as I was finishing
my walk/run this morning. Since it was about 6:45 a.m. I asked him, "Do you
have to be to school early today?" All my life I would have said at school,
but apparently I'm picking up the local dialect.
When I read that, I wondered which way I would have said it. Both, actually, sounded right to me. Then, today, as I was driving home, I was griping in my mind about having to pick up Nathan. Usually, Jerry picks him up on Monday, but at the last minute, he said he couldn't do it. I was playing out our future conversation in my mind.
Jerry would said, "I had a paper due and a final tonight. You knew that. How did you think could I pick up Nathan too?" And then I would say, "You had plenty of time. You said you had to be TO school at 5:30."
As soon as I thought it, I remembered Rhoda's blog. How would you have said it?
5 comments:
I think I would say "at" but I'm not sure so I'll pay attention.
BTW/ Grace is reading the Little House on the Prairie books and was telling me, "Laura has to go back to work after dinner," then pointed out that "dinner is what we would call lunch." I told her that my Mom would say dinner instead of lunch and Grace said, "I know. She also says supper instead of dinner." Grace thinks it's a country thing to say dinner instead of lunch and supper instead of dinner.
I would have said "at"--the "to" was not even something I'd heard until Rhoda mentioned it.
There are a lot of idioms in the south that are a little different. For example, I used to call Cathy on her birthday every year (sorry, guess that's kind of slid in recent years) and I'd say "Is your mama there?" I didn't think twice about it, but her girls used to say "Your cousin from the south is calling." Remember that, Cathy?
Also, here people would say "give" instead of "pay."
"How much did you give for that?"
"I give two dollars for it."
I asked Jerime how he would say it because he lived in Arkansas as a kid. I didn't want to give him the options of "at" or "to" because he would think about it first. He said "in" instead.
The most southern thing he says is "fixin' to." "I'm fixin' to do this or that."
I would call lunch lunch. Always. Regarding the dinner/supper thing...I might use supper if it's less formal. For example, if we're just eating at home, and I've made spagetti or something easy, I would call is supper. If I've made a special meal that everyone is expected to be at the table for, or if we go out to eat, then I might call it dinner.
I would never use "give" instead of "pay." Never even heard of that!
Saying "fixin'" doesn't come naturally to me either, although I do try to pull it off sometimes! :)
One of the things I noticed right away when I met Jason was that he used anymore at the beginning of a sentence that did not include a negative. "Well, anymore, people drive like crazy!" Prior to meeting him, I had always used/heard it at the end of a sentence with a negative "I don't eat meat anymore."
I would say be at but go to school.
I love language - having grown up with my family as non-native English speakers, and then learning and teaching Spanish, I could just think about it and study it all day long. Anymore.
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