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I was hoping someone might be able to help me with my questions. My father in law was from Pennsylvania. He would say "Leave me explain" Where does that come from? He would always use "leave" instead of "let" and I was just curious if that was an "eastern" thing. Any input would be greatly appreciated!
I lived in (western) PA three years, more than thirty years ago, and I didn't notice hearing it there any more than anywhere else. But I have heard it.
There are senses of "let" and "leave" that are close to each other. But I wouldn't allow my children to substitute the latter verb for the former.
I grew up in the upper Midwest, and I never heard this error, but I remember grammar lessons about it in school. Now I live in pittsburgh, and when I was dating my now-husband, he told me that he had "left the dogs out." I panicked because we didn't have a fence. His response? "I left them back in."
What?
He also confuses me when he uses "whenever" to describe single events, and I often have him repeat words such as /WIL/--which, as it turns out, is spelled W-H-E-E-L.
It's a Yinzer thing.
My wife's family, in Texas, uses "whenever" for a single event. I corrected my wife until she stopped using it. After listening to Grant and Martha for a bit, I'm not sure I would try to change her English now. My understanding of "valid" and "invalid" is more blurred – I've lost my oral compass.
However, my father-in-law has a phrase I just can't get past. He says, "Watch this!" when he wants us to listen to what he's about to say. He grew up Spanish-speaking. Does "Watch this!" make more sense in Spanish?
Bite your tongue! I am a Sprecher-drinking, custard-licking, Gardetto's-munching Packer Backer! Even though I am now a Cheese-Burgher, my Northern Cities Shift is still intact.
...but yeah, hubby is a Stiller fan who shops at gynt iggle, not the dahntahn store or the one in scroll hill, but the one in car-NEG-ie. he picks up kolbassi; I buy kielbasa. It's the same package.
Yeah CheddarMelt … go Packers! And Favre, just go please.
Raised in the Midwest, and still in contact with family there, there's an expression I brought with me to Arizona and had to "unlearn" after my use of it puzzled so many people. That expression is "enso?" or maybe "inso?" which is appended after a question or statement and taken to mean "Is that so?" or "Isn't that so?" but it's pronounced like a 2-syllable word.
No doubt it's a contraction of sorts. I have heard it nowhere else. Only in the Midwest. Anyone else ever run into that?
There is a humor-polka band from Wisconsin, called the Happy Schnapps Combo. On their album "Raise It" is a song called, "Come Here Once." This is how the chorus goes:
Come here once.
Come here once.
Why don't you come by here.
We'll have a hot tamale
And a couple-two-tree beers.
Or you can go there by that bubbler,
But don't you budge in line!
She's a nice day out, hey, 'n so.
Now for those of you not conversant in Cheesehead, a bubbler is a drinking fountain, and a hot tamale is a name used in the Sheboygan/manitowoc area for something I grew up calling a Sloppy Joe.
sigh...this is a retype since my post seems to have gotten eaten.
There is a humor-polka band from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, called the Happy Schnapps Combo. On their album "Raise It" is a song called, "Come Here Once." This is the chorus:
Come here once, come here once.
Why don't you come by here.
We'll have a hot tamale
And a couple-two-tree beers.
Or you can go there by that bubbler,
But don't you budge in line.
She's a nice day out, hey, 'n so.
Now for those of you who do not speak Cheesehead, a bubbler is a drinking fountain, and in some parts of the state, a hot tamale is a sandwich otherwise known as a sloppy joe. I would love to understand the etymological backflip involved there.
CheddarMelt,
Perhaps it's something with your browser's page refresh settings?
Anyway, yeah I got that Happy Schnapps Combo CD from my bro-in-law a couple years ago. Funny stuff. My favorite cut is "The Bears Still Suck." Wasn't sure how to spell "enso" since it ain't in the dictionary and my copy of the CD doesn't include printed lyrics, but your spelling ('n so) makes sense, as it is a kind of contraction.
Hey, I got burned on that "bubbler" thing too. After having to explain it to enough people, who responded "Oh … you mean a water fountain?" I had to unlearn that Midwesternism as well. Funny, but spellcheck just flagged "bubbler" even though it's a perfectly logical noun.
And here's one more for you ... "prinyeer" (at least that's the way it was pronounced) as a contraction of "pretty near." Like, "Yeah, I prinyeer hit that deer on the road last night."
Actually, I suppose the proper term for these things are "regional colloquialisms," as I don't think they would officially count as a true "contraction." I don't recall ever seeing any of these in print. Prinyeer always just used in spoken form.
CheddarMelt, you can still get your custard in various places around Pittsburgh. There was a great custard stand just a half mile from where I used to live in Natrona Heights.
I'd never heard "bubbler" before moving to the Midwest. I love it! Such a great word. A word that gave me fits when I first moved here was "ramp"--as in "parking ramp." It took going into Madison with a friend and putting the car in a parking garage before I made the connection. I understand ramp now, as it is just a big ramp up and down in the parking garage.
Do you go to the Iggle deli and buy jumbo? (That's boloney, aka bologna, for those not in Pittsburgh.)
Yes, one can buy something called frozen custard in many places, but the style of the custard is different. Not unlike barbecue, regional variations can be enormous. The style available in southern Wisconsin is firmer, with a cleaner taste, and I have not found anything like it elsewhere, despite sampling custards coast to coast.
(typed while I sit at a George Webb counter. Happy Thanksgiving.)
Bob Bridges said:
My maternal grandfather, a second-generation German from McHenry country, WI, pronounced it not "prinyeer" but "pritt-n-ear".
Must be that my family and relatives hailed from Manitowoc and Kewaunee County. Maybe living on the shores of balmy Lake Michigan (yeah, right) just made them more laid back and lazy, since they always seemed to opt for less syllables. Then again, most were heavy drinkers, so perhaps they were just slurring their words.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
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