To Do Something of the Morning

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is John calling from Northeast Tennessee. How are y’all?

We’re doing great, John.

Doing well. What’s going on, John?

I work in orthopedics down here in Tennessee. We often ask our patients to qualify their injury. And more often than not, most of our patients will say, of the evening, my ankle will swell, or of the morning, my pain is the worst. And I just find it so interesting that they use that of in that context. I was just curious where that came from. I kind of counted it as Southern Appalachianism.

Yeah, it’s a little bigger than that.

Are you from that area, John?

I am.

Okay.

All right.

But you didn’t grow up saying it?

I did not grow up saying that. And so is it more older patients who use that locution?

Yeah, older patients, I would say. And we see patients from Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. And I would, I’m not sure, but I would wager that most of them are from the Virginia or Kentucky area.

-huh. -huh.

And so when they’re saying something like of a morning, like I take my coffee of a morning on the back porch or something like that, are they talking about a habitual action, something that happens every day?

Yeah. And in the context of orthopedics, so they’ll describe their swelling in their ankle of the morning. So, yeah, it would be every day during their injury recovery.

If you hear something in my voice, it’s me melting a little bit because this is a southernism. The South and South Midlands of this country has places where people say that. And often it’s older folks who say it.

Yeah.

But it’s a very old expression that goes back at least a couple hundred years and may reflect the construction of Old English.

Oh, I like that.

I want to puzzle something out here. You’re saying, John, that they’re saying of the evening, but Martha is talking about of an evening. Am I hearing you correctly?

Yeah, I hear them say of the morning. Or of the evening.

Oh, with a the. They don’t say of an evening or of a morning. It’s always the.

Okay, interesting. Because that one isn’t well testified in the dialect resources that I have. Usually it’s always listed, I mean almost always listed as of an evening. It doesn’t matter very much, but it’s interesting to see that it’s kind of gone one step beyond in the hundreds of years it’s been around.

Yeah, that’s very interesting. I thought you were saying of a morning or of an evening.

Well, we like to throw the on all kinds of things, like we’ll say the Walmart or the Facebook. Is it in line with that?

No, it’s different. But the definite article does tend to want to take a place on something that’s important.

Okay.

Well, cool, John. Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, I think that this is one of those things that will constantly persist but never be hugely popular.

Okay.

I like it. I enjoy it when they say it. I always smile when I hear it.

I do, too. It’s popular with you and me, for sure.

Perfect.

All right.

Thanks for calling.

Bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

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