Over Yonder

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how’s it going? This is Josh. I’m calling from San Diego, California.

Welcome, Josh.

Hi, Josh. What’s up?

I grew up in Southern California, and I moved to the Midwest a few years ago.

I spent a few years over there in Michigan, to be exact.

And one phrase that I’ve never understood and I’ve always been curious about is over yonder.

Anytime I ask for an item or where someone is or how to go somewhere, they tell me, oh, it’s over yonder.

I ask, where’s the soda? Or they call it pop for some reason.

Hey, where’s the soda? Oh, it’s over yonder.

Now, I got the general idea of maybe it’s somewhere far away or over there, but never really understood the who, what, when, where, and why about it.

Over yonder. Wait, so was the soda within sight when they said over yonder?

Or would it be out of sight, maybe in another room?

Usually out of sight when I had no idea where something or somewhere was.

That’s one of the things about yonder.

You almost never say it if it’s a thing that you can see.

And it usually means a fair bit of distance.

Like it’s going to take you some time or effort to get to it.

So it’s not just there.

You would never say over there and over yonder are synonyms.

It’s mostly still used.

It’s used across the country.

Let’s just say that.

It’s not that common.

It’s a little more common in the American South.

And it has a flavor of being rustic or old-fashioned to most people.

Even to people who say yonder, they still think of it as being kind of a country word or something that they inherited from their parents or grandparents and not something that, you know, they don’t think of it as contemporary.

I heard it more when I was out in the country than in the city.

Yeah.

It was mostly the country folk that said it.

Yeah.

That makes sense to me.

Yeah.

I think of it without R’s.

Over yonder.

It’s over yonder, Martha Ann.

Go get it.

Yep.

That’s your Kentucky heritage, though, right?

North Carolina, maybe, too.

Lack of R’s in there.

But it’s still widely used.

It hasn’t fallen completely out of favor ever.

It’s not used nearly as much in the other parts of the English-speaking world, but I wouldn’t call it exclusively in Americanism.

Yeah, it’s super, super old.

It goes back to the 15th century, I think, 14th century.

Yeah, and has some similar words and varieties of German and Germanic languages.

Okay, so it’s usually used when something’s out of sight, far away.

Yeah.

Far, far away.

Yeah, yonder is typically like it’s going to take you time and effort to get to it.

Yeah.

I always had the general idea but never had it confirmed.

And no matter who I ask, I could ask 100 different people in Michigan, and they’ll all give me a different answer or just have no idea what it meant.

So thank you.

I have a question for you.

I do too.

You said you grew up, so Michigan and Southern California, but your accent is telling me a different story.

I’ve heard that throughout my life.

My first language is actually Spanish.

I grew up in Southern California speaking a lot of Spanglish.

But I’ve had people tell me that I sound Irish, Australian, or just can’t pinpoint it.

It is a unique and novel idiolectic.

It’s beautiful.

It’s interesting.

You’ve got a thing happening there that I really like.

Well, thank you.

I really appreciate it.

You get complimented on it?

I get asked a lot, too.

I work in customer service, so every customer, there’s always someone asking me, where are you from?

What part of the world are you from?

What’s your culture?

They very rarely pinpoint it that I’m Hispanic.

-huh.

That’s cool.

Joshua, thank you for your call.

Really appreciate it.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Take care.

Have a nice day.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

The cool thing about Joshua’s call is that you think, oh, I’m going to travel to another country and experience other cultures.

But the truth is, you can just go to Michigan or anywhere, right?

You can move across this country or even to the neighboring state, next county sometimes, and encounter people who don’t talk like you.

And who have always talked that way and have no idea what you’re talking about when you’re fascinated, right?

And why do you sound like the strange one?

How many emails?

I bet if we searched our email box for the phrase, looked at me like I had two heads.

I mean, there would be so many emails from people who moved across the country to a new place and used a term.

Not even that far sometimes.

A word or a phrase.

Yeah.

Well, we know that’s you.

I know it’s happened to you.

Give us a call and tell us about it.

877-929-9673.

Or email us the whole thing.

Words@waywordradio.org.