Too Yet

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jennifer calling from Toledo, Ohio.

Hi, Jennifer. Welcome. What can we do for you?

I have a question about a phrase that I grew up using. I’m originally from South Central Minnesota, and the phrase is to yet, so T-O-O and then yet. And I never realized that it was not universal until I was a little older, and I’m finding that it’s actually not used very commonly. So I’m wondering if you all know anything about the phrase, its origins, where it’s used, how common it is, things like that.

So to yet, T-O-O-Y-E-T, two words, right?

Mm—

And how do you use it in a sentence?

There seems to be about three ways that it could be used. So one would be to say in addition, but with an air of dislike. So I could say, I’ve been to the grocery store and the bakery, and now I have to go to the dry cleaners too yet. So it’s sort of redundant with two, except it automatically gives the idea of, I don’t like this.

And then another way would be if, like, the outcome of something is unfavorable, but it started off okay. Like, my dog vomited all over the kitchen floor, and I had just scrubbed it too yet. And it could also sometimes be used for something good. Like if I’ve had a student who struggled all semester, I might say at the end, oh, my goodness, you made it. And with a B, too, yet. Those seem to be the ways that it’s used.

Most of the uses that we find of this recorded in the sociolinguistic texts and the dialect texts point to it being really common in Michigan. And a few occasionally popping up in Iowa, but mostly in Michigan. So to get a field report of this from you from Minnesota is a really nice treat. So happy to have that.

And the strong conviction by sociolinguists and people who study dialect is that it comes from a Dutch heritage.

Oh, wow.

There is an expression which literally translates as and yet in Dutch. It’s kind of a tag to a sentence. It’s exactly the same way that you’re using it in English. The pronunciation is something like oknok, something like that. And it means and yet. It literally is and yet. And we find uses of this in print at least back to the 1940s.

There’s an article in the Journal of American Speech by Peter Veltman from 1940s where he goes into Holland, Michigan, which is literally named after, you know, Dutch country. And he studies the language and talks about the linguistic artifacts that are left and talks about how he thinks that they’ll be handled in the future. And one of the things that he says about and yet is worth repeating here. He believes that and yet is going to be stomped out by the schools. He says perhaps the most prevalent of Dutchisms in Holland, meaning Holland, Michigan, it is constantly attacked in the local schools.

Oh.

Yeah.

Ouch.

Yeah, but the thing is that you’re still saying it, so we know that it hasn’t been stomped out yet.

That’s really interesting, and especially, you know, the town that I grew up in is very, very German. I am wondering if there is an equivalent phrase in German that somehow also was calct. That’s the word for it in linguistics, calc, when you literally translate words from language A to language B. I wonder if German has a very similar expression that was also calct separately.

Like auch nach.

Something like that, yeah.

I love this little phrase. I would probably not use it correctly, so I probably shouldn’t try it. It would be like somebody my age using slang from really young kids. It took a while to teach my husband how to use it correctly. He’s from Ohio. So he would just tack it on at the end wherever he wanted, and I would say no, no.

No.

Well, thank you so much for calling us about this. We really appreciate it. And if anything else from your Minnesota heritage comes up, give us a call about that too, all right?

Thanks so much.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

We know that you, listening, probably have a few of these of your own. You got them from Grandma. You got them from an aunt. Some of your community says it. It’s interesting and cool. We want to hear it. Bring us those linguistic heirlooms. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org. Thank you.