Will You? Won’t You? Can’t I Coax You?

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Suzanne, and I’m from Tucson, Arizona.

Hey, Suzanne, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

When I was little, probably I learned it when I was eight or nine. My mom used to say this one word, you know, kind of strung together series of words. And I’ve always asked other people if they’ve heard it. And I’ve never heard anyone else say it or recognize it. And so this is how it goes. Will you want you to can a coxer?

Oh, come on. You said you would. You promised me. You think you might? Won’t your mama let you? Huh?

And what kind of context would she say? Yeah, what’s happening when she says that?

She just taught it to me maybe as we were doing some chore in the house or something like that.

Okay. So it didn’t really happen in response to an action. It was just a kind of thing to say in passing.

Yeah. And I don’t even know that my other family members knew about it. I’m a book artist, and, you know, so words are really important to me as well as image making. And I made a little miniature book that had all these things in it.

Oh, lovely. Things Our Mothers Said. Will you say that again? What is the saying?

Will you, won’t you? How does it go? Will you, won’t you? Can’t I coax you?

Oh, come on. You said you would. You think you might? You promised me. Won’t your mama let you, huh?

Okay. I think I’ve got that. All right. All right. I have it. I think I’ve got a source for you.

No way. Well, first of all, if you search for variations on this, you’re going to find a ton of them. Because this pops up in college yearbooks and high school yearbooks and newspapers and different places over the years. You’ll even find a version of it in a 1960s song by the band Cream in their song What to Bring Down. You’ll find it in military newspapers from the 1920s.

But you’ll also find an Alice in Wonderland, a version that goes, will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance? But older than that still is in the novel Dr. Thorne by Anthony Troll of 1858. There’s a moment where the character Frank Gresham, who is the heir to Greshambury, and Mary Thorne, the niece of Dr. Thorne, they’re talking. Frank confesses his love for Mary in an impassioned and somewhat desperate way. And he presses her for an answer about her feelings for him.

And he says, oh, Mary, do you love me?

Don’t you love me?

Won’t you love me?

Say you will.

Oh, Mary, dearest Mary, will you?

Won’t you?

Do you?

Don’t you?

Come now.

You have a right to give a fellow an answer.

And now I don’t want to overstate the case, but Anthony Trollope’s novels were huge.

Now, this novel, Dr. Thorne, is part of this whole set of the Barsetshire series, which was set in this imaginary English county of Barsetshire.

And this is all this complicated drama.

It’s basically the soap opera of its time from the mid-1800s.

And these were widely reprinted in newspapers and magazines and widely read and quite influential.

And I believe that this ultimately is the source of this rhyme.

Maybe so.

Don’t you love me?

Won’t you love me?

Say you will, Mary, dearest Mary.

Will you?

Won’t you?

Do you?

Don’t you come?

Now you have a right to give a fellow an answer.

And what’s funny is the one in 1922 from the military newspaper is, will you?

Won’t you?

Can’t I coax you?

All go on.

You said you would.

Won’t your mother let you?

And so there’s always this.

Oh, that’s the most similar.

Yeah.

And that’s 100 years ago.

How about that?

Yeah.

There’s always this notion in there about getting the other person to consent to marriage or a dance or a date or a kiss or something like that.

Yeah.

I’m looking at a newspaper from 1929 where somebody says this to their boss.

Will you want you?

Can I coax you?

Gee, I got to ask you soon.

I know you could if you just would.

Excuse me Friday afternoon.

I mean, people have done all kinds of versions.

That’s a heck of a way to ask for a day off.

Yeah, right?

People have to write new versions when I’m asking the favor.

Yeah, that sounds like fun.

Hopefully with your artistic style comes writing style.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Suzanne, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us.

Okay.

Thanks a lot.

All right.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

You too.

Bye.

Bye, Suzanne.

Will you, won’t you, can’t we coax you?

Oh, come on.

You said you would call us.

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