St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-07-27
QUEER USES OF WORDS.

| Curious Expressions Peculiar to
the North and SOuth-"YOu Be"
Exclusively a Northern Phrase.
! Chautauquan.
1t seems the most natural thing in the
world for Southerner in calling ans
other person to say, 80, JohnW but ID
always seems to amuse our friends
across the way. 1t is the 80" that ex-
cites their merriment, and in attempts
ing to give the popularity they often
represent us as saying, "Ho! john"
which we never say.
Another Southern expression which
| always sounds queer to Northern ears
is the use of the word "mighty" as an
adverb. But to those accustomed to it,
'Mighty pretty" conveys an idea OK
beauty that the overburdened Northern
word ''lovely" doesn't reach. Turning
to Webster to see If it must be given up,
we find that it is allowable when used
cOllOquially. Good! We should never
want to use it except colioquially.
In the North man fills his wagon
''box" with corn and "draws" 1t to
town. South he fills his wagon ''bed"
with corn and ''hauls" it to the same
place.
In New England they say ''the goingn
(meaning the condition Of the roads, is
bad: in the South they say 1.-THE travel.
ing" is bad. Perhaps to say the roads
are bad would be more Ineligible than
either.
SOuthernerS say ''like" for ''aS if''-
as ''she looked like she wanted to CO."
They laugh at in the North, and in the
same breath say "as" for "that"-"I
don't know as | ever heard 1t here"-
and then the SOutherner laughs, and
both are happy, So ingrained are both
expressions, however, that the delin-
quents are seldom conscious of the de-
linQuency.
A large proportion of grammatical
mistakes are common to the uneducated
wherever they are found, but there are
some which are so peculiar to certain
sections that their use settles at once
the question of whether the person
using them is from the North or the
South. The expression 81 seen" for Il
saw is very common mistake i'll the
South and rare in the North, while II
seen him yesterday fol- Il saw him
yesterday" so common, even among
educated people at the North, is never
heard in the South.
This makes it difficulty for writers
who have never lived in a certain sec
ton to initiate successfully the dialect
of that people. They are apt to be be-
trayed into the mistake of putting into
the mouths of certain class ip another
part of the country such words as they
would hear from the same class in their
own section. This is undoubtedly is
the difficulty which many Northern
writer's find in truthfully portraying the
negro dialect They take as models the
negroes they have known and judge,
incorrectly, that the talk of the South
ern negro would be the same; cOnse-
quently, a practiced ear can almost
always detect the difference between
one who assumes familiarity and one
who is to this manner born" The In
eongruity of making Southern negro
say: "Whar be you goin'?' as we saw
recently in some story, is inexpressibly
ludicrous to one familiar with their
dialect. He might say, "Whar you
goin?'' or .'Whar is you goinl" but
never "Whar be you goin?' The honor
OF the expression "You be" belongs ex-
clusiyely to the North. What he would
be most likely to say is, "Whar you
pwiDeS,,