This is why I don't get much sleep

[kickaha]

Last night, around, oh... 1am or so, ginkgo busts out the following:

Me: So I pointed (Name deleted to protect the innocent) to the torrent site to get the Doctor Who episode he missed last week, and he said "My god, there must be almost every episode on here." I almost responded with "Pert'near"[1].

She: Don't you mean "Pertwee near"?




[1] Pert'near is a SW VA expression that is a contraction and bastardization of "pretty near". ginkgo's family and my family both have roots that end up within a couple dozen miles of each other in that area, and somehow this phrase has survived.

Comments

[night-monkey.livejournal.com]

Some people call it a kaiser blade. You call it a....?

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Brush axe, sorry... :)

I said we had *roots* that were there, not that *we* were from there. :D Pronouncing 'wash' like 'warsh' died out with my grandfather, thank god.

[badger.livejournal.com]

Bush axe or brush hook. But we moved around a lot.

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

Warsh is not a Southern thing. :) That's purely Baltimore and a few other places.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, 'warsh' from his Dad, and the VAisms from his Mom's side.

[icebluenothing.livejournal.com]

That's insanely awesome. :)

Pert'near is in my vocab, too. I blame my father being from Aberdeen. But it's such a useful word!

Of course, I will also strongly defend the linguistic necessity of "y'all," since English doesn't have a proper second-person plural pronoun ....

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Oh hells yeah. Y'all is THE missing word in common English. I love it. Best usage: "Fuck all y'all" Just rolls off the tongue. :)

Pert'near has snuck into my speech as well... it's quicker to say than "Pretty much", and even folks who have never heard it before seem to grok it immediately.

But "pertwee near"? Thought I was going to bust an internal organ.

[icebluenothing.livejournal.com]

Jon was awesome -- not really my idea of how the Doctor should be played, but still awesome -- but I gotta say, "Pertwee" is, in and of itself, an inherently funny word.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for the longest time I broke it up in my head as 'per tweeeeeeeee', as in 'for each funny sounding noise', which after seeing his incarnation, seemed appropriate.

Of course 'pert wee' has an entirely different connotation.

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

"Fuck all y'all"

BURNING HATRED.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

See, here's the thing though...

If I said "Fuck you!" to you standing with other people, you wouldn't know if I meant just you, or everyone around you as well.

"Fuck y'all" gets across that I do indeed mean plural people, but some undetermined number.

"Fuck all y'all" leaves no doubt that I mean *all* of you people, plural and inclusive.

So, like... fuck you. :D

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

Fuck you guys. :p

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Don't you mean "Fuck youse guys"?

[franktheavenger.livejournal.com]

I'm from New Hampshire, not New York. :p

Besides, in practice I'm much more likely to go through a crowd going 'fuck YOU, fuck YOU, especially fuck YOU, asshole, fuck you...' etc. :)

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Ah, the personal touch. :D

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

I added "pert' near" to my vocabulary on purpose several years ago. Not sure whether it's *just* because I'm lazy, or because it's often useful to appear slower than I actually am. (Yes, yes, the response to that is obvious and lacks both creativity and impressiveness.)