I am sorry to say that the reason for lack of recent updates is that, simply put, nothing is happening to me. This weekend we might drive up into the mountains to see the aspens changing color, but until then... not a whole lot going on. I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's for the first time last night. That was pretty entertaining. I was looking on Google's image search for a good picture to throw in here, and decided on this one because how could you not enjoy saying "Frühstück" repeatedly?
Actually, this poster brings up a special linguistic theory of mine. In the northern midwest, specifically Illinois, Michigan, and probably Wisconsin, people tend to use the word "by" when talking about going to a place. For example, "Youse kids want to go by the hardware store? Go get a jacket with big pockets, I'll tell you what we do. We'll go in there and you can fill up them pockets with peanuts." That's a typical straight quote from my grandpa, and dead-on Chicago.
Anyway, going "by" someplace is the way they do it out there. One can go by the store or be by the store, so the word tends to mean both "to" and "at." I always wondered if that was due to the influence of German immigrants figuring that the German "bei" was identical in pronunciation and similar enough in meaning to the English "by," "to," and "at" that it just kind of stuck around. Discuss.
1 comment:
My grandpa was an old Minnesota Norwegian (pronounced: nor-widge'-un) farmer, and he (and his 13 syblings) would say "go't the store", which sounds precisely like the word "goat".
Ex. "Aw, horseshit, I won't goat the doctor less I need to goat the doctor. A little blood never hurt no one."
How would that fit into your etymology?
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