Re: OT: More Idiolectal Forms (MIF)

Emily Zilch wrote:
>
> { 20040525 | Danny Wier }
>
> "Both he and Hank are guilty of one true abuse of the English language:
> the phrase "I tell you what". Which I even do - or used to do before I
> started sounding like Hank."
>
> Oh, but that's sooooooo common. Who DOESN'T say that? In the US, anyhoo.
I don't. (I live in Michigan.) I occasionally hear it, but
always at the beginning of a statement:

     I tell you what: This year the football team's going to State.

But Hank usually says it at the end, which sounds very awkward
to me:

     This year the football team's going to State; I tell you what.


> Here's an oddicism I developed somehow: substituting WHAT for THAT in,
> um, subjunctive clauses? I forget what they're called. Like so: "The
> friend what she told".
Perhaps you mean relative clauses? My brother always did
that when he was growing up. I don't know why since no one
around us said that:

    There's the man what gave me the bicycle.

Sounds rather natural to me. He also said "side a" instead of
"instead of":

    You're supposed to be weeding the garden side a digging holes.


--Ph. D.