Comments | maeveenroute: Slow on the uptake

maeveenroute

Slow on the uptake

Oct 09, 2006 22:29

But this is actually pretty funny. (Thanks to Bridget at lingnews.net for the tip.)

Spotted a month or so ago at Overheard in New York (typos corrected 'cause they were bugging me):

Belligerent white woman: Could you get out of the way?
Black teen: I be trying!
Belligerent white woman: You should speak gramatically correctly!
Smartass: "I be trying ( Read more... )

linggeekery, funny, aave, socio

Comments 5

(The comment has been removed)

maeveenroute October 10 2006, 04:58:51 UTC

You make me happy, too, darlin'.

But - um - Julia got married??

I feel old.

dr_whom October 10 2006, 04:27:56 UTC

Actually, I don't think "I tryin'" is possible-I recall reading that "am" isn't ordinarily deletable.

froia_arme October 10 2006, 04:37:44 UTC

I think you get BE there because the stress is on that word... copula deletion is only supposed to be available when contraction would be ok in SE, which it's not in the case of "I *AM* trying!"

maeveenroute December 4 2006, 19:30:22 UTC

Wait a sec ... it occurs to me that contraction in SAE is perfectly fine here:

"I'm TRYING!"

In fact, stressing "am" doesn't make sense unless it's a response to "try to get out of the way" ... which it's not.

Discuss. ;c)

froia_arme December 4 2006, 19:40:02 UTC

Wow, two months later... heh.

Hypothesis 1: conversation was misreported [deny the data!] so the teenager was stressing 'am' and my original explanation holds.
Hypothesis 2: dr_whom is right and my original explanation was irrelevant.
Hypothesis 3: conversation is as reported, but for some reason the teenager responded as if to something for which stress on 'am' would be acceptable. My original explanation holds.