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From: rte@elmo.lz.att.com (Ralph T. Edwards)
Subject: Re: "Wanna come with?" [was: Re: German postpositions]
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Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 22:36:53 GMT
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In article <45129m$sds@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>, lcj+@pitt.edu (Lester C
Jacobson) wrote:

> Cynthia S. Donnell (cdonnell@cabell.vcu.edu) did write thusly:
> 
> : I lived in the upper midwest (
> : Minnesota, North Dakota) for several years and this usage is quite
> : commonplace.  My understanding is that it is the influence of the
> : Norwegian culture and language in the area.
> 
> This question of Scandinavian influence keeps coming up.  In my use of
> "Do you want to come with," this would certainly make sense:  I'm
> of Scandinavian descent from an area with a lot of Scandinavians (North
> Dakota).
> 
> However, why does my Polish-Italian affluent suburbanite Pittsburgh
> friend also use this construction?  The number of Scandinavians in
> Pittsburgh seems almost neglible.  How about Chicago?  Are there really
> that many Norwegian-Americans there?

Folks, are you reading the other posts? "Come with" in various forms is standard
issue for all of the Germanic languages except English, therefore the
presence of immigrants from any combination of Scandanavian, German
(including Yiddish),
or Dutch would be adequate to explain this form.  In Pennsylvania the
source is probably German.  There are plenty of 4th through nth generation
Germans in the Chicago area, plus more recent Yiddish speaker immigrants. 
My mother was born on the north side of the Chicago area and learned
German from listening to her 2nd generation German-American mother speak
German with the neighbors.  Of course many of these GAs mysteriously
became Alsatian Americans as the century wore on, and suddenly couldn't
speak German anymore.  A friend reports that growing up in the Alton
Illinois area, it was common to hear people end statements with an "or?"
in the fashion of the German "oder?" meaning roughly "right?".  I presume
"and how" is a calque on German "und wie", or?  I nearly fell out of my
chair the first time I heard a German say "und wie."

-- 
R.T.Edwards rte@elmo.att.com 908 576-3031
