Monday, July 02, 2007

Also too? [updated]

Here's an odd one, to my ear, but reliably reported from southern Wisconsin: also too, meaning it sounds like 'in addition to this other one. The example sentence reported was (note: it was the example given, not mine):
She is married to a really great guy. But also too she's having an affair with this other man.
Anybody know this one?

It's reported from a heavily German area (though with plenty of Norwegians, Irish, etc.) and I am resisting the temptation to patch together an account that has it coming from German.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you use it in a sentence? I definitely say "also too" together sometimes, but maybe not in the same way you're talking about. Mostly I think it comes at the beginning of sentences and serves a pragmatic purpose of signaling addendum: "There's a nice restaurant near Jon's house...Also too, there's that place up the street." But I don't have anything like "He is also too coming to the party" or "There is also too a Gap store there."

Mr. Verb said...

Yeah, I added the example that I was told … I'll double check the form with the person and correct in a while if needed. Your example is pretty definitely out for me, but sounds vaguely familiar.

Mr. Verb said...

OK, just checked with the person who told me about this. The example given was made up by a linguist who's not a native speaker of the dialect, then passed on by another linguist. I just asked the second, who said the longer description she'd heard sounded a lot like what you describe.

We'll get some attested examples out here.

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

But also too she's having an affair with this other man.

Yep, I totally have this. [And also too I have "and but," but I think that's probably different.] FWIW I'm lower Midwestern (Missouri-raised) with influences from north-southern (mid-Atlantic) and, recently, upper Midwest (Michigan).

Mr. Verb said...

Interesting. So maybe this is floating around out there ... the Wisco stuff is from a small town and I didn't know if it might be an older feature.

Worth keeping an eye on ...

Anonymous said...

In sentence-initial position it sounds vaguely like a translation of something like German "darĂ¼ber hinaus" or some other two-elemnt phrase.

Mr. Verb said...

Or auch noch, even ...

Unknown said...

Sarah Palin used this a lot. I'm currently listening to a training video from a company in Georgia and the trainer is saying "and also too" quite a bit. It's distracting. It's redundant because "also" and "too" but mean the same thing really, just from different perspectives.

dk said...

I have a coworker who uses it constantly, usually in one long, redundant run-on like "reason being is because, also too, per se in a sense..." I don't think it's regional; she's from Washington.

Unknown said...

I was born and raised on Chicago's south west side, near Midway Airport, back in the 1960 - 70's. Both where both examples were commonly used. The area was Irish, German, Polish, and some Lithuanian, however, I would say it came from the Poles.
I just began writing a children's story this evening and wrote, "You cannot always see with this sort of view; you feel with your touch but your heart feels also too."
I paused and thought, 'where did that come from?' So, I stopped and looked it up to see why this piece of prose came into my head. Funny finding this page.
Of course it is redundant. It's really too much, but I will probably use it in this story all the same. It rhymes and also too, it just feels right.

Anonymous said...

I moved to Ohio from NYC and it is a dominent fixture in "Ohian." it gives me chills everytime i hear it because it's rediculously redundant, and i can hardly imagine it is a proper use of English. i mostly hear it from people who are less learned.

Anonymous said...

This is also too a commonplace construction found in my native New Jersey.

Also too I heard this quite a bit in upstate New York where I went to college.

Anonymous said...

If you Google "overuse of the phrase also, too" the first thing that should come up is The Freddie Coleman show, where he and his partner, John Clayton, "also too" each other to death all weekend while making generic and uninteresting observations about sports.

Anonymous said...

My mom and sister say this A LOT and I was convinced it wasn't proper English haha. I think she got this from my father's familiy who is living in Saskatchewan, but came from Wisconsin...

Anonymous said...

This is not proper English. It is redundant and makes the person sating it sound uneducated.

Anonymous said...

I have a graduate student from southern/central Connecticut (born there and spent his whole life there, until recently) who says this often. I had never heard it before meeting him, and I've never heard it from anyone else. That includes when I went to college in southern Connecticut for four years and lived in central Connecticut for a year or so after that.

Unknown said...

I am second generation California-born offspring of Midwestern folks with an amalgam of German, Irish, British, and Native American heritages. I was raised in a prescriptive environment and have since been referred to as a proponent of correcting grammar et cetera.
However, as my wife has recently informed me, I am constantly using the phrase "also, too … ."

"Mostly I think it comes at the beginning of sentences and serves a pragmatic purpose of signaling addendum: […]"

This is almost exactly how I use it and would add that I, like my father, tend to have long pauses in my speech, particularly so when iterating over lengthy contexts.
6 years isn't too late to respond to a blog post, is it?

Anonymous said...

Oddly, I hear this used most often on sports radio. As another commentor stated, it's used by John Clayton (raised in Pennsylvania) and Freddie Coleman (grew up in NY, but went to college in Pennsylvania) constantly. Look up any podcast with John Clayton and you'll hear it within the first 2-3 minutes. Also, on the Cleveland sports station in Ohio, a few of the broadcasters use it- all from Ohio. That said, it is NOT the norm in Ohio, as I grew up here and lived in several areas. It really sticks out as odd whenever someone uses it.

Anonymous said...

The bishop came to a parish in the Roanoke, VA area recently. His homily included several sentences with the expression "also too". In context, the use was clearly redundant and a simple "also" or "in addition" would have been fine. I understand he is originally from Philadelphia and is of Sicilian descent. He is not the first person I have heard using the expression. It is distracting and "also too" quite strange. You'd think a person of his education would have weeded that one out long ago.

Anonymous said...

Interestingly, Steven Kippel mentions a trainer in Georgia using "also too," and the only person I've ever heard use this is a relative (in-law) who was a trainer in Georgia!!! I think it sounds ridiculous, since it is redundant. But I don't have the heart to try to correct him.

Anonymous said...

It always catches my ear when I hear it said, I'm like that's redundant, you might as well say 'also, also, its a little annoying but not enough to bring to anyone's attention.