Wednesday, April 30, 2008

"Come with" update, Eau Claire edition

The free weekly in Eau Claire, Wisconsin is called Volume One. Back in January, somebody had the brilliant (and I do mean brilliant) idea of making their reader poll about regional English.

A few weeks later (and available on the web, I think), on Feb. 14, they ran a nice piece about language and local identity, called "The Spoken Truth" in their "Thinkpiece" slot.

Big h.t. to Erica Benson.

2 comments:

Ben said...

I wish they'd used a more specific example; 'come with' is fairly widespread, as with-stranding goes. What gets me funny looks here in New York is when I say "bring with," take with," and "have with" (I'm a Chicagoan). I've never pinned down the distribution of with-stranding, geographically or sociolinguistically, but I can attest that in Chicago it's completely unmarked and universal, much like 'on line' in New York.

There's fodder for a half-decent pun involving 'notwithstranding,' but I should get back to work.

Mr. Verb said...

Yeah, it is widespread regionally -- and presumably spreading -- and there's a range of how broad the pattern is. Around here, bring, take, have, go, etc. all seem to work, but for example I find a split between speakers of 'come with' in whether they accept this: You're talking on the phone to somebody who's just driven somewhere. Can you say this: "Are the kids with?" A number of Wisconsinites find that fine.