There's a Yorkism for you - "Outen the light!"
It means, not surprisingly to turn out the light, and if you've read my thoughts on other Yorkisms like been and butter bread and whatfer, you'll know that I think we stick with "outen" because it's shorter than "put out" or "turn out" the light.
And, in more randomness, there is a band called Alkali Flats that had a CD titled "Outen the Light" in 2004. Weird...
Got a recent comment from a reader named Paul, who shed some light on "redd up," one of my favorite Yorkisms. (Check out more Yorkisms here.)
Original post here: "Let's redd up the blog"
And a post detailing another response I got here: "More redd up in honor of Christmas"
From Paul: "We grew up in the Glenwillow, Solon, Bedford area of Northeast Ohio, southeast of Cleveland, in the 1940s. We used the expression "redd up" all the time, redd up the table after eating, redd up the house if somebody was coming... it seemed to imply a little bit of haste, needing to get it done right away."
He goes on to add: "In a small Swedish dictionary it gives 'reda upp' as meaning 'to put into order'...! Perhaps the English goes back to the marauding Scandanavian pirates centuries ago!"
There's a thought... a Yorkism from pirates, how cool!
Amy just said "Let's go get some dinner."
And I said...
"I can do that! On account of I finished my page."
Wow.
So, if you're a Yorker, you probably often do things "once." You know, "Let me see that once." "Leave me read that once." (If you don't get that second one, check out my earlier post on leave vs. let)
If you're a hardcore Yorker, you probably don't just do them "once," you say it "once-t" or "wunst."
This is similar to awhile in that it's always found tacked on to the end of your sentence, but unlike awhile, which serves a purpose in speaking and writing, I can't find a reason why you couldn't just be a frugal Yorker and drop the "once." In that sense, it's like "quick," which I had also written about and which also serves very little purpose.
Any ideas? Why do we do this?
